Joining me in studio today on Motion Matters is Curtis Iovito, a veteran and co-founder of Spartan Blades in North Carolina. After a distinguished 21-year military career across multiple elite units, Curtis transitioned his precision and discipline into crafting high-quality knives, partnering with fellow veteran Mark Carey to establish a thriving business in the competitive cutlery industry.
In this episode, Curtis shares his journey from the military to the marketplace, detailing the genesis of Spartan Blades. From conceptualizing in a barn to partnering with renowned K-Bar Knives, Curtis's story is a testament to strategic planning and entrepreneurial grit. His military background not only provided discipline but also a unique perspective on risk and opportunity that he leveraged to build a multi-million dollar business.
Listeners interested in entrepreneurship, especially veterans contemplating a business venture, will find invaluable advice in Curtis’s narrative. His approach underscores the importance of mentorship, understanding your market, and maintaining quality and integrity in products. Curtis’s experience illustrates how military skills can translate into business success, emphasizing meticulous planning and community support within the industry.
Questions Answered in this Episode:
1. How can military experience enhance entrepreneurial success in the manufacturing industry?
2. What are the keys to transitioning from a military career to starting a successful business?
3. How does mentorship impact veteran entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector?
Timestamps of Key Moments
(0:00 - 2:33) Introduction of Curtis Iovido, detailing his military background and the transition to co-founding Spartan Blades.
(2:33 - 3:29) Discussion on the initial decision and motivation behind starting a knife manufacturing business, highlighting the entrepreneurial leap.
4:12 - 6:38) Curtis talks about the family support and the challenges faced during the initial phase of their business, which is crucial for understanding the personal dynamics in entrepreneurship.
(15:03 - 19:17) Curtis explains the importance of mentorship and professional network in navigating the early stages of business, and how connections within the industry helped them avoid common pitfalls.
(35:43 - 39:48) Reflection on how military training and principles translate to business practices, providing insight into leveraging military skills for business success.
https://www.visioninmotion.co
Joining me in studio today on Motion Matters is Curtis Iovito, a veteran and co-founder of Spartan Blades in North Carolina. After a distinguished 21-year military career across multiple elite units, Curtis transitioned his precision and discipline into crafting high-quality knives, partnering with fellow veteran Mark Carey to establish a thriving business in the competitive cutlery industry.
In this episode, Curtis shares his journey from the military to the marketplace, detailing the genesis of Spartan Blades. From conceptualizing in a barn to partnering with renowned K-Bar Knives, Curtis's story is a testament to strategic planning and entrepreneurial grit. His military background not only provided discipline but also a unique perspective on risk and opportunity that he leveraged to build a multi-million dollar business.
Listeners interested in entrepreneurship, especially veterans contemplating a business venture, will find invaluable advice in Curtis’s narrative. His approach underscores the importance of mentorship, understanding your market, and maintaining quality and integrity in products. Curtis’s experience illustrates how military skills can translate into business success, emphasizing meticulous planning and community support within the industry.
Questions Answered in this Episode:
1. How can military experience enhance entrepreneurial success in the manufacturing industry?
2. What are the keys to transitioning from a military career to starting a successful business?
3. How does mentorship impact veteran entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector?
Timestamps of Key Moments
(0:00 - 2:33) Introduction of Curtis Iovido, detailing his military background and the transition to co-founding Spartan Blades.
(2:33 - 3:29) Discussion on the initial decision and motivation behind starting a knife manufacturing business, highlighting the entrepreneurial leap.
4:12 - 6:38) Curtis talks about the family support and the challenges faced during the initial phase of their business, which is crucial for understanding the personal dynamics in entrepreneurship.
(15:03 - 19:17) Curtis explains the importance of mentorship and professional network in navigating the early stages of business, and how connections within the industry helped them avoid common pitfalls.
(35:43 - 39:48) Reflection on how military training and principles translate to business practices, providing insight into leveraging military skills for business success.
