Tyson Traeger

Gabriel Flores  0:00  

Hello, everyone and welcome to the shades of entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I'm here with the founder of timber stoves and one of my good friends, Tyson. trayer. How are we doing?

Tyson Traeger  0:13  

I'm doing great. Thank you good

Gabriel Flores  0:15  

just living to have me on. No, thank you for coming on. You know, we're chatting before this really excited about this episode because this is our 100th episode of the shades of entrepreneurship podcast. Specifically saved this one for Tyson. I told him that right before he's like good, say me good number. But before we get on to that, before we're gonna timber stoves, Tyson go ahead and introduce who is Tyson trigger?

Tyson Traeger  0:37  

Thanks, Gabe, I appreciate you bringing me on. It's an honor because we are not only just friends, but we're both going down a path of leadership. And we've got a lot of common ground. So this is going to be a really fun conversation. I own timber stoves, it's, it's my mission to bring heat to every backyard patio. It I do want to say I just like what we're going to talk a lot about. In this episode, I'm hoping to share the leadership qualities and skills. But it's about coming together. And I wanted to say I apologize for not coming in person. Because for me, there's a lot better grounds to stand on when you're talking face to face with somebody. I'm in the depths right now, the trenches of small business, this is our peak season. So for us, me leaving is always an issue. It's part of the drive to to grow the business is to be there at all times for them. So that's unfortunate for our meeting, but I'm sure we can cover the bases. So thanks for the opportunity. Looking forward to getting finally to tell a story. Yeah, that is fun. It's cool, because the way I see it, and I think a lot of the strategy that goes along with success is to always see the good in what's happening, even when shit is hitting the fan. So yeah, what do you want to know?

Gabriel Flores  2:25  

Tell me tell me about timber stoves. First, let's start it off on the let's start on the high level. What is timber stoves give the listeners what is timber stoves and why did you create it?

Tyson Traeger  2:34  

I own this company. It's called timber stoves, we manufacture outdoor living equipment. Our specialty right now is patio heaters. We are changing the market of outdoor heat, because we have brought to fruition a product that out does any other outdoor heating product in the category of heaters. So it's an opportunity for us to do all fun, amazing things with business, which is bring something up from the bottom. You know, it's it's all about struggle, right? And you get you get to do all of that with a new product. And it's fun, because we know we got something cool. And we're going places and it's a it's always a struggle. But we've got this product that we know out does anything out there just starting to see some some other competitors on the market. And it's just it's so cool to be able to watch our business lead the way and that's, that's what's fun about this is it's a team game, for sure. It's a game to me.

Gabriel Flores  3:48  

Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned like, you know, this is a new product and you're kind of being you know, kind of a pioneer without a frontier. How difficult it hasn't been for you as an entrepreneur to start a new business that really didn't have a space yet.

Tyson Traeger  4:02  

Yep, that's that's the game. I think the challenge is with any product not knowing how far can you take it because you don't have the analytics telling you that you have basically the faith on what you're doing. Your experience from your past and your ability to cope with what is needed to be done. It's it's it's a gamble. I mean, business is a gamble. And you know, I'm good at it. I'm not. I'm not very good at the blackjack table, but I'm really good at gambling. It has to do with taking those risks. Because you don't get to type in to Google Trends would tell it patio heater and see some kind of analytical situation that gives you a forecast, it is up to you. And, you know, if I go back and I think about well, how did I know that, you know, what I was doing was going to work out, and is a good enough product to, to continue on a gamble like that. It really is asking your friends, it's getting the truth from the people around you that are getting time around that product. Honesty, you know, you got to have people giving you the truth. One big factor for me is, you gotta listen to people. You know, there's people that invent things and make products, but just because it's a good idea, that doesn't do anything more than it just being a good ideas. So you have to allow the process to work. And for me, that's listening to people getting their suggestions, you know, everybody wants to lend a hand, you know, it's natural for us to want to help somebody or something, get better or improve. And so for us, it's really a nice thing to be able to take consumers opinions of things, take my workers opinions that have things and actually listen to them. You know, as an entrepreneur, you're really driven by the fact that I'm gonna go do this by myself, right? You know, you listen to Green Day walk alone, right, you just get power yourself by by by leading that path by yourself. But if you're not listening to the education around you, that's going to enhance what that product is or should be doing, then you're going to be, you know, floating in a back Edie and didn't get nowhere. So I'm really fortunate to be able to have a lot of good people around me that whether they're educated, whether they've got the common sense, just from being in other businesses, or, you know, having the experiences that random to me, I don't know why good. I feel so blessed in regard to when. And I'm my dad always said this, and I'm sure you heard this from your dad, it's definitely probably a small Catholic town thing. But you will get what you need. Right? And, and that, that, you know, whether that's a religious thing or not, it really rings true in this business, because with the way you're heading, the direction that you're going, Yeah, and manifestation or whatever you want to call it. If you need that, right, you're gonna end up with it. Right. And I think that small, small business in general is, as long as you're efficient and economic, and you understand that you can only use what is necessary, you're going to get, you know, as long as you're doing a lot of other things correctly. Because there's business, as we should be discussing is about failure. It is not about success. But that that ability to get to that next level definitely has to do with with taking on other people's opinions and collaboration and letting everybody else fail around you, too. Yeah, it's it's a game man, the game of small business,

