From Viral Videos to a Real Brand: Building Mr. Mixer with Purpose, Zach Dinicola | Ep 20

Thanks for making the journey. It's cold, but it's not that far. It was a short drive from Disgusta to Smildorado, right? That's right. They say, flush twice, it's a long ways to Eldorado, right? That's what they say. No, Eldorado's a great town. Augusta's got problems, but hey, we're getting there. It's kind of a cool little town. You have some things happening downtown. I'm a Rose Hill guy. I grew up in Rose Hill. But I spend a lot of time, I live in Augusta now, and I spend a lot of time in Eldorado too. Yeah. All right, guys. I'm Samuel McVeigh with the Killer Growth Podcast, and today I have Zach Dinicola. Yeah, you said it right. I always tell people, I've been called worse, so you're not going to offend me, but yeah. Zach Dinicola, founder of Mr. Mixer, and really glad you're here. I'm not going to fanboy out. You can. It's all right. I'm a huge fan. I saw your stuff and didn't know you were local. Sure. And that's super cool. Yeah, yeah. You see somebody putting out great content, getting just awesome interactions. So I was just like, there's no way. And then we started this podcast like two months ago, and I DMed you guys on Facebook. Oh, really? Yeah, but it had to come off so spammy. It's like, will you be a guest on my podcast? When was it? I don't know. Was it just like a couple months ago? Yeah, yeah. I haven't looked at Facebook messages since October. I bet you get a lot. Well, we have so many phone calls and e-mails every day that I have not looked at any direct messages. I didn't expect a response because it just, again, felt spammy. No context. Come be on our podcast. How rude of me. No. I wasn't snubbing you. I literally haven't seen it yet. I'm not calling you out. I just know you're that important. I like to do stuff like this. I'm here for it. And sometimes if someone wants me to travel halfway across the U.S. to do it, it's like, meh. Yeah, better be some good publicity. You're hopping a skip down the road. Two flushes away. Two flushes away. Yeah. No, I'm here for it. That's perfect. Well, thank you so much. No, don't be. Sorry. It worked out great. I was talking to you. Yeah. And I walked in and he said, hey, I'm talking to Zach, Mr. Mixer, about cardboard stuff. Sure. Like, you guys are, you know, both have cardboard you've got to figure out. And so he goes, I'm like, can you text him an intro for me? He's like, yeah. And then you responded immediately. Funny story, by the way. We single-handedly have become the cardboard recycling facility of Augusta. Oh, no way. Yeah, so they don't, like, Augusta does not have any recycling whatsoever. We have a machine that shreds the cardboard down into, like, a netting, like, for dunnage to fill voids, right? Bubble wraps, really expensive. It's so expensive. Very expensive. So are you going to sell my brother some shredded cardboard? Do you have a surplus? Yeah, I mean, yes, we're getting there. Okay. We're moving from Augusta, though. Oh, okay. Yeah, so we're going to, like, lose that. TBD. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how that goes, but good to know. Well, that's cool. I'm glad you guys connected. Yeah. There's not a lot of people doing a lot of online stuff in the county, you know, so it's fun to find peers. Which is surprising. I know. In the digital age. And we're in the middle of America. It's a great opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Like, we can ship anywhere without, like, a crazy rate increase. Like, West Coast to East Coast, that's a big... It is. We're getting off topic. Yeah. We're going to have a hard time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is going to be fun. All right. The world's longest podcast. Let's go. Let's do it. Start a record. I'm coming for you. It's probably in Guinness Book World Record. What a terrible one to set. There's got to be some rules about that. Because, like, you can't just sit there and go to sleep. Yeah, yeah. It's like recording. One of us has to stay awake. Yeah, one. As long as one's awake. That's a good rule. As long as one, yeah. All right. So, we start off real easy. I just want to know Zach's story, starting around college age to what brought you to where you're at today. Yeah. I can do that. I can do that. So, I come from humble beginnings. Not really. I did hoodrat things with my hoodrat friends. Got out of high school. I was like, what am I going to do with my life? School doesn't prepare you for the real world. It's like, bend over, no lube, here we go. And so, I just wound up in the medical field. I was like, I want to be a doctor. I go to Wichita State for a while. University just wasn't the place for me. And so, I ended up as a street medic. So, yeah, I was a paramedic for about five years. They say in paramedicine, they say you either go for about five years or you're a lifer. And I put in my five years and out. Rough life. Yeah. Rough life. Long hours. Terrible day. I used to. I used to have that mental barrier when I was working. I could do it, and now I see it, and I'm just like, no, no. My wife will always be like, look at this guy break his leg. And I'm like, no, I don't want to see that anymore. So, yeah, I did that for a while, got out of it. Prior to that, though, I worked at an auction company. So, yeah, I worked every weekend from the time I was about 13 until I was about 20 at an auction company. What was the auction company? It was Swinson Auction. Swinson Auction. It was out of Rose Hill. Like personal auctions? Yeah, like they did some real estate but a lot of personal belongings, farm auctions, things like that. And I just see naturally so many things sell that I'm just like the value guy. People call me and they're like, hey, I have this thing that I want to sell. How much should I charge for it? I just know. I've seen it and stuff sell. I know what it goes for. Well, seven years being around personal auctions, you learn a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I ended up taking that over into the paramedic stuff. Like I said, you don't get paid that much. So I was doing like a lot of buy-sell trade. I would just go to other auctions. I would go to yard sales, estate sales, and I would just find things that I could flip to cover my mortgage. Were you a paramedic at this time? I was, yeah. I was a paramedic at this time. So I got through that. I got through the paramedic stuff. I got my wife through grad school. She became a speech-language pathologist. Tyler's wife. Yes, exactly. You know it sounds like a really prestigious title, but the pay really also isn't like super great. Yeah, it's not. So it's one of those things to where it's still very like humble, right? But it was like she allowed me to get to where I am because she did the honey. I trust you to do this thing. I know you want to focus on this mixer thing. I trust you to do it. I'm going to take care of like the household bills. So she allowed me to like just sit in the garage and fiddle. Yeah, so it was really cool. I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah, now we're going to go back. Sorry. We got excited. Yeah, we did get excited. Shared experience right here. Let's take a step back. You know, I hit a yard sale maybe like 2016, probably a decade ago, right? And I find this mixer and it's like a church sale in like a parking lot. So there's no power, no way to test it. People swear up and down like, yeah, it works. It works. It works. So I'm like a mixer for $20, like score, right? It didn't work. No, I