https://www.visioninmotion.co
Hello and welcome to Motion Matters. This is a podcast where we interview individuals about their entrepreneurial journey and tell us about their trials and tribulations on their pathway into their business. So I have a special guest today with me, special because we both served in the same military organization and super excited to have him on. He's got a fantastic story running a great business here in North Carolina. And without further ado, I'd like to hand it over to you and introduce yourself, Curtis. Go ahead and tell us your name, what your business is, and kind of give us a brief summary of what brought you from your past into your current entrepreneurial journey. Well, sure. My name is Curtis Ivedo and I'm one of the co-owners and founders of a company called Spartan Blades. We're a manufacturer of high quality knives in North Carolina. We make both fixed blades, combat knives, outdoor knives, and high-end folding knives. Awesome. So as I think you already mentioned, I was in the U.S. military for 21 years. I got out and said, well, what am I going to do with myself now? You know, I've been a Marine Infantryman, Airborne Ranger, I think same element you were in. Yep. One of the special forces, again, same element as you for special forces group. It was neat to meet you and find out that we had such a common history. Yeah. Of course, I, you know, I did the contracting thing for several years for an intelligence agency and then realized, you know, I'm kind of getting up there in age. I don't know if I can win these fights we're fighting and running around a body armor. So as a hobby, when I was in first special forces group at Fort Lewis, I used to make knives for my friends. It was a hobby of mine. I used to make them in my garage. And when I got out, I teamed up with a buddy of mine, Mark Carey, also another first group guy medic. I'd worked for him as a sniper instructor at Fort Bragg at SOTIC. Oh, okay. And he was the NCOIC. He grabbed me. I think I was headed out to teach survival students how to make pine needle tea or something like that. And he said, no, come on over here with me, we're going to train some snipers. So we both retired around the same time. We went to work for another military oriented organization. And man, we made them a lot of money. We were working on a bonus program for payment. You know, we're doing the math. Okay, we just paid our houses off. And when they didn't pay out, we said, hey, we're going to do our own thing. We're going to control our own destiny. As something new for us, you're always told what to do in the military. Military is always there for you, right? So a big security blanket. We said, hey, let's, let's gamble. Let's throw a few thousand dollars together and start a knife company. We looked at several other things we were, we knew, which was sniping, sniper rifles, optics. And quite honestly, we thought we'd build sniper rifles and started business doing that. But when we looked at that business model, and we looked at some of the folks that were out there, we realized maybe we should make knives instead. And then they, that industry can use them to stab each other in the back, because it was horrible at the time. So we threw a few thousand dollars together. We cleaned out an old barn on my partner's property. We made our first batch of 30 knives and just kind of held our breath and crossed our fingers. And here we are almost 15 years later. We're a multi-million dollar corporation. In 2019, we teamed up with K-Bar Knives. I think everybody who's listening to this probably knows who K-Bar Knives are. And they are, they've been fantastic. We joke all the time that we're still in our honeymoon. And that was back in 2019. So currently we do a few lines of knives. We have stuff that's made right here in North Carolina, in our shop. And we designate it as our gold line of knives. We have our silver line, which is manufactured by our partners in New York up at K-Bar Cutco. And then we have a bronze line that are price point knives that we design. We send steel over to Taiwan and then have the knives manufactured for us there. So we try to cover a variety of price points. Man, there's a lot to dive into right there. I think where I want to start with that first is, so you told me that you kind of were doing a contracting job. And then at that point, you guys had made a decision that you wanted to jump off, not too dissimilar than kind of my pathway, but with real estate. When you made that decision though, just talk a little bit about your family dynamics and maybe even close friends and people, that element of you guys are batshit crazy or super supportive and how you guys kind of... Well, I can tell you my family is super supportive. I mean, I met my wife when I was in Marine Corps. I think we got married in 1985. I've been married ever since. So I always tell my wife, you know, I truly, truly love you. I just have a hard time respecting you because you married a guy like me, but you're all joking aside. I've had 100% support from my family from the get-go. But I had to tell my wife, hey, listen, I'm over here contracting. I was helping run and develop a program to provide physical security for an agency of our government that had done that particular thing before. So it was exciting to work in a high-threat environment and build something. And after building that program and working on it and helping it to succeed, you know, my thought was, you know, if I can do this for somebody else, this is the second time now we've done this. Both people I've worked with made millions. Maybe we can do it and make enough to match what I made in the military and then slide into retirement. So I talked to my partner. We agreed, hey, we're going to do something. Knives made sense. Knives are some of the oldest products in the world. You don't have to tell people how to use them. It's a product everybody knows how to use. But, you know, I think like all entrepreneurs, at some point, if you mitigate all your risk, you go through your different courses of action, you have to at some point blow on the dice and throw them. And we did that. I quit a job making great money. My business partner lived off his investments. So we went several years without paying ourselves. But, man, we were growing at a rapid pace. And then you get to a point where like, you