Gabriel Flores  8:33  

it certainly is, you know, one of the things you mentioned too, was you're going through this process of creating a new product. And what was kind of that moment for you that you were like, you know, what, this might I might have something here, because you also mentioned, you have to kind of quit when you know, it's not good. We're getting advice, at what point where you're like, you know, what, I'm getting a lot of good advice. I think I got some

Tyson Traeger  8:52  

really wasn't too until a few years ago. So I'm 13 years in started in March 2011. We're at a point now where aesthetics are, you know, more of what we're working on? In regards to the patio heater, we've got a couple real cool new additions to it. There'll be accessories that are coming out with but you know, my drive is definitely new product, new product categories. We're working on some cooking stuff, which is just for me, you know, full circle. Great. So super fun. But a few years ago, my wife, I'm standing out on the patio, daydreaming, you know, doing what I do on the patio, thinking about inventions and stuff and how to make things better. She came out and she's like, do you ever think about that you did that? You made that, that you created that? And I am looking at her and I'm like, Well, what do you mean? I did make that it's I think The the ability to take and have an idea as long as there is a need for that product. And I definitely have that going into this business, you know, these bullet points surrounding me of what am I going to do? You know, you leave a corporate job and you want to go do your own thing, because you just can't take it anymore. So my my chance to take that to the next level was entrepreneurship. You know, I'm in my young 20s. And I'm, I'm thinking man, that the step to creating a product that is able to reach people, and for me, it was able to reach the masses like, and I don't know, who goes in business not wanting to reach the masses, right? I mean, I think that's all of us. But it for me, it was like, I've watched my family create a product category that was so well known that it really made it for me, a bigger goal, I think, than others would have put in front of them that what I wanted to create isn't just a design on a t shirt, I wanted to create the next product category. And so for that, it did start with understanding, you know, what do people need? What do people want? You know, what do I know? What is my background? Where can I go with with a product? Yeah, for most people, it's going to be relative to what their history is, and you know, where they come from, you know, for me, that was a big reason why I continued heading down this path around wood pellets. And it just makes sense. For me, it's like, you know, given somebody a pen and paper and, you know, not asking them to draw, I mean, it just, if you're built with the tools, you know, big football players lineman, you know, they're big guys, you know, they got that given to them right out of the gate, right? I mean, you're gonna be, you're gonna be a defensive end, you know, I mean, it's given to them. So yeah, for me, very blessed that I got the tools have been raised in a similar business, around fire around wood pellets. But the category itself is, to me, what drove me to that product, you know, being around fire, having the ability to, in some part play into this game of fire. I am a pyro, I grew up playing with fire, burning things I shouldn't have burned. I'm sure we're all I mean, that's the love of this business. Is that that that red flower, you know, it has this ability that you know, I don't even fully understand yet. And that's what's so cool. You know, why? Why is Musk you know, trying to do all this stuff with, with going places, they nobody ever thought of going? Well, it's because it hasn't been done before. And we don't understand it just like fire. I mean, there's very few gifts on this planet, that do what fire does. And give I get to make the best fire. There is on the planet. That's what I'm doing for a living. So to me, it's it's a treat, it's all a treat.