was – and just – I was scorned. I said I'm going to fix this thing, right? So I went to fix it and I went on YouTube and I went online and it's like, man, there's no tutorials. And if there are, it's people like muddling their way through these repairs, right? Oh, I think this thingy goes here and it looks like it does this. And so I was like, OK, that's not great. I found some decent information on some forums but what an outdated way to like take in information, right? And I'm not talking like Reddit. I'm talking like – Yeah, it's like some blog with a non-active website. Yes, exactly. And so it's like, OK. Anyways, I fixed it. I sold it and I bought two more broken mixers with that money. So that's all I did. I was like buying broken ones, fixing them, selling them, buying broken ones. And after I got, I don't know, 30 or 40 under my belt, I said, well, there's got to be people who have these who want them fixed, right? Like if they're selling broken mixers. If there were something broken, there was something fixed. Yeah, there's got to be something there, right? Pretty good logic. Except for I was in Hays, Kansas, right? So kind of small town and I started advertising my services. But there's only like 30,000 people out in Ellis County, right? Not a huge county. But I did. I ended up picking up like a handful of repairs. And one of the first repairs that I picked up, this lady brings it to me. I fix it. And when I give it back to her, she's bawling. And I'm sitting there like, what did I do? You scratched it. There's a big scratch. Show me on the doll where I touched you. What's going on here? And she breaks down in front of me and she says, my husband gave this to me for one of our anniversaries. He passed away. And when I broke this thing, I thought it was like I thought that tie was severed. She says it's one of the last things I have from our marriage. I thought I had lost that bond and you gave that back to me. And yeah, right. That'll preach. Oh, it hit me right in the feels. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And it was good in the moment. But then I also had time to process it. And I'm like, there's millions and millions of these mixers out here. And they do. They you get them for big events. You get them for weddings. You get them for anniversaries and birthday presents. And sometimes it's just your first big purchase when you move out into your own apartment or house. It's like, you know, treat yourself and you get a mixer. And so there's a lot of meaning to that. And over time in repairing them, I found that, like, since they last so long or used to last so long, we've seen some quality changes. But these mixers are handed down. I've worked on, like, fourth and fifth generation mixers. Like, great, great. Gam, Gam gave this to Gam, Gam, who gave it to G-Ma. And, like, literally it's just like they give me a list and it ends up at, like, the great-granddaughter. And, you know, sometimes they're still running. Sometimes they're broken. But they're just like, I want this service. I want this fixed because I grew up every summer in Grandma's kitchen baking with her. It's like a family heirloom at this point. And so. So timestamp for me so I can keep because I'm really curious. So you're in Hays. Right. How did they find you? So, OK, so Hays, right. I get that first customer who posts on Facebook. Yeah, I was posted on Facebook. I was posted on Facebook and Instagram. Was it called Mr. Mixer? It was not. No, I was just like, hey, I'd fix some KitchenAids, right. Fast forward a little bit, right. It's very slow at this point. Right. I am still flipping them. I'm still getting. I don't know. Maybe a couple people a month, maybe. Moved back to Wichita. OK, get back to Wichita. And I hit Andover, actually. I hit every single brick and mortar when I moved back to Andover. I walk into every bakery, every culinary institute, colleges, everything. And I say, this is who I am. This is what I do. And it was still pretty slow. You know, it was like I think the Butler County Culinary, Butler County College, their culinary took a chance. They let us fix like eight or ten of their mixers or something. You know, a few bakeries here and there let us do some of their mixers. But then I walked into a place called Cake Stuff. And they're no longer around. It's a mid-level baking supply company on the west side. And I walked in and I said, God, every single person that shops here has a mixer. I said, I have to get in this place. And so I walk up to the owner and I'm like, listen, here's who I am. This is what I do. I want to fix yours and every single one of your employees' like personal mixers to show you what I can do. And then all I want is to put a card and like a little flyer on your front counter. And I did it. I came in there, set up a little pop-up table, fixed all their mixers, and they let me do it. I started picking more up, but it's still very slow at this point. I'm talking maybe now we're getting like instead of two a month, two a week. So slow. People are looking at me like my mom's like, maybe you need to go back to school. My brother, oh, you need to get your degree. My in-laws are looking at me like, are you really going to be able to support our daughter on a mixer fixer salary? Yeah, yeah, eat crow. No, I'm just kidding. You know, they had questions, right? And not because they didn't think I could do it. Oftentimes the people who are closest to you in life, like they really they want what's best for you. It's hard to communicate that sometimes. Well, and sometimes a lot of people think what's best is the traditional pathway through life, right? But I'm like a very much like a I marched by the beat of my own drum. And so I was like, no, I'm going to fix mixers, right? They were like, oh, at least keep your licensure for paramedics. No, I'm burning that bridge. Where's the gas? Where's the match? I want I don't want any excuses. I don't want anything. I don't want anything to fall back on. No excuses. If I don't do this, it's on me. So I keep moving down the line here. And just right at the start of all of the covid stuff. Right. Like it was the perfect storm. People were at restaurants were closed down. Right. People were at home from work. Everybody was on their phones. More tick tock was just like coming coming up. Right. And so I hear people talking about I'm like, yeah, let's see what all the kids are talking about. Right. I download tick tock and within. I bet I produced maybe like six or eight videos and a lot of them were just like little stupid things about like my own personal life. But I just said, you know, I'm going to make make this for the business. Right. And so I was the business called Mr. Mixer at this. It was at this point. It was just fresh, freshly minted. So, yeah, I go ahead and make a video here and it's just one of the most common issues that I had noticed for mixers that are coming in. Right. And so I just made a video. Boom, it hit overnight. I think over a million views, 30,000 followers. And I was just like, here we go. Yeah. I was like, this is our end right here. So the whole very next day, me and my currently my I.T. guy, which is a good friend. Right. He was been around since the beginning. He helped me build a Web site and we just added some products on there for like the simple services for the DIY videos. We started making a bunch of DIY videos and posting those out to YouTube and then doing like short format stuff on tick tock. And, you know, the rest, they say, is is as history. It's history. It's. Has not been like