know, the gamble is worth it. Let's go. And that's what happened. Yeah. Well, I think that's even more interesting because we had a very similar situation in two things that you described. I was not making multiple six figures salary. But right at the point of us making this decision, there was some unique contracting work in Indonesia. And because of our relationships and the backgrounds, there was multiple six figures thrown at me. And it was during a dinner conversation, actually. And my wife kicked me under the table and gave me that look like, you better take that job. And I was like, you know, I had a similar thing happen to me. I got offered a job in Indonesia as well. I still speak Indonesian. And I had a job offer. It was a great paying job working for Garuda Airlines, which is one of the top airlines in the world as far as I'm concerned. But the job was to take flight attendants to their hotels, make sure they got there okay, and then stand by if they ever called and need help with anything security wise. So I said, hey, honey, I just got a great job offer. Of course, we'd have to move to Indonesia. And I would basically be running around with a bunch of beautiful flight attendants. And she also kicked me under the table, but she didn't say take the job. She's like, don't you even think about that. That ain't happening. That's funny. Well, I say that because I think there's many people that end up in this point. And this is why I'm kind of talking about these specific things is digging a little bit deeper into the fact of the matter is you're living a very comfortable life. And we're not even talking about the fact that you retired, which means you already have a pension, which most people in modern day age don't unless they work for some type of government agency, other than the stereotypical. So again, you have a very comfortable life. I would say for all intents and purposes, you guys can live the quality of life you want. You may not buy a yacht or a private jet, but you guys are very comfortable. But there was still that entrepreneurial aspiration that made you say, I'm gonna let it all go because I believe in the vision. And I think that's the part that it's like talking to people about how do you get through and step over the line. It sounds to me like you were very confident. It sounds like you also did your own analysis. So you kind of knew where you guys wanted to take it. And then it sounds even... One thing that's great that I didn't get to experience is that outside of your support mechanism or your family, your partner clearly had the same vision or at least believed in the vision. Is that fair to say? That is fair to say. We always joke, we swapped commander's intent for vision. You tend to be mission focused when you're in the military because you're given a commander's intent and you work towards that end with support. I think a lot of what we learned in the military when it comes to risk mitigation, planning, developing courses of action, working with people. I mean, we were SF, right? We sold the United States and Asia. And that we were selling a great product. So I think you innately know how to do those things. And when you sit back and think about it, they really do translate to business. I joke all the time, I really wanted to go to college. I wanted to go to business school. Unfortunately, we're too busy making money to go to college and to learn how to do business. And while that's a joke, what you learn in the military, especially within a special operations community, I believe directly translates to business. A hundred percent. It's being mission focused, sourcing things, whether it's materials, people, or information, and developing that into something that makes sense. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. And when you were just talking earlier, you said, you were talking about that point where you looked at your partner and you're like, look at what we've done for these people. I think I spoke about this briefly when we first met at your knife shop, so I won't tell the whole story. But in summary, I was working in Malaysia, and I found myself in this situation where for the first time in my military career, I had a complete latitude to do the commander's intent, which was, we need to repair the relationships in this country, because they don't like us, because people have done bad shit before in the past. And for all intents and purposes, and by they, I mean, other United States government entities. And they didn't want us there. And so my focus was, how do we repair that relationship and show them that we're value added to the holistic view of the United States government in another country? And so that was my epiphany, was I literally called my wife and I said, it's like this dude is having a conversation between a United States ambassador, a two-star general, my commander, and it's going extremely well, so why am I not building my own business? And so I'm saying that, and then I'm reflecting back on yours. And I'm coming back and saying, as I'm sitting here asking you these questions, I'm also thinking to myself, what is that thing that, and I think it just hit me is that, at least for both of our stories, there was a moment in which we gained a level of confidence because of a situation or a thing that occurred in our work lives. And so I think about these other people's situation, I'm saying, maybe they don't have the cheerleaders, or maybe they don't have the circumstances that validated their abilities to be able to get something done. Sure. You know, we get a lot of guys retire from military, they'll stop by the shop and say, hey, listen, I've got some ideas and some things I want to do. I just don't think I have the money or the, I don't think I have the smarts to do it. And I tell people all the time, don't let fear be your motivating driver for what you do. It's, I truly believe fear is a spirit that destroys men and tears your dreams apart. I think we talked about it the other day in my shop. What's the number one reason people don't become green braids? They don't just try in the first place. I'm not good enough. They might not like me. I know I'm physically fit, but maybe not physically fit enough for that. Those guys really seem smart and like free thinkers. I don't know if I'm smart enough and people fail all the time due to fear, fear to start, fear