Gabriel Flores  13:46  

You know, a lot of things you've mentioned, you talked a lot about family, I can see the passion, right? Where does that? Where does all this passion for this comes from?

Tyson Traeger  13:56  

It comes from my father, and I knew you would want to get around to this. I wrote some stuff down just so I had an idea of what to talk about. I've never done a podcast before. But it comes down to this and I wrote it our dads taught us well. And it's it's because we grew up with fathers that cared. That's it. We grew up with fathers that cared that the depth of passion comes from that emulation for life that our dads showed us. They loved their children, they loved going to church, they loved coaching sports. They loved right. I mean life. Those guys breathed life your dad breathed his more life through music and spoons than I've ever seen in my life. Okay. That's where we get that passion. You know, we watch our elders enjoy living we're old enough now that we understand, life's not so bad. We're pretty fortunate to be standing here communicating through some crazy computer. And you know, so the passion, the passion, I think, is easy. I think I think we've got that from our dads. I think we got that from growing up in a small town, from having to work together. It's all small town family stuff in that's what's so great about I think, getting to run a small business and get bigger and be able to broadcast that, you know, what is good about our business? It's that we're doing things right. And we get to teach that to the corporate world. And, and I got corporate world making my product, Gabriel. All right. So for me, it's not that am I doing the right thing, it's, haha, follow me, follow me, you will never get to be the leader. But you can follow me. Right. And and I want to broadcast the ethical standards of what it means to run a business. Because it's not fair in a lot of regards to a lot of people. And a lot of small problems that are associated are big problems that are associated with big business. I would love to preach this entire session about small business and what it means to make stuff in America, I won't do that. But I will say, for those that aren't making things in this country, they're losing, they are losing, they're losing their principles, their ethics, their ability to take care of their neighbor, that there's so many things that are wrong right now. And it can all be fixed by by allowing small businesses to be a success. Some were talking about and I always talked about with this kind of stuff with my employees, I'm very transparent with my employees is, you know, a small business coalition where you know, the advertising dollars is what it takes to move a product. And once you really get that movement, you can handle your own growth. But for a small budget business that doesn't get to that point, how are they supposed to be able to get to that point. So, you know, here you got all these corporate businesses wasting money, I don't care, you know, this direction, or that and a small business, all they really need is to get to that next level. You know, it's about working together. That's what small business is, it is about working together. Whether I'm buying my hardware from the guy down the street, or the spring handles from Wilsonville, Oregon, and my paint from North Carolina. All my stuff's coming from here, that feeds John, the neighbor, and it puts more guys in my shop and it, dude, I'm not going to talk about it, because it's going to waste all our time. But there's so many good things to making your product here. And that's something you'll see with timber stove, you will never see us manufacture our product outside this country. There is a solid benefit. You know what we did during the COVID? Game? We doubled our business. You know, we did the year after after COVID we doubled our business again. You know what corporate businesses were doing during COVID scratching their fucking heads. They had no idea what to do. You know why? Because they couldn't get their shit. You don't make it. You don't make it. No shit, you don't get it. You know what happens when I run into a problem of a mandrel head on a socket screwed I hear for this spin spin gun. We're running. I run to Napa hardware, I grabbed the replacement socket cap screw, and I start back up again. And it took literally less than 20 minutes to be back up and running. All of that is because it's sustained through local business. I was able to do that in a short efficient amount of time because it's accessible. So yeah,

Gabriel Flores  19:09  

no, I mean, at the end day, you know, America was built on the back of small businesses. Right? That's that's kind of the concept. Now, is this your back to that point? Exactly. No. Is this your first venture is entrepreneur or have you had other businesses before?