that's not an overnight success. Right. Like I worked very, very hard and I have worked very, very hard since then. Right. This is five years ago. And in the last five years, I have had many, many sleepless nights, but. I don't think I would change a thing. Yeah. So take stuff on tick tock. Yeah. You build the Web site and now let's go into the model. Right. I'm very curious about that. They go to the so because you're doing the DIY stuff. But now it's like, OK, now it's a business and I want to service everyone across the country out of Augusta, Kansas. So we still weren't there yet. Right. So this is like this is purely like DIY. This is purely like content building. I'm making these videos. I'm teaching people about these common issues. I have a small drawer full of parts, like a like a literally a pullout drawer in a desk. That's like my parts. And why were you putting that content out in the first place? Because I knew that there was a need for repair. And I knew that I couldn't at the time. I was like, man, there's no way these things are heavy. Like I'm not going to be able to service people all around the world or across the nation. So I want to get them the parts and show them how to do it. So then you would sell maybe parts. Right. Parts, supplies, you know, the grease, the gaskets, all that stuff. Right. And so I slowly start adding parts and supplies to this Web site. And every time I would add a part, I would make a video around. This is why this is how you replace said part. Two hundred and fifty skews later or something. Here we are. Yeah, we got a lot of content and there's still so much. It's hard to believe that someone can make content every day for five years and still not have touched on like about a mix. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's has been absolutely wild. Yeah. So I did that. So I started doing the DIY. And then eventually people were saying, well, I don't want to do this. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like there's still a lot of people who DIY. Like we we move a lot of product online, parts and supplies and things like that. But there are a lot of people who also say this is too tough for me. I don't want to do it. I want to send it to the professional. And so then I went down that road. Right. I started saying, OK, send them in. Right. And that is a rough start. You know, like you're sending these machines that weigh 30 pounds. Right. You don't have any. I have no connections with any shipping services or anything. So I'm like, well, just mail them in via the post office. Right. And the post office is the most expensive place to ship. I'm sorry to cut you off, but at the beginning, did you even know they were coming? I did. So they had to do something before they can mail it to you. Or did some people just mail it to you? But not really, though. I did. But I didn't. Right. Like it was like, hey, send me an email and I'll give you my address type thing. Got it. Then you go back to try and find that email. Yeah. And then eventually we just like listed the address. Like once we got to the point to where we were controlling. Right. We made it to where you have to buy a label from our Web site. Right. Right. We know who you are with that. Your mixer is coming. Right. Did they exchange the the Genesis like the beta version? Did they exchange money with you before they shipped it? Did they ship it? No, they they would just ship it. I would fix it. And then I would send them like a like a QuickBooks invoice type thing. Got it. And if they didn't pay, you kept the mix. Yeah. And that only happened a couple of times. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. That's awesome. Yeah. OK, sorry. I feel really bad. Yeah. Hey, you get I gave him like six months to pay. Right. Come on. That's long enough. So, yeah, I guess people start sending this stuff in. Eventually I say, OK, I have to like figure this out. What were the quantities like at the beginning? I mean, like three or five a week or something like that. And so I go ahead and write about that time, like all of your like your shippos and your pirate ship and all of these like shipping platforms start to come into play. Right. And so I was like, OK, I know that I can purchase a label and I know it's going to cost me X amount to ship. I don't make I don't really make money on shipping. It's about a break even for me. And so what I would do is I would say, hey, you can buy this label from our Web site. It's 50 bucks. Right. We will then send you a label. Right. You buy it. I use the information to create a label. I email that to you. You send it in. And so we did that for a while. And that continued to to pick up steam. And this has taken us to maybe like. Twenty twenty two, maybe. And then all hell breaks loose. Right. The Andover tornado hits, destroys my house. Luckily, my garage. Luckily, my garage was a cinder brick garage, but my house gone. Where were you when it hit the house? McDonald's. I was in a drive through and that's like just getting food. So I always tell people, did you hear did you hear the sirens? Oh, there was my hit my house before the sirens came. Oh, so I'm I'm about eight miles from my house. Right. I think we're at. What is it? Twenty twenty first and Greenwich. There's McDonald's right on the corner. I tell people this is the only time that McDonald's has saved somebody's life. Usually it's like a slow cardiovascular death. Right. But no, I'm like, man, I want a cheeseburger. I'm in line. And as I'm pulling out of the drive through, I'm like patting my wife on the leg. There's a tornado. Right. And we're like, oh, my gosh. And then I go, well, man, looks like it's right on top of our house. Right. Sure enough. Gosh. Yeah. Sure enough. We had a two year old and a two week old baby. Yes. And so tornado boom destroys the house. We pull up over there and just almost everything we own gone. Luckily, silver lining the shop is fine. Wow. Yeah. I mean, because we probably have 12 or 15 or 18 mixers in there that are like we've established potentially family heirlooms. Right. How do you replace something like that? Luckily, we didn't have to. Right. So we we then, you know, are scrambling. It's like, OK, we have to find a place to rent. We're competing with, you know, 250 other families who just got displaced. Right. And it's like we got evicted overnight. Right. And so we're couch surfing. I'm trying to find a way to, like, keep the business afloat while we're doing this. So I end up picking up like a generator that I'm like using to power to keep running your garage. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like I don't have a place to move what you're all this stuff. This is twenty twenty two, I think. April sounds right. April twenty two. Twenty twenty two. Yeah. I just you know, I just recently moved up from my basement. Like that's where I kind of started everything. I moved out to the garage and lucky I did. I'm glad I did. Yes. It was a it was a wild ride. But that led us to you know, we we moved into a rental house. We used that garage for a while and then eventually got my first little commercial space, which was really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. It's one of those things when you go from being in your garage to having a commercial space. And it wasn't much like a four hundred square foot garage to a twelve hundred square foot commercial space. It's like, you know, that that scene from Step Brothers where there's so much room for activity. Right. I'm doing jumping jacks and I'm like, oh, this place is great. Like we're going to be able to grow so much. Like three months later, full. Yeah. Done. And I'm like that. Describe that feeling that you went from your garage to like you actually have a commercial address that feel pretty legit. Yeah. So that's when it really starts to hit home that it's like. This is real. Right. Before it's like I'm just playing in a garage. And even though like, listen, making some money, we were already putting up numbers in the garage. Right. Like we were doing very well and. It was great. It just just wasn't enough space. And the you know, my my consumer base, I don't I do not force growth. My customers tell me how fast they want me to grow. And so it was they said it's time. Get out of the garage. Go get over here. And I found a nice little place. The rent was cheap. It was more space. It was nice. And I was there for about six months or so. And we outgrew it. But there was there's two is two units. So we ended up taking the other unit. Right. Like a shared wall. Yeah. Yeah. So we ended up taking the other unit. And here I am thinking like, OK, we're doubling our space. We ought to get you know, we ought to be able to grow quite a bit. And so my dumb ass signs a three year lease. Yeah. I was like, oh, this is going to be great. Great. Great. Now, the next like 10 months later or something, we're like busted maxed out again. Yes. We got it. Got to move again. And then we bought a place. So I bought my first one. It's like, yeah, this is great. Right. We're renting. Now we're owning. Right. And it's like, yeah, we're doing a word. We're taking names and kicking ass. Let's do it. And I buy this place. I didn't I didn't pay a ton for it. Got a good deal on it. But we swore up and down. We're like, yeah, we're going to get like three to three years out of this place. That was last February. And we are scrambling to find a new location, which we have. We've we've we've nailed down a new location, but I've just come to terms with the fact that. I need to quit playing it safe and I need to take off. I need to just take a big bite. You know, they say the best way to become successful is to take a bite too big for you to chew and then figure out how to chew it. So that's what I'm doing. You know, it's like I'm I need square footage. I need space. I need as I think we'll we'll have a need for. At least 30,000 square foot in the next couple of years. So, yeah, that's a lot. It is a lot. So. Yeah. So many questions. I think. Everybody should understand. Your growth process as far as the organic growth, it's all social media and you putting out content. How often did you start putting out content? So I for a long time tried to do. Every day. Right. But then once you start getting busy, like it's right. I'm I'm. In the work, right, like in my whole goal since I started doing this is to figure out how to work on the business, not in the business. Right. If I'm not in front of a camera, I am wasting time. I am. It's in. Everybody knows it. So all all of my employees are like, we got to find a way to get you in front of that camera. You're bringing it. You're you're the one making the sales. You're the ones bringing in the business. And any time that you're like packing orders or answering the phone, which I don't get me wrong, I still love to do stuff like that. Right. I'm never going to be like an absentee owner. I like to keep my hands in the sawdust, per se. Right. And I also like even answering phones. Right. It's like my almost every person that calls is like, are you are you the guy? Yeah. And I always I was here, you know, some of my employees like, no, no, I'm not. But, you know, I can help you. And you can just tell the excitement when these people call. Right. Like there's a we're doing things differently. Right. There's a level of and I hate to say it because I'm just a regular guy. Right. But like there's a hint of like people go, you're famous. And I'm like, no, I'm famous. Right. Sure. But but there's I don't know, this certain level of excitement that people get when they get to actually see me in person or or talk to me on the phone. And I have people say it's like, I feel like I'm talking to someone famous and I'm like, keep talking. My head's not going to fit through the door on the way home. Tell my wife I'm going to be late. I got to call the fire department to cut a hole in the wall. But no, I mean, it's well, it's the brand identity. I mean, everything is built around those videos. Right. And so for context, for those of you, please go follow Mr. Mixer. But you have I mean, you're right at a million followers on TikTok. Mm hmm. I think I saw close to three hundred thousand on Facebook. What other platforms are you on? So so Instagram, probably Instagram. I think we have close to 200. And then we actually just recently rolled over one hundred thousand on YouTube. So we got our silver play button. That was that felt really good because that's where we that's basically where we like started it all at. Really? And it was the hardest to grow. It's hard to grow. Very hard to grow. But yeah, we just rolled over that. So I think it's crazy. Again, I don't I don't do the videos for like vanity. Sure. Right. And it's you you entertain. Yeah. And you talk about product. I have fun doing it and I enjoy doing it and I'm helping a lot of people doing it. But like when people are like, oh, how many followers? I don't know how many I really don't know. If I had to guess, I would say between all of my platforms, maybe like one point five or one point six million, which it's cool. Like, I'm very proud of where I am, you know, from where I started. And you've never have you ever spent a dollar on an ad? So I have mostly just for fun. Right. Like I did a few like few little like promoting like Facebook videos. I just wanted to see what it was. I'd never done it. And then I do have a company that just maybe like April or May of last year had reached out and I'm letting them do some like like Google ads and type stuff for like not necessarily for service, but for just like parts. Right. For product. Yeah, that makes sense. And so. It's very hard for me to do that because they'll come back and they'll have like a monthly report, it's like, oh, we smash the metrics, we did twelve hundred row ads. Right. And it's like, that's great. Can you tell me how much of that you brought in? Because I just did ten million video views last week. Right. So that explains that to me. Can you tell me what you actually did for me? Yeah. And they often can't really tell me, but I do feel like even if it's only a little bit, there is still a return there. And I think that there is value in that. Especially in the retargeting, recapturing side, I would say I could see a lot of benefit for brand protection for you. Right. Because there's going to be people sabotaging your brand at some point. So one of the things that I think it makes sense to do some paid ads for and own some of those keywords is like there are other people who offer mixer parts. Right. Right. And they are leveraging my content against me. How so? They are. Well, I mean, they are. They're bringing product to market. They want it. You've proven that it's a validated. Listen, my stuff is more like there are places who offer the same product that I offer cheaper than what I offer. Right. But the difference is I am not selling you a part. I am selling you a white glove service and experience. Right. Like I walk you from, oh, shit, I just broke my mixer to. Yeah. Here is a diagnostic. Right. Send us a video. Let us