to plan, fear of not making enough money, especially young people. I think we just talked about it earlier before this podcast started. When I see somebody in their early twenties, figuring it out. I love that because you and I both know they've got, they've got time and the risk they've mitigated the risk, right? Maybe living with the parents don't have a car payment, the risk they've got time and their risk is reduced. That's the time to start a business. And I encourage you, but I can't have started. The other fear I have about young people starting businesses is I, you know, obviously I work social media. I'm a, I'm in charge of product development and marketing. So I have to take a hard look at our social media and I see all these clips all the time, how to make easy money, go to Walmart, you know, buy 600 rolls of paper towels, use the software, use AI, throw it online, become a millionaire. Telling you right now, it just does not work that way. Get out of bed in the morning, do the work, mitigate your risk. It's, it's amazing. And I think the other fear they have is that they can't be successful, even if they can get it to work. I think, you know, they think if I can't be a multimillionaire, it may not be worth doing. You don't have to make the next great, uh, you know, tool or robot or drone or, or fighting vehicle. I mean, it amazes me all the time. I, you know, when we have a bad day at work, I always tell my business partner, I would love to make Bobby pins. And I remember the first time I said, he's, what are you talking about? I said, whoever has a bad Bobby pin or finds out that the end of the Bobby pin doesn't have the little rubber bubble on it. And immediately gets on a phone, goes on a social media and bad mouse that Bobby pin company, nobody, right? And I guarantee you somebody's a Bobby pin multimillionaire. So you don't have to invent the next great thing. And you don't necessarily even have to solve a problem. You know, that's something we looked at when we're, we're planning our company, like, Hey, there's a lot of nice companies out there. Is there really room for one more? And the answer is yes. Um, so you don't have to be the next great entrepreneur. You just have to try. And if you try and fail, we all know that most people fail the first two or three businesses. I think we were just very fortunate. Um, but what you learned from that is invaluable. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and another thing that you said, and I think maybe we, I'm going to focus a little bit more on this, given the fact that your military background, my military background, you know, talking a little bit more directly to the military community specifically, is that like, all of those skill sets that you've already discussed that they transfer, they translate so well into the community, even better than I kind of fully grasp until I got in. And I was like, I almost feel like I got a cheat code. Right. Right. Because all the experience, particularly like with my example of some of the diplomatic stuff and building relationships, um, it's like, it just made sense to me that you would handle things a certain way and then develop the business a certain way. And so encouraging, and then, sorry, I'm going to deviate one more time and connect this back because I had wanted to say this is that I know for us, and even just the, the military community writ large for the last several years, there's been a really big uptick with, uh, suicide. And obviously, you know, given being in combat for over 20 years, there's a lot of dudes that suffer from legitimate PSD, you know, and have a lot of issues. But when I talked to a lot of our fellow brother brothers, you know, is, I feel like they just lost purpose, right? Because that was their whole entire existence. And so they just, there's no purpose for them in something else. But for you, you know, you were able to collaborate with somebody, bounce the ideas and then find a person, find a vision and a passion and move forward. Well, sure. And I wrestled with my own self-worth when I retired. Um, most of my career focused on sniping, probably not the way to become Sergeant Major of the Army, but it's something I always loved. I pursued it. I was good at it. I got out of the Army as a, who wants a, you know, the special forces weapon Sergeant sniper, you know, what's out there for me. And I didn't see anything. I didn't see a path forward. So I had to reevaluate who I was, you know, and create identity. I always say two things you should have. Um, you should have a tribe, a close group of friends and people who understand and know you and a mission. If you have a tribe and you have a mission, the chances that you're going to knock yourself off are pretty, pretty, pretty low. And, you know, I know that sounds a little crass when I say knock yourself off, but I just, I just don't see that as a path forward for anything. I tell people all the time, listen, if life's that bad face to the left, start walking till you can't walk anymore and start a new life or create a mission, right? Yeah. Well, I don't think it's crass because it goes back to the center of, you know, having a purpose. And I think I, for a lot of those guys that I've talked to, and I'm sure yours is the same situation is when, when it comes down to it, it's just like, when, when we did what we did in special forces into the military, it was something bigger than ourselves. And so coming together with other people for a purpose, that's bigger than yourself. It just builds something inside of you that it's very difficult to replicate. And so when you lose that many of these guys lost their identities. Yeah. And that's I agree. And it's a problem. You know, we talked to, like I said, we talked to a lot of guys who retire right here at Fort Bragg, whatever they call it now Liberty. And we talk to guys all the time and we tell them, Hey, listen, take a little time off yourself. Most guys think I need to jump in a job right away. I need a paycheck, you know, save before you get out, save two months, pay, get out and do nothing for a month. Reset your mind. Don't undervalue yourself. Cause most guys jump right to a job as a former special operator that company uses up their Rolodex and it kicks them to the side ready for the next guy. So I tell them don't jump right into something new. Take a little bit of