Tyson Traeger  19:21  

No, I started out with a company called Well, I did have a couple of other small businesses if you want me to start at the very beginning. When I left the corporate world, I thought I was going to be a landscaper. I don't know why a lot of people think this. I've got a brother who's actually still in business and he loves it but getting getting outside and getting that fresh air. You know, I think there's so much for us and that might be why I did that but started up a little landscaping business did a couple of friends yards and stuff and you know realized business is harder than it looks. made no money on the first call. projects and scared me out of out of. Then I was a fly fishing guide for a little while and I spent a year in Wyoming, trying to chase that dream. Working in a Orvis fly shop taught me a lot about the retail spectrum on that. And taking people down the river really gave me the social side of the one on one that it took with a customer. And so after I got back from Wyoming, I got lonely, because what happened I'm out there in Jackson Hole and it's a nice place. But if you don't have friends, it's a fish can only mend a friendship for so we, we basically I said we, me and my dog, we headed back to hometown mount Angel. And it was you know, I think destiny that I met my wife but I met my wife and you know you're lost in that first part of marriage, you don't know what the hell you're going to do. So career wise, I figured I'd give the retail side of business a shot. My family, man and soul that a barbecue. And I figured I would sell that barbecue in a retail store. And then I would tie my fly fishing background to that. And that's where Finn and fire came from. Still in business in Redmond, Oregon today. That would be my first I would say, business that I ran. But super great experience as far as me getting to test the waters. You know, I didn't know anything. I was 25 years old running a business retina old. It's now a tattoo parlor. But an old brick Corner Building downtown Main Street, Redmond, Oregon, you know, pretty pretty strange town for for what I was trying to do. It was good but pretty strange town for opening a new business. But it was a great town great opening, great start to my, my world is a small business owner. Fail. Okay, fail, I sold it in three years, I was able to sell the assets for what I owed, and wash my hands of it. But the lessons I learned in the old men coming in telling their fishing stories, people coming in with broken barbecues that I would fix or I would go do cooks and just you know, all the things that you do towards that business, right? That business was focused on selling barbecues, and fly fishing equipment. And it took all my time, all my energy all my money. And it was awesome. Would I ever do it again, didn't know that. That is what it takes. Yeah, you got to put yourself in those predicaments. I learned a shit ton from just going and doing it. It's a it's a big lesson that I give to all my guys is, you know, they think I'm some smart guy. I'm not some smart guy. I just stuck my finger in the socket.

Gabriel Flores  23:14  

There you go. Now you will get Einstein though.

Tyson Traeger  23:16  

You will I know I do. You know how many times that I had to stick my finger in in different sockets. And that's the thing, you have to be able to go out there and try something that you don't know the answer to. If you fail, you will find the answer. If you succeed, you might find the answer but probably not as well as if you fail. So my advice to the guys in my shop is always you want to get somewhere you want to go somewhere, do it, go do it. Oh, you want to be in management, whatever, cool. You know how you're gonna get to that point, go do something. Go, you want to know how you want to run this machine will go go do it. You know, it. It's about how brave you can be in in doing the things that you otherwise would have been scared of a result. Why? Who cares? I lost my dad a few years ago and one of the best lessons I ever got from that was you're not going to be here very long. This it's it's short life, and you better enjoy it. So part of that is taking risk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Gabriel Flores  24:26  

Now what would you say? You know, you've you've been doing this for some time, but with timber stoves in particular, what would you say has been the hardest part? Have you ever had a moment of like self doubt

Tyson Traeger  24:42  

if you can do it, I mean, I, I think personally part of what has allowed this business to do what it's doing is because I am a very naive person. I'm a go getter, you know, I've set my my goal and I will go get it. So you know it's It's for me, not something that's an option, I'm not a failure, I will, I will never be a failure, I will try my best to whatever I can and I will win. I think most of what supports that is that I think I'm a good person, I tried to be a good person, I'm definitely not a perfect person. But if you're doing the right thing, and you think that you have something that is worth sharing with people, you can, you can definitely succeed in doing that as long as you give the effort, it's about that the will to be driven. And if you're able to find those little things that keep you driven, and I have a huge remedy, I'm going to tell you my bookcase full of, of remedies, but you know, some are physical, some are mental, you know, it takes a whole book of things to keep you motivated, so that you stay on course, because if you let it just like life, beat you up, it fucking will. And here's another big thing I bring to my shop is attitude. And a lot of people preach attitude and you know, signs and banners and quotes about attitude, but it has to do with your face. Do you smile? Okay, because when you smile, it makes me feel better. But when you were have a fucking face of grief, fuck you. Because all you told me right there without saying anything. Was that shits bad? Right? So how are you gonna get positive motivation out of guys, if shits bad all the time? There's proof in the pudding man, if you if you're excited about something and you enjoy life, it's more energy, there's more ambition. It's not hard to figure out. Right? And so I really carry that with me a lot of tunes. Okay, I'm always dancing. Don't think I can dance. It's something I can ask. You know, having those things around you that make you feel good. Okay, there's a whole case of of SNAP, it's what are we calling some Tannerite with whippersnappers out in the shop, right? Because it's fun. Why would we do that? Well, it puts a smile on your face. And then that makes everybody else happy. And it increases work. Progress. So happiness man, the culture, the Jive around the shop is such a major factor in keeping people motivated.