listen to it. Here's what we think is wrong with it. Here's a video that walks you through every step of the way. Here are all the parts that you need here. We walk them through step by step by step. We hold their hand. They order the parts. They fix it. And if they have issue with the repair, we help them with after sales service and say, OK, we think this is what you did wrong or take a look. So if I buy a part from you, you have a call center. I can call and get tech support. Yes. Calls and emails. Yep. How busy is that? Busy, busy. And you don't charge for that. That is why I did not answer your Facebook request. Right. Yeah. I mean, we were missing. I just even today, I just had imagine I had someone say, I've tried to call you like three times. And do you answer the phone? It's like you just got unlucky because we're missing like 30, 40, 50 calls a day. How many calls a day are you guys getting? I mean, it varies right now, probably like 30 or 40. But like over the holiday season. Those are long phone calls. Yeah, they are. And over the holiday season, though, like which we're just coming out of that. Right. And it skews everything. But we were getting hundreds of calls a day. And there's three of us answering the phones as fast as we can. And you just you can't keep up on top of that. It's like 600, 800 emails a day coming in like crazy. You know what you need, Zach, is we need to have a call waiting AI receptionist that we train that's got all of your knowledge that says you're going to get to these people, but we have a backlog. Yes. And we believe you should talk to a real person. Yes. I can help you troubleshoot to a certain point while you're waiting. So I actually I wouldn't mind that. I am totally against AI or automated or robotic phone call like phone services. I get so mad when I call a company and like I'm just like press zero for an hour. I'm spamming it. Real person, real person, give me a real person. I get so mad. Zero, zero, zero. If I ever have a stroke, like it's going to be on the phone trying to talk to a, you know, it's like it drives me crazy. Yeah, it's like think of it the cyborg effect, though. It's not about getting rid of people. It's allowing your people to it's providing something that's better for your customers and helps your work environment that I think people that are figuring out that blend is going to be OK. Because here's the thing is a there's a certain level of frustration. There's a certain amount of your customers that are just going to go away and stop bothering you because they can't get through, which is sad. That's not either way. When you're a multi-billion dollar business and you can lose a customer, it's fine. But when you're a small guy, you want that in for every person that is for every business that is going to succeed using AI or automation. Another business is going to succeed just as well by having that personal touch. Sure. Because as humans, we crave that connection. You know, like when people call me like they they really want to connect. Like it's not always just about fixing the mixer. Like sometimes they want to tell me how their Tuesdays go. Right. And it's fine. Like what they just made with their mixer. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, you're right. Sometimes it's like, is this the best way for us to spend our time? Maybe not. But for me, like. Well, it builds the margin into your product. I mean, that it does profit like people will spend any amount of money where they think the value is greater than the money coming out of their pockets. And that's what you're creating. Essentially. Yeah. And I mean, we're kind of like a luxury type service. Right. And it's like I always tell people, if you have to tell people why you're a luxury service, you're not a luxury. You know, I don't have to explain this to people. And I do have a whole group of people that hate me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's it's honestly more. It's funny. It's funny. And I kind of troll these people sometimes. I'll talk about that, too. But you're talking people just bots on social. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Real NPC types, you know. No, they like there is a group of people out there who they see what I'm doing and they say, oh, I want to fix mixers, too. Right. They don't understand that my model is not set up to help you learn how to fix mixers and compete against me. Right. Sure. Like if someone wants to come up with a B2B model of what I'm doing. Great. And honestly, that's what those other that's what those other like parts platforms are for. Right. You go find the cheapest thing that you can find. Yeah. But that's that's been over for years. Yeah. Yeah. But that makes sense. So the B2B, a business that sells, you know, kitchen mixers. And they'll try and advertise their own services. And so I have to like I have to ban them. Right. It's like, OK, you're banned. And they all end up. They all end up getting banned. They all end up getting banned. They all end up getting banned. They all end up getting banned. They all end up getting banned. They're like, oh, I can help you. I'm so-and-so in this place. And it's like, well, first off, these are my customers. B, even if I wanted them to use you or was OK with that. How can I put my stamp of approval on someone who is like you've learned how to do this from my videos, but I have not. Put all the information out there. And I know there are a ton of issues because I constantly get mixers sent to me that were fixed locally. They're like, oh, yeah, I paid this local guy. And it was when I got it back, it was worse than when I brought it to them. Right. And so it's like I can't trust that. Right. And so in order to protect the customers on my platforms. I need to be the one to offer the information and offer the service. Right. Thanks. And so they hate me. And then they all end up in this one. There's another group of them. And it's like this this big circle jerk fest of these guys who are like, let's get together and hate Mr. Mixer. They call me a pariah. They say that I do. They have they like created anti Mr. Mixer channels or they have. No, it's like there's like one other like Facebook group where all these people get together and they do like and it just it lets me know that I did the right thing because they get on there and they post what they're doing and I see what they're doing. And I'm like, I would never do that in a million years. And they are very much like for me again, white glove service, super warranty, everything I do. Right. So if I fix a mixer for somebody and I send it home, if something happens in shipping. I pay out of my pocket to return that mixer to me. I fix it on my dime and I mail it back to them again. How long is your warranty on just the repair itself? Six months. And I think the traditional new mixer warranty is only a year anyways. Yeah, 12 months in the first year. Yeah, nothing. And they often try and find a way to get out of that warranty. Right. Oh, yeah. To where I'm very much like really no questions asked. And it's why retailers just eat the cost normally, even on major appliances. They'll just eat the cost because it's not worth fighting the manufacturer. And so I bring them in again. We have a really good team. We do really good work. We double check like every mixer that we repair goes through another like QC check. Shipping isn't always like the most friendly with the mixers. Right. So like they'll get we pack them really well. But it's not you. It's right here. And so sometimes we'll have things happen. But like we have the ability to take care of our customers. Right. And so it's fine. I don't have an issue with it since I don't pay for advertising. I often find that if I just eat these costs, that person is then going to go tell people, hey, this guy took care of me. He did great work. Right. Grassroots way to do it. Yeah. Because, you know, you you do a good job for somebody. You know, they might say something about you. They might recommend your service. If you do a bad job, they're telling everybody and their mother. Right. You've you've heard of super car guys. Yeah. And I just saw the guy, the brand ambassador, the guy that created that whole marketing campaign did it. So they would be hated because of a European market. Yeah. Okay. European company decided to be the most hated brand in Europe. And they blew up. And it was a big experiment because bad news travels faster than good. Yes. And so literally super car guys that blew up and everyone hated the commercials, hated the you know, just annoying. So, you know, I could be wrong here. And this might be more bad news. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty sure the actor in that. That's who. Yeah. Didn't he get caught for like hardcore drugs or something? Just got out. He's doing a documentary, actually. From what I see, he's doing doing good right now. But yeah, he he got some bad stuff. Good for him. Hopefully. Yeah. I think he's on the he is on the track for recovery. Yes. That is that's what he's doing and out now. But yeah, that's who it was actually who I met with at that time about their marketing. That's a that's a very interesting. I could never. No, no. I'm very much like I need you. I need you to like me. Right. I mean, like I struggle with us. Like if someone doesn't like me, I'm like, well, do you got to have some thick skin already, though? Because anytime you're putting content out regularly and you got that amount of followers and everybody that gets to that level, I feel like they talk about that pretty often. How they have to just learn how to not worry about even if it feels like it's a large percentage that hit on you. And this is why. Right. You know why. And why people start hating on someone is when they get to that, that you get to a level, you got to have confidence. It can come off arrogant, cocky, and we there's just some people, unfortunately, that don't like seeing other people ahead of them. And so it's a lot easier to tear people down and find something to hate on. I always tell people it's typically not a reflection of you. It's a reflection of that person. Right. Like when they're when they're saying something bad to you, they're actually pointing in the mirror and saying something bad about themselves, because, you know, a rational, sane person is not going to. Just tear someone down for no reason. Right. Like if I see something I don't like, there's been like one or two times where probably more than that. Or I'll start to type something. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm not an asshole. Right. And I'll delete it and I'll just swipe because it costs nothing to just swipe. Right. And I often find myself leaving positive comments where I can. Right. Because I think really positivity just wins at the end of the day. And some of the best negative, like the trolls, the best responses to trolls I've ever seen are when somebody responds with kindness. Right. To the point where they have nothing else they can say. Like, you just kind of, what do you do at that point? They already looked like a jerk. And then if you come in and you're just over the top kind because you got nothing to lose, you are obviously having a bad day. Yeah. This isn't about me. So I'm going to respond in a way that, you know, reminds you. It makes them even more mad most of the time. Oh, it does. But then everybody rallies around you. Yeah. That's the psychology of it, I think. Well, that's crazy. So talk to me about, from the organic side, are you monetized on any channels? Have you learned anything on that in the last five years? Yeah. So I am monetized on YouTube. I'm monetized on Facebook. Instagram doesn't monetize unless they have like the stars or the gifts that you can get or whatever. Gotcha. And they basically have to give you money. And then TikTok, I was monetized, but they changed it and they're like, you're a business and you're not a creator anymore. You're a business. And so you can't make any money. I mean, I'm going to say this. I'm going to sound like a dirtbag. It wasn't substantial. It was like $2,000 to $3,000 a month, which to most people, I mean, do the math, right? That's $25,000, $30,000. I mean, there's a lot of work that goes into that. So you get zero from TikTok because you are a business, not a creator. That's good to know. I didn't know they separated that. A lot of that starts with like the TikTok shop. So I do sell quite a bit on there. And so I really think that that's where they kind of like draw the line. That makes sense. Because then you have affiliates that can also promote your products and they've got a pretty cool ecosystem in there as far as selling product on the shop and the affiliate. I know some people that have had some luck with that, giving up free product and then people being ambassadors. I actually don't allow people to do that for my stuff. And yours is such a niche. It's so niche. People did do it. I never gave it away for free, but I did give for a while. Unless you specifically say, I don't want people to do this, it gives the option when you list a product for someone to do that. So it's a setting you have to go change. It just got to the point to where I don't remember why. Somehow it was negatively impacting me. So I was just like, I'm not going to allow for that option. And it wasn't bringing in anything extra, really. That's interesting. Because all this is fascinating to me, and I think there's a lot of anybody young that's going to watch this. There's a lot of people just chasing being an influencer, getting monetized, getting brand deals, which is obviously not the core of your business. But between YouTube, Facebook, what's your biggest monetization channel? You don't have to share numbers. No, it's not a lot. None of them really do that much. I think my biggest month ever on Facebook, and this is with getting 10 or 12 million views or 14 million views in one month was only like 4,000 bucks or something. I would say on average, Facebook and YouTube, maybe 1,200, 1,500, maybe 2,000 on the typical month. That's cool, though. I mean, it's better than nothing. Right. Well, it just helps you reinvest in marketing, is kind of where my head is as a business. You can look at that money and say, well, I should probably up my game on this or invest in this with that money, that revenue source, just putting it back. Because it's just a profit share of the ads they're making money on on you. They should give you more, a higher percentage. You need to go negotiate that. Like I said, I bet it's other parts places who are putting ads on my videos. I mean, you're getting a portion of your competitors' ads. Realistically, I've tried to find a way, I know this is going to sound terrible, to try to find a way to monopolize the parts. Because what I'm doing did not exist before I started doing it. So I now work with the biggest distributor in the U.S. And we are now the number one distributor of KitchenAid mixer parts. We buy more and sell more than anybody else. And these guys are like, whoa, what are you doing? We didn't