time to get to know yourself and don't undervalue yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely undervalued myself. In fact, I want to shift back to another thing, but I will just use this for a quick vignette to say, I tell people that because I grew up so poor and this is honestly kind of, you know, being a little bit vulnerable and talking about just reflecting on why it is that I did certain things or walk through certain. Anyway, I think because I grew up so poor, I automatically devalued my worth because I was just like, I can't do what those people can do. Even though I knew that I was capable. And I think on an intellectual basis, by the time I was 11, the only thing going through my mind and no bullshit, I'm not embellishing the stories. Like I got a paper to living 250 papers because I wanted to make money because I didn't want to wear the two stripe track shoes from Kmart. I wanted three stripes Samba classics, but we couldn't afford them. And so from that time forward school, I didn't give a shit about school. The only thing I cared about is how to make more money. I started working at a jewelry store when I was 15 and then transferred. And I was basically working a full-time job, which was probably against child labor laws at the time. But I was working the system because I was just want and moved out when I was 16. Anyway, I didn't want to deviate too far from that, but I was just trying to get to the point of having that movement and stuff when you're younger and trying to go towards a long-term vision and stuff like that. I think it also creates a work ethic. I've had a job every day of my life since I was 14 years old. I had to get a work permit and work my mother at a nursery, delivering plants and taking them out to people's cars, worked at my parents' bakery. But yeah, I've had a job since I was 14 years old. And I think that's part of where my work ethic comes from. Me and my brother joke about it all the time. He's like, you know, I just think it's because our father was Mexican. You know, they're hardworking people. I think it's just in our blood. I said, no, I think you developed it by getting out of bed in the morning and doing good things. Well, going back to your thing about making it through Special Forces training, I tell people very candidly, I'm like, I definitely couldn't run two miles in 10 minutes and I definitely can't bench press 400 pounds because they look at my physique and they're like, how the hell did that dude make it? And I said, I'll tell you how I made it because I didn't quit. And on those specifically in trials for Special Forces, where it's more about your mental capacity, I think, than your physical. Physical matters, obviously you can't not be physically fit. They'll make you strong. Right. But it's like, are you going to give up on yourself? That's it. I'll never forget, man. You know, during my time when I went through, it was part when they had the trek and you had to do that really elongated, you know, march to the different cross country, different point. Sure. I was on my way back to the last one and I thought I was behind. I thought I was probably going to be one of the last people in. I ended up being one of the first people, which was cool. But as I was going to my last point, this guy packs me and, you know, you're not supposed to talk, but he like looks out the corner and he's like, bro, he's like, where are you going? I was like, I'm on my last point. Like, I was happy. I wanted to share that. And his head dropped and his whole body just was like. Defeated. Defeated. And I go, what's wrong? And he goes, I'm on my way to my second one. And I didn't even know what to say to him because in my mind, I was like, there's no fucking way, bro. There's no way that you're going to make it. You got another 20 something miles to go anyway. Yeah. So this is great, but I want to get back to some of this is really good because I think hopefully this will resonate with a lot of military communities, be inspired by your story and be able to say, look, you know, he built something. So with that, I wanted to say, you made the decision to start the business. You threw a few thousand together. You, you did it in the back of your garage or his garage or barn, whatever you said. And my question to you is, is tell me about one time during that initial where you hit an obstacle that felt like it was unachievable or that. Did you go through one of those moments? I think we all go through some of those. I can tell you the first thing we did is we reached out and look for a mentor. We didn't know what we didn't know. We were kind of like Intel collection phase of starting a knife company. Did you do this before you started though? Right. Beginning of the first month. Wow. And we were like, well, who makes knives? That's smart. Like, well, I know that, you know, the Arboro is pretty popular knife. There's that fella, Bill Harsey. And it's made by Chris Reeve knives. Let's just call that guy, Chris, and see if it'll help us out. And even at that time, even though we knew he made quality knives, we didn't realize he's considered to be the mess, you know, the best knife maker in the world. Wow. And I think he gets his phone calls all the time. So he said, Hey, um, why don't you come down to international blade show in Atlanta? Let me take a look at what you're doing. We'll talk about it. And then you come out to Idaho and visit me at some point. Wow. So we did that. He gave us some critiques. And then a week later, we got on a plane, flew to Idaho, knocked on his door and his wife answers the door. It says, can I help you? I'm like, Oh, I don't think she knows we're coming dude. And, um, and they helped, and they helped us out. So, uh, but you know, as far as obstacles we did, we didn't know how to deal with dealers. So we have a system where we sell majority of our knives, go to a dealer, and then we kind of hold our prices. We have map pricing to make sure our knives don't get discounted, which helps us protects our dealers. Okay. Well, you don't know this stuff in the beginning. And I remember having a dealer who called me back, said, Hey, listen, I need you to buy all these knives back. They're just not selling. And this was our first few months in business. And it was our largest dealer order to date. Actually. He's one of our first three dealers. I said, well, uh, I'm