Gabriel Flores  27:55  

You know, you talk about motivation. And like you're talking about like in the future sense, right? Because your goal is to kind of keep your guys motivated to continue to move forward. Where's timber stoves in the next five years? Where do you envision the path forward?

Tyson Traeger  28:07  

Oh, it's such a cool thing for me to be able to get to this point where I feel proud of where we're at, I feel so blessed in where we get to go. And I'm a goal setter, man. So as far as where we're going, it's, it's really neat, because this is the time that I lived for. I've built my entire life around this, this point in the business, which is having the ability to create a goal, that is the top there's nothing bigger to me than taking my products and making them accessible to everyone, at least on this continent. We're working on getting some stuff and in other parts of the world. But for me, I get to put a a product that I know does more for people than just make them warm. That's something we can talk about in a little bit. But the the ability to sell something to somebody because of that necessity, right? And be able to answer to that need. Awesome. And that's where we're at. And that's where we get to take this we get to take this to any person that has that need. Everybody's cold. There's no point in somebody's life when they're not cold. So my product a patio heater has the ability to get as big as we want to be. I have another product that is right behind that in the cooking spectrum of things and I feel just confident in that product as I do in my patio heater. So you know when I talk about where we're going and what the next level is for us with our guys, you know, they see He, they see, you know, maybe a level ahead, right? Like, okay, you know, he said we were gonna build 200 this week and Asha, we're building 200 This week, they see that they're not seeing what I'm seeing, which is, you know, big poster boards, you know, Superbowl commercials, getting to that, that level of success that I know we can get to. And I'm 100% confident we will get to that. It's, it's us growing as a team. And that's the only thing that's going to stop us is how well I raise this business under one roof. And I know we can do it, I've got such a good group of guys gave I've, in the last five, six years been able to group up a team of dudes that they don't just believe in what I'm doing. They emulate everything that I'm doing in regards to production, in regards to sales, in regards to ethics in regards to customer service. It's so amazing, because all these components that are required to have a successful business. And we're getting to this point where everybody's so real, really, really good at what they're doing. We're fucking killing the game right now. And it's because of that. And that comes from them, taking on the way that I coached them, what my expectation is for them to really that to that next level of, of our employee employment. Yeah. And so I feel real adamant that you got to, you got to make sure that they're small groups, okay, you can't get let your groups get too big things got to be on a personal basis, you come in, you're having a bad day that screws up my shop. All right. So it's my job to make sure that you're taking care of, right. And that's how I treat every one of my employees, they are my friend, I am taking care of them, they do go home and pay their bills and feed their families with the income that's generated from this business. That is my responsibility to make sure that those people are taking care of. There's so many things that are important in that ethical part of this business. That is what's allowing this business to grow at the rate it is. It's called doing it right. It's called being being good. There's a lot of that loss game in the corporate world. And I'll tell you, I got a lot employees that they could be paid a lot more money if they went and worked for somebody else. But guess what they don't, they don't work for those guys who work for me. And it's because they love coming to work. And I can't tell you how much that means to me that I get to know that from my guys. But we have something special. They know that I know that. We're going to take this business. We're where we all know we're gonna go which we say at the top,

Gabriel Flores  33:02  

I like it. And you know, one of the things you mentioned is the diversity that you're adding to the actual product line. Can you speak a little bit about that? You said the timber stoves just more than a heater? What all does the timber stove do?