even stock these SKUs before you started doing this. And so we created the market. And there are a ton of these other places that sell parts that are now profiting off of the sweat of my back. I mean, capitalism, right? But it doesn't sit well with me because it's like I created this market. I'm disrupting a billion-dollar industry and someone else is able to profit off of it. But it also gives all of those people that hate me a leg to stand on because you can get it for here for less. And talk about that, energy, time, calories spent on that. What is that? Is it worthy of your time to figure out how to mitigate competitors or is that not the mindset? Yeah, so I've already – the plan is already in motion. So I am the only person in the world who has a demand for this many mixer parts. I'm the only person in the world who understands the market at the level that I understand it. Because no one else is doing – when I say I have competitors, they're not competitors. They're working on their counters. There's not a lot of money in mixer repair, to be honest. And all of these people are in East Coast, West Coast type people. The overhead there is too crazy. The overhead is crazy. The labor is expensive. It will always be a side gig most likely. It will always be a side gig, right? And so that's one of the other reasons they hate me is they don't understand the level of overhead that you have to carry when it's like you have multiple buildings. You have insurance. You have 20 employees. It's like have you guys seen my payroll? Do you know this is why I have – I used to charge what you're charging. I can no longer do that because you get to a point where it's like you have to have this. Otherwise, the business doesn't exist. But anyways, I am the only person who knows the market like I know it. They've made some changes to some of the models. They've discontinued some of the models. There's probably 80 million of these mixers out there on the market, and they're going to discontinue some of the parts, and I know what those parts are. And I will be the only person with the foresight. As a matter of fact, I am spending my entire bankroll from last year. I actually just took out roughly a $2 million SBA loan. I told you I'm taking a big bite. I'm going on. I'm buying these parts because I know that I will be the only person. Some of these parts are already no longer in production. Gotcha. We have the connection to be able to say, hey, I know that you're stopping these. We want to do one last large production run. If we do 50,000 units, will you make it for us? And they are. So you get past that point someday, which will take a while. It sounds like a lot. That's about three years. That's three years. Yeah, so what's after three years on that? Well, it's not after three years. It's after the minute we pull the trigger on this. I have manufacturers. I've actually invented my own parts. I've invented my own components. And so I have a manufacturing team. And the minute that we pull the trigger on all of this, I'm going to say, hey, here you go. You got three years, guys. Figure this out. I have to have it in three years. Otherwise, the ship is sunk. Got it. Perfect. So there's a ton of parts that we're going to manufacture ourselves. Overseas, I'm assuming, for most of that stuff. Listen, yeah, that's a touchy subject. Manufacturing here in the U.S. is difficult. It's expensive. The price per unit isn't always crazy different, but the mold building is wild. And especially when I'm trying to bring out a product that parts aside, when I bring out my own inventions or my own products, I'm bringing out a product that there's not a market for it. I'm creating the market. The product doesn't exist. And luckily, all of them have done really well. The one time I decided to do a mold in the U.S. and the product flops, I mean, you're out immediately like $100,000 for a mold, even for something simple. And then they also want you to do a minimum of 10,000 units. So by the time all is said and done, you've got $150,000, $180,000 in a product that you don't even know if it's going to sell. And again, from my experience, depending on what the product is, if it's like aluminum metal, if it's bending, cutting, or plastic, plastic is where it gets really tough. The plastics, and I don't know what you call the plastics, like acrylic or whatever, but those molds I've heard are nuts. I've never done anything like that. It gets very expensive. You can't even do stainless steel in the U.S. You can't. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense. Well, no, there is no stainless steel manufacturers in the U.S. Gotcha. I've tried to get products. I'm like, hey, I need this, and nobody does it. You have to do it in like a third world. I'm following you now. You're not talking about just like a simple add-on, accessory add-on, like a full product build would be. That would be insane. Yeah. That would be cool, though. Yeah, it is cool. Hey, one of these days I'm going to manufacture my own mixer, too. Yes, of course. You should. That's where I'm headed. Mr. Mixer. That's where I'm headed, but, like, you know, we've established it is expensive to manufacture. I don't have $5 million or $8 million, and that's like to just get the first thousand done. That's just the tooling for your products is to build the first thousand. But, yeah, building for your legacy and what you're building, I think building branded products that can outlive you, or if you, for some reason, can't make video content someday, your whole business model changes. It's very reliant of your visibility. Yes. But if you can create products that travel as far as your face does, then you're set. You know, the goal is like we've already established the model, right? Luckily, we have this vehicle that is the KitchenAid mixer to prove the model and prove the market. Luckily, the reason I exist is because their product has, like all appliances, has kind of gone downhill over time, right? It's no longer a 30-year product, right? Right. Yeah. So, A, that kind of like is, hey. Secures your business model. Because all of these people that have these mixers that are 10, 20, 30 years old, they don't want a new one. They want to rebuild it because they're like, hey, if I rebuild it, I'm getting at least another decade. You know, that's why, interestingly enough, the washer, specifically washers, is a huge booming thing now. There's guys that have made a ton of money in their garage just fixing old washers that don't have all the sensors, the water. Because those old timers on washers, you know, those are outlawed. You're not legally allowed to manufacture with that timer anymore that allowed all the water to dump. That's pretty crazy. So those washers will go for a couple grand in the aftermarket. Yeah. That used to sell for $500. Yeah. Just because they can find a probably maybe illegal timer. So I don't know where they're getting these timers, but I think they figured out how to repurpose other timers. Right. On to these units because they stopped making the part. But that's very – you're in a similar position. I imagine it's a very simple mechanism. It is. It's just literally a timer. Like you start it and then there's – I can't remember what the – Something like a solenoid or something. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But that's an interesting – I hadn't thought about that for your business model. That's 100 percent correct. Yeah, because if you can get exclusive to part – if you can hold on to parts and make parts that nobody ever makes again. Right. Yeah. And not just that, but when I do make my own mixer, I just do the same thing. First off, I make a quality mixer, right? Sure. Well – I'll have to sell it for more. I mean that kind of doesn't work well for your business model. You need to make a crappy mixer so you can fix it. No. So I would make it similar to like – so I think where KitchenAid has problems is that they have to sell a record number of mixers every year in order for their house not to topple in on it, right? I think – and I've proven the market for myself. For premium. I don't know how much they make off of like – I don't know how much it costs them to build a mixer and what the profit is from the mixer to the end customer. I know what my profit margins are, pretty decent, and I sit there and look at it. It's like why are they not using like the Ford model, right? So like Ford doesn't make money off of selling new cars. They make money off of the fleet of the hundreds of millions of vehicles that are out there and they are selling all of the parts to keep things alive, right? Yeah. So that's how I would envision my mixer coming to market. It would be so easy to fix. The parts are readily available. That makes sense. I would make it to where like – at the end of the day, a machine is going to break down. A machine is going to break down. It's going to need service. I would do the same thing. I would make it serviceable. I would make the parts available. But I would make it something that you have to try to break, right? Like I don't want it to be like something that – it's like I was mixing a little bit of dough and it overheated, right? Like I don't want to introduce all of these like tiny plastic components that can fail, right? I want to build something robust and I think – Just building something that's made to be repaired is a step above a lot right now. So that's why I have a lot of admiration for KitchenAid or for many brands really that do that because a lot of mixers – the reason – I only fix KitchenAids. One of the reasons – well, there are so many of them out there and I'm so busy that I don't have time to do anything else. But there are a lot of brands that do not offer parts. It's very much a throwaway machine, right? And some of them are just as expensive or not more expensive than KitchenAids. So it's like – I feel like if you're releasing a product that costs $500, $800 or $1,000, like I should be able to repair that. I agree. It's what happened to the TV industry. There used to be TV repair shops everywhere and there's maybe one or two left in Wichita. I don't even know if there's – I think one maybe. The Seiner's or whatever down there. Hefner's. Or Hefner's. Oh, wait. Seiner's is the fishing shop right next to it. Oh, gotcha. Hefner's, that's what it is. Well, two things. One, my father-in-law came and bought a mixer from you a couple years ago, refurbished one for my wife that's in our kitchen. It's still working? Oh, yeah. OK. There's a testament to what we do. He went there. He was so excited about it. He met you. He told me about this last night, which was perfect. I'm like – he said, who's your next podcast? I'm like, Mr. Mixer. He goes – he's like, no way. He's like, tell him to say hi. I love that. I love buying that there. He's like, Sam, that's a cool setup. But yeah, we've got that mixer there, and then I 3-D printed this as an ask for you. Yes, yes, yes. You need to figure out how to make these. I know exactly what that is. So I know exactly what this is, and we are working on it. Beautiful, because they need to be better than this, and I hate the cord. And so what this is, it's not my thing. It's just a free print on my 3-D printer. But this will wrap the KitchenAid cord, and I hate when we move it under the counter. The cord is just so – What do you do with it? Let me tell you. Let me tell you. I had these, right? Oh, you did? I did. But they weren't my product. They were one that I was buying, and they're all made – they're just – okay. So they're all made out of like a silicone, and so they're too flexible. Right. So when you go to wrap the cord around it, it flexes and it peels the adhesive tape off, and then they fall off. I assume when I saw the picture of these, they connect with that tape. They're just going to fall off. And so my thoughts are I want to make it out of metal because, A, I just like metal. I make several parts out of metal already that I have a few different colors of each one. So I want to make it to where you can accessorize, right? So like you buy this Mr. Mixer bundle. The right color. Yeah. It's like whether it's chrome or black or – How would you attach it? Like a self-tapped screw? No. So I think it would still have to be adhesive. Okay. But I think that you can – when you use metal and you use a really strong adhesive, the good news is that if the adhesive fails, you can just get a new strip of adhesive, right? Oh, sure. But those little – the silicone ones, even with new adhesive, they would just fall off really quick. Yeah. I could see that warping and bending happening better. Yeah. Which like even with like whatever the PETG or whatever the strong filament is. Yeah. I assume eventually it would just break. I am working on one of these. As a matter of fact, this is the product that I was talking about when I said in the U.S. it costs $100,000 to mold this. Oh, yeah. Just to stamp one of these. Yeah. That's what it was. So that's funny. Yeah, because you kind of want it all uniform. But it's like my biggest like annoyance of any countertop appliance. Working on it. Cool. I'm working on it. There you go. Well, thank you. That was my ask. Yeah. Just for you. Yeah, just for me. Give me – I want to be the first call. Yeah. First pre-order. A hundred percent. Yep. You'll be the tester. I feel like you'll probably come on again because I feel like we have way more to talk about. Oh, I don't – I feel like we have scratched the surface on what we have going on. And I think there's a ton of topics we could cover that would be super helpful for business owners. Sure. And that's the goal of this podcast is just talking to people that have built stuff, learned, made mistakes. Not specifically your secret sauce to your trade, but bigger. Right. Like the headaches you've learned and – A lot of them. Yeah, your story is awesome and I want to respect your time. But will you come on again? Yeah, absolutely. In the future, come up with – I have some other topic ideas that I think would be really fun. I like – I would tell you one of the reasons why I wanted to come on here is the level of production, right? Like I saw some of those and I was like, man, this is good production. All the other podcasts that I have been on typically have been like through my webcam on my laptop. Yeah, like on a Zoom call. Yeah, like very, very bad. But I like the level of production. Thank you. I think you guys are doing some cool stuff here and yeah, I'm here for it. I'll come back for sure. Appreciate it. Yeah. Well, kudos to Tyler Norris, our producer, and Tyler Brickley, our branding guy that they set all this up for us. I have no idea. I just know how to push the button. Yeah. That's about all I know. Yeah. But no, appreciate that. You talk – you're eloquent. Yeah, you carry yourself well. No one has ever said that. No. You do a good job, man. You do a good job. Thank you. No, I appreciate it. I'm excited to get to know you more. First time I've ever met you and don't be a stranger. We'll stay in touch. You got it. OK. All right. Thank you, Zach. Appreciate you.