not going to buy back my jobs to make them your jobs to sell them. I did my job, do yours. I hung up on them. Right. So a little bit of a, you know, I'm still more of a, I think it's still more of a green braid that time. And it was a businessman. So he discounted all in eyes and blew them out, sold them all in a day. And I called him back and said, you will never ever discount my knives again, because you're never going to get any. Um, that was the wrong thing to say. Um, if we actually sat down and talk and we did years later, we would have realized we were both new at it and neither one of us knew what we were doing, but if we had sat down and worked together, um, as opposed to me becoming a defensive, going into defense mode, we both would have made a whole lot more money. And, uh, it would have propped both our businesses up. Um, side note years later, he came up to me as in hearing this guy comes, he goes, we're going to get into it. He said, Hey, listen, um, I felt bad for years and it's just, it's, I've lost a lot of sleep over it. The way I talked to you and the way I treated you, I didn't know what I was doing. So I apologize. I'm sorry. Wow. I couldn't believe it because I was ready to go on a defensive and I realized, you know, I didn't know what I was doing either. I was a little mouthy. I wasn't professional. I apologized to him. We shook hands and he went to walk away and I said, Hey, listen, we just apologized to each other. I think we both accepted. Would you like to carry our knives? And now he's, he's unfortunately passed away recently, but I was able to convey that story to his kids who run the business now. And there were fantastic partners and do a lot of volume. So, uh, you know, I saw that as a hurdle, uh, but in the end, you know, you, you look at those types of things that happen, you analyze them and what you try to get something out of them. And what I got was one, always be professional and to the power of forgiveness, right? As a lifelong lesson, I learned, I tend not to get mad at folks anymore. I can't think of another businessman in the world that I've got heartache with her or can't work with. I'm so glad you told that story. And I want to go back to the first point. And the first point is this, cause I would argue there was two obstacles within that obstacle. There was the first layer and the second layer, but the first layer is you guys recognize from the get go that in order to have a likelihood of better success that you needed a mentor, which kudos for you guys for thinking that, because I was not thinking that I mean, kind of sorta, but if I'm being brutally honest, because I typically jump out of the airplanes with no parachute and then figure out that I fucked up afterwards, then, you know, I have to backtrack. But Oh, you were in a seals as well. Just kidding guys. We love you. Oh, those guys are all going to cancel this. But, uh, you guys called that guy. You picked up the phone. This is one of the things that one of my mentors, Mark says all the time, it's like, you're, you're sitting there. You're fucking, you're not doing anything. So how can you say you're not successful? You're not doing anything. You guys called this dude. And you're like, maybe he answers. Maybe he doesn't. But not only did he answer, he then invited you to go there and then invited you to come back to his, his home base. And that costs you zero, right? Nothing. It costs us nothing. And I'll tell you, as a matter of fact, the Reeve family, we've become very, very good friends with them. We're still, you know, people would think we're competitors and that goes for some of the other people in our niche. We're all friends. We all work together. We help each other out. As a matter of fact, Ann Reeve was just at our house two weeks ago, stayed for a week. Wow. Right. And she was here visiting special forces and looking some capabilities. They make the Arboro knife for special forces. But, uh, she's like, you know, you keep saying, we mentioned you guys, you really didn't do much. And I don't even think they realized that they didn't think they were putting themselves out, but what they did as mentors was provide us enough information not to fail in our first year or two. It was enough for us to keep our head above water. Um, they talked to us about discipline. You know, what a lot of new businesses do is they'll, they'll offer the work for free or they'll work at a reduced, you know, they'll discount their services or products in order to get the word out there. Yeah. There's some marketing costs, but they told us, Hey, don't let people push you around, stick to your guns. You have a pricing structure, stick to that pricing structure. It's going to be hard, especially when you're not paying yourself, but that's how you're going to grow your business. And sure enough, they were right. And it, it propelled us to do great things, but what it really did is stopped us from failing in that first year. And I think that's the value of a mentor. And of course you kind of owe it to other people to do the same thing. 100,000%. And I was just going to say, if there was one single nugget of information that somebody gets out of this podcast, that is invaluable. It's what you just said. And that is the power of having a mentor. Because as I like to say, not only did it do all the things you said, but it, it's, it reduced and mitigated your potential stumbles, but also collapsed your time sector. I mean, had you struggled through that, I would argue it would have taken you double, triple, quadruple the time to get where you got in 12 to 18 months. Oh, absolutely. If it hadn't been for the mentorship and it hadn't been for reinvesting every dollar you made for the first few years, I don't think we'd be where we are now. You know, the other thing I found, I find funny, and we talk about these, you know, seeking mentorship, understanding your businesses, you know, business practices within your sector. Almost all those relate to those silly things we learned in military. Know yourself, seek self-improvement. You know, that was a board question. That was the answer to a board question you had to know. Know yourself, seek self-improvement. Know your operational environment. You look at some of the soft truths, right? People are more important than equipment. Special operations can't conduct missions on their own. They often