Tyson Traeger  33:12  

Well, so the timber Scott was designed to be a patio heater replacement here, for the current propane patio heater on the market. It definitely projects more BTUs that would be the amount of heat that you're feeling from the product. But you also get to see fire. That's a big component to the success of our product. This amount of heat that's generated from this patio heater, obviously, my inquisitive mind is thinking about what else can I do with this product. If you have the heat, you might as well be cooking on it. So that drove me to my next product, I've made a campstove that campstove did two things, it was a heater, and then it also cooked on the top surface and had an oven. So I was able to create this capstone for about a year and a half, almost two years, until I was driven to a point where I couldn't make any money on it. It was difficult to make, it's hard to sell. You know, it's it's not your everyday product that people are selling, you know, campstove outdoor pet campstove, camping campstove You know, and that's part of the lesson in business is you try things and if they fail you sometimes you fucking pack it up. That's what happened with the campstove. Maybe someday we'll bring that back out when we got to a much bigger audience, you know, and maybe that's the time and place thing. But that led me to the next step in the cooking, which for me was getting that griddle that cooking surface. And so I created a design that basically puts a griddle on top of a patio heater on top of the stove. So now you have this interchangeable component that you can You can essentially cook on, take it with you and cook on. And it's a great product, it's actually our best selling accessory. And that just continues, you know, this pizza oven that I've designed that that's a necessity for me, when I was creating the grill, I kept on playing with componentry that held the heat in. So at one time was you know, cutting Schaefer pans, Shaffer pans in half and hinging them, and they fit great. Allow for a stove. And that's r&d, right? It's the best part about this business is being able to have an idea go cut up some metal and see if you can make a brief Yeah, but the difference in the patio here to cook inside of things is it's, it's just is what I love. It's what I grew up around my dad cooking all the time, I love cooking for people. I'm sure I got that from him. But it's just such a treat to create these two products, which now I'm I'm so incredibly amazed that I feel confident in both of them that we can take to the masses. So this this new cooking product that I've designed, it's a separate design from the heater, it's actually just a cylinder of pellets, that you fill you light with fire gel on the very top, and then you place inside a box. And inside of the box has three different levels in depending on what level you put that cylinder of pellets into is the temperature that you're going to get on either the griddle or because the products are interchangeable with this Bernbach system, you can put a pizza oven on it. So you can put either a pizza oven or a griddle on top of what we call this burn box. And it's completely powered by gravity. And what we call the Venturi effect, that's the effect of the hot air rising through our stove pipe. That's actually how our patio heaters work as well. And it's a it's a main player in design and engineering of these products. But this this new cooking product, you know, it takes me almost back to the easy charcoal days, but it's easier, you don't have to light the charcoal and then pour it over your barbecue this, you're simply just lighting the pellets, putting it into the slot for the desired temperature, and you're cooking. So, um, you know, it's a new product, not a lot of people know about it. But the passion for me is real as the first day that I designed the first patio heater, you just, you know you got something there, you know, it's the beginning. So we're gonna, we're gonna branch from there. But we got this other side of the business that is starting to make its own household name, the wood pellet patio heater section that allows these other, you know, side gigs, this cooking sector of the business to be powered. And for me, it makes sense, you know, a stove in the dictionary represents something that either is for heating or for cooking. It's the same moral right? So here, I'm making these heaters that make heat. Yeah, I can make things get hot, so somebody can cook it up. It's all indirect cooking, too. So that's a huge plus. And what I'm doing makes it easy to cook food. And then you got the wood pellet side of things environmental and it's just it we're in such a good business right now for the 21st century. We're going to show people what is you know, right in regards to a renewable fuel. Something that comes from Oregon, you know, we're all about the, the renewable energy here we're all about green. But but this is wood and the ability to take something that is essentially coming from a waste product. Wood pellets are made from sawdust. So the leftovers the byproduct from some from lumber mills, you know, we're making a biofuel out of and that allows us to make these other products, this this category around wood pellets and that wood pellet product category is just going to continue to grow. It's a lot bigger in other countries like Europe, they don't have as much of the resource of the lumber as we do. So we actually supply a lot of our our pellet fuel that we make here in the US to Europe. So they're actually a lot further ahead in regards to that. But you know, we understand it here in the US everybody loves it's more of a recreational tool right now. But as far as the home heating, heating sense goes. pellet stoves for inside homes are starting to really explode as far as growth. And it's just gonna get bigger and bigger. So the wood pellet industry is such a fun industry to be in, it's going to keep growing, it's good for our planet, it's good for a lot of things.

