Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to the Slogans Podcast, where we love to talk quality and design. But most of all, we love to hear the inspiring stories of the masters of these spaces. Join me, your host, Logan Ratcliffe, as we talk about main adventure business and we explore with these creators the different aspects of quality and design and everything around them together. Today, I thought I would just talk about the origins of Rope Company and Slow Goods podcast and why we're doing these things and what makes us us, what makes us tick, why we're here, what we're doing, what we're passionate about. Our story starts. My wife and I really started this business together and I'll talk about kind of her side first.
[00:00:47] We're from Mid Coast, Maine, she's from Friendship, I'm from St. George and we both grew up in generational fishing families, some boat building, some rope making.
[00:01:03] Hannah's side. Her dad owns a lobster wharf.
[00:01:09] She is a Lash, part of the Lash Brothers boat building, who was famous for a while, still is.
[00:01:19] And I just really appreciate her family. They're very special to me and it's a large family. Her grandfather had 13 brothers and sisters, so it's a huge part of friendship and it's a really special place down there and just really kind giving people and a lot of captains in her family.
[00:01:42] And Hannah has a great natural eye for design, making things beautiful and styling.
[00:01:53] I'm just so thankful for her. In many ways, she's just this amazing wife God gave me and what her part of this company has been. When we first got into this, there was people making other doormats, maybe similar products, but it was a lot of bright colors and coastal nichey type of stuff.
[00:02:24] And we were able to too.
[00:02:27] But we got into really a lot of more design, forward oriented colors. And I would say she has really been a huge, probably the main person that pushed that forward.
[00:02:40] And she also just has an eye for detail and intention. And I go to her for so many things, just hiring and talking with team members and she's got a different emotional intelligence than me. And, you know, we're really a team and we have two girls, Tess and Caroline, three and five, and they're just a huge blessing. And then my side is, like I said, I grew up in St. George, actually really close to Radcliffe Island. We do not own the island. There was no Radcliffe Island Island. I do not know the history of why it was named. Same as our last name.
[00:03:23] But anyway, I grew up right on the ocean.
[00:03:28] And from the little point we were on, we're on this kind of COVID and there was six or seven houses we could see, maybe eight.
[00:03:43] And all but one of those were all Rackliffe's. And it was a good little neighborhood. And there were some kids around my age.
[00:03:52] But this cove would drain pretty much all the way out every day. And then where you could still see the ocean, but this cove right in front of us, a little island in front of us, two little islands right in front of us.
[00:04:04] And it's funny thinking now and looking back you didn't realize that was just normal to me. And now I'm fully understanding how amazing that was and what a blessing it is.
[00:04:21] So that was the scene. And I'd always hear stories of my great grandfather's brother who owned kind of the furthest point on the mainland there. They used to have a fishware out there, so they would build this big, like basically at a wall, they would put these boards and run a wall out in the water and when the tide would come in, it open up the door. And as there were so many fish back then, herring would come in, or Manhattan or whatever it was, which lobstermen call pogeys. Nobody really knows why they call them pogies. They're called, you know, they'd fill that up and that would be their bait to go haul their lobster traps with or to sell to some of their friends to go lobstering with.
[00:05:11] And so I'd hear about those wares a lot. They would have other ones off other islands, but it was a working family and team. There was two or three little wharfs in that cove and they'd do everything there. They would bait up their boats there, put their bait there, they'd make traps. When they made traps, it was like a family day or a neighborhood day, they'd all get together. Those were wooden traps back then and they would tar, they would bend wood and anyway put the traps together. But it was Quintessential Nostalgic fishing area village, and most of it's still there today. Some of the wharfs have fallen in a little bit and obviously they're not used like they used to. They're bigger wharfs now and that one's really tidal. It's difficult, but most of it's still there today. My parents are in their same house, the houses are there. They're not all owned by family anymore, but it's a really neat place.
[00:06:30] And then where my wife grew up, she grew up also right on the water.
[00:06:35] Her dad decided to build a commercial lobstering wharf right next to their house. And that's where they still are today. There's a house and then 50ft away is the ocean, the nice little beach. And then further down the point a little bit is a nice wharf that comes right off and they have ten or twelve guys there that go off that wharf. So it's very busy and it's just so neat. Her brother goes lobstering and there's a wharf right next door and another wharf and it's just a very tight lobstering community.
[00:07:17] And then she has all that heritage with boat building and duck decoy making, and I think there's also some captains in there, but these quaint.
[00:07:34] Local main towns are just friendship is more of a town. You could walk around, go to a store and get things. Where I grew up, you could walk to your neighbor's house, but you had to go to town to get supply. So a little different, but just really special places and with special kind people, just helpful people. And I only tell that because that's what we all love. I feel like that's what everybody loves, and that's the ideal they want to get to.
[00:08:09] That's the nostalgia of Maine that is really trying to get to peace, tranquility and contentment and being outdoors and working with your hands and seems like what we're made to do. And it was just such a blessing as a child to be able to live through that. And hopefully, Lord willing, our kids will be able to do the same.
[00:08:39] And I think they're mostly doing that now. We're not right on the water. We're in friendship now. We do plan to build something closer to the water, but every time Hannah and I go somewhere together special, it's always basically