need support from other people. All those things still apply. For example, reaching out to a mentor, you know, special forces need outside elements to survive. If I know my operational environment, I might not have talked down to that dealer. We both would have made a whole lot more money. Know yourself, seek self-improvement. You have to be honest with yourself in business, too. You know, you shouldn't lie to other people, and you shouldn't lie to yourself. What am I good at? I'm good at A, B, and C. I suck at D, and E, and F. Go out, find somebody who's good at them, pay them to do that for you, or have them teach you how to do it, or develop those skills on your own. Same as the military, right? You know, I don't know how to put a charge on a door. I don't know how to do CQB. I don't know how to enter the room. I don't even know what a point of domination is, for example. So you go to training, you seek out that training, you go there, you become proficient, and then you teach it to other people, right? And while it doesn't make you more money in the military, it gets you more credibility, and it improves your reputation. Right. I mean, you just dropped like four or five incredible pieces. No, I'm actually happy. I'm super excited. And the reason why I'm excited is because the whole point of this podcast is to inspire other people to go after their aspirational dreams, but also to sit here and talk about some of the difficulties in those. And one of those difficulties, as we've already lined out previously, is that a lot of people will not step off that proverbial cliff. And then when they do step it off, which is why I asked you if you had an obstacle, is that most people then turn around and swim right back to shore because they're like, I'm unsure of what lies ahead. Or I felt something at my foot in the water. It's a fucking minnow, bro. But you can't see it. But because you can't see it, now you're not willing to tackle it. So anyway, people talk about Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich, that it's not a book to be read, it's a book to be studied. And so I'm grateful for a lot of the things that you just said, because I'm hoping that other military individuals that seek entrepreneurial aspirations are listening to this and going back and studying what you just said, because... Go ahead. Well, you talked about going into water and swimming back. I think that goes back to knowing your operational environment, right? I think I talked about it earlier. I worked for a government organization in Iraq for four years, in Baghdad, in and around Sadr City. I mean, platoons were getting wiped out in Sadr City at the time. This is four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, those years there. We used to work in small elements of about four to five guys all over Baghdad during the most dangerous times. And I've never had a vehicle lost and I never had guys killed. And the reason being, I did that stupid thing we learned in ANOC. For those of you who don't know what ANOC is, it's the Advanced Noncommissioned Officers Course. It's the third NCO school that you go to in the military. And they taught us a thing called order of battle. Nobody wanted to do it. Nobody's looking forward to it. It was three weeks of just misery where you study the enemy and make a determination. Are they going to retrograde, attack, defend in place? It's looking at the actions of the enemy or your operational environment and figuring out what's going to happen. When I was in Baghdad, I did unconventional order of battle. Since we weren't going against a heavily armored or regular army, we were looking at small arms fire, bombings, suicide bombers, EFPs, executions. Those are the kinds of things I was looking at. And I grabbed all the intel I could every day. Got it from the State Department. I got it from the CIA. I got it from the NSA. Anybody can get it from. And I would plot everything that happened on a map the way we were taught to do unconventional order of battle in ANOC. And we could literally weave through Baghdad whenever we wanted to. And very rarely did we ever get into trouble because we knew where to go, where not to go. And we were very, very, very successful at what we did in accomplishing what the government needed to get done there. There's a class I didn't want to do. It's something I ignored. But when I put it into action, it's another one of those military planning things. You put it into action. It's I 100% know it's the only reason I'm sitting here talking to you right now. That's awesome. And that same thing happens in business. You said people put their feet in water, swim, feel something and come back. Well, if you already know the depth of water, you know, the temperature of the water, you know, the support system, make sure you don't drown. And you know where you're going. You're probably going to have a greater chance for success. That's another one of those military things. And that might not have been a focus of this podcast, but you know, let's keep going back to it. What we learned in the military directly relates to business. Yeah, a lot. No, it is a focus though, because I think again, given our backgrounds, this is obviously a little bit more military centric, but there's tons of these guys out in the community. And I would love to hear more the same way that you spoke about a younger generation. I get equally excited to hear about fellow, you know, brothers in arms that are transitioning and have a vision and are going to move forward. I've had a bunch of SF guys come here and visit me at my house. And they're like, dude, I see that you've got some success going like, you know, what's what's your recommendations and this and that blah, blah, blah, blah. So I, you know, there's a ton of stuff that we can say we don't have enough time, because we're actually going to have to sit here and close down soon. But what I say to them, is I'm like, I'm, I'm just amazed and flabbergasted at how many guys do not actually go forth because of all the skill sets and what it took for you to become a United States Special Forces Green Beret. And if you apply that towards trying to start your own business, it's virtually impossible that you're going to fail. I'm not saying you can't fail and you may have seen significant stumbling blocks, but you didn't get to don that beret and you didn't get to serve in one of the most elite organizations in this country without going through some shit that sucked. Right? And so put your thinking cap on. It's like last comment, right? You know, when I went to Halo school, it sounds overdramatic. But the more I thought about it, I'm like, you know what, there's actually a lot of truth in that. And it's like, if something malfunctions or go sideways, when you jump out at 13,000 feet, you got roughly 57 and a half seconds to figure out what the fuck you're going to do. So you can freak the hell out and just call it the end of the day and go meet your maker. Or you use that 57 and a half seconds wisely. You talk about taking a leap in literal sense. Do you remember the first combat equipment night jump? Couldn't see nothing. I don't know what it's like now, but I could barely see past that oxygen mask. It was terrifying to me. But I did it. Yeah. And I mean, that's in the desert, right? And it's just pitch black, no illumination. You have no depth. The only reason why we knew is because I was looking at my altimeter to know how far we are from hitting the ground. I know that we've been on for a while. Let me just say this. I got a final question for you. Sure. But I had tons of questions I have lined up. I would like to have you back at a later date. Maybe we talk about some more of the advanced things as you guys have grown into your business, because you've been in for business for how long now? About 15 years. 15 years. So that's a nice chunk of change. And so I guarantee there's a lot of things that you guys have even done to scale and grow your business in the past five years. We haven't been able to touch on it. But I think the value of the conversation that we kind of sidebarred on, I'm really excited about people being able to listen to that. So with that, I guess I want to leave with a couple questions. One of the questions is, is there any particular book or podcast or anything that you're listening to right now, or that you did during your journey that really helped give you some clarity or give you some momentum or anything like that? Actually, yeah. And while it's not looking for mentorship, I talk to a lot of what would be defined as competitors. There's several businesses that people see us sitting together. They're like, what's going on here? Somebody's selling a company, why are you talking to the enemy? But there's a lot of people in business, if you're going through a hard time or you're trying to figure out something, there's tons of people who have done it before. I see a lot of companies, they go through that transition where they're a small company, they do everything with an Excel spreadsheet and QuickBooks. And they're like, oh man, now I got to do inventory and I've got taxes and I got to find software. Well, software out there is either super, super simple, or it's almost an enterprise solution. And it costs money. And they want to come hang out in your business and implement that. But you can stress about that, but then you realize every business in the United States does that same thing. And you reach out to people and we've done the same thing. I talked to people in our industry, they have insights on the very thing I do that sometimes I don't know. You can't know it all. Who's grinding steel for you? What steel development is coming out? Have you been talking to metallurgists? What are they saying about this new steel? How about this distributor? Do they work well for you? I know you've been using them for a while. How do they do business? Do they pay on time? Those things. I know a lot of folks read books. I'm pretty darn busy. I'm always working. So I don't read a whole lot, not like I used to. But I like to talk to folks who are in the same business as me and help them out when I can. And they'll help me out when I can. We do a lot of laser engraving, some high-tech laser engraving. Most people buy laser in the knife industry and they use it to put USA on a blade or the company logo. We've done a lot of artwork and deep engraving, which is kind of set us apart from everybody else. And people call me and say, Hey, listen, I just spent $150,000 on this laser. I can't even get it to work. You know, I'll jump on a plane, fly out and help them. That's awesome. Because I know they'll do it for me. You said something before and now you just said it again. So I wasn't going to say it, but now I am going to say it. And that is, again, one of our mentors, we pay to be in this mastermind group with a guy named Mark Evans. And I'm not sure if he coined it or not. It doesn't matter. It's the first time I heard it, but he consistently always says win with winners. And he's talking about the culture and the community that he's established and the people on your left and right. I mean, there's guys in there that have pressure washers business. There's other guys in there that have apparel companies and real estate guys and all these different times, but they're all there to try to help each other. And it's kind of very similar to what you're saying, which is you're reaching out to other people in the industry. And typically when other people are winning, they want to help other people win too. It's not a threat to them. And they're part of my tribe. Right. Exactly. So I think that's a great point to bring out. Man, we could go on and on and on. I know we're running out of time. So I definitely want to have you on again. I'm very grateful for you to come over here. But before we depart, what I would really love is if you could just take a moment and tell people how can they get ahold of you best way, like what's your website? What's restate your name, your company, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. How can people get ahold of Curtis and Spartan blades? Well, sure. The first thing you can do is go to our website, which is www.spartanbladesusa.com. All right. You can reach out, call us, email us, contact at spartanbladesusa.com. We love talking to folks. I think we're, I know we have outstanding customer service because we get a lot of love letters from people in the knife and cutlery industry. But yeah, spartanbladesusa.com. And my name is Curtis. Awesome, man. I greatly, greatly appreciate that and look forward to having another conversation. So thank you for your time, Curtis. No, it was my pleasure. This was fantastic. Awesome. See ya.