Gabriel Flores  40:15  

Now, for those that are listening, they're interested about this product. Where can they find it? Where can they go look at it there? Are their stores, brick and mortars, or is it online? Where can they find your product?

Tyson Traeger  40:25  

Yeah, we've got brick and mortar stores out there that carry our product, hop on our website and type in your zip code, and it'll give you a dealer locator. The website would be Timber stoves.com. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely a product demanded right now, we get real busy this time of year, as the temperatures have dropped. But I think more and more people are spending their time outside. And that's even in the summertime, it's kind of funny, the use of our product we see the most use in the summertime, which is when the least amount of sales are. So it's a really weird business to analyze. Because, again, you know, starting a new business, you know, you don't get any of that stuff. But we have, you know, really understood to the point of people want to be outside, they don't once they're out there, they don't they don't want to go back in. And that's a failure of our product. You know, it's it's a thing you fill up and you let her buck and she'll go until you shut her up.

Gabriel Flores  41:35  

Nice. Now, what advice would you have for the listeners, maybe an aspiring entrepreneur or somebody that's thinking about getting into small business? What advice would you have for them?

Tyson Traeger  41:44  

Which part like, what to go for how to get there.

Gabriel Flores  41:48  

Just more any advice, any advice that you want, what some key advice, maybe things to watch out for, or things that you learned throughout the way that you're glad you learned?

Tyson Traeger  41:58  

Yeah, I was actually really fortunate that I didn't get any funding. outside funding for my business or businesses, when I jumped in. I think that no matter how big you are, whether you're a giant business, and you want to start a new product, you are better off starting with no funds, because it is going to take that most efficient route to actually get to that end result anyway. So by that, I mean, the mistakes that are going to be made, you could spend millions of dollars, you know, to try and get to that point that one guy could have made those mistakes in his garage, you know, by ticking around. So that that new meme or whatever that's going around, it's hilarious about fuck around and find out is so fucking true. That is the that is so good. I love seeing that. That would be my, what some of my advice would be, you have to fuck around and find out but you need to be very efficient at doing that. So that means go use your resources. You cannot go spend money. The money doesn't exist. You don't make money until your your ways in. And I mean ways in. So you gotta believe. If you don't believe in your shit, it's going nowhere. So you better believe you better find the remedy for some, some energy. And for me. I take things personally. So a lot of my energy comes from holding things against people.

Standard, you know, they're just I like to power myself by that stuff. It might not be the right way to do it. I'm sorry, you know, but I'm also a really nice guy and asking you, my employees, they'll tell you, I'm the nicest guy on the planet. And that's how I want to live my life. I want to be real direct. I want to be as hardcore as I can. I'm making sure I'm given the best that I can. And if I got to use a little animosity against somebody to do that, then I might I've stopped calling people things to their faces. I've stopped hitting things. You know. You got to grow. In order to grow you have to learn what those mistakes are. I've had a lot of mistakes Kim it's been what probably powers this business. So well so fast. You know, now that we're at these levels where we can, we can see that success. Because I have the support. I have the people and the capital, and it's awesome. It's awesome to watch this thing launch but it does not come from Good luck. It all is from trial and error.

Gabriel Flores  44:59  

You Yes, it is all from trial and error. Tyson Trager from timber stoves. Thank you again so much for coming on the show for those folks listening. We'll have timber stove information on the website as well as the newsletter the shades of e.com you can go and subscribe there you can also follow us on the social sites at the shades of E. Tyson Do you have what are your social sites for the timber stoves do you have

Tyson Traeger  45:23  

at Timber stoves on Instagram at Timber stoves on wood pellet products. The main business is wood pellet products. We've been operating under that umbrella for quite a while but timber stoves is our brand of patio heaters and that brand is going to carry us into the future so timber stoves you'll see it. You'll see it on hats and shirts everywhere Sunday.

Gabriel Flores  45:45  

I love it. I love it. Tyson Trager from the great city of Mount Angel, Oregon, only the best come out of there. Again folks that are listening. Please subscribe to the newsletter at the shades of e.com and follow me at the shades of E on the social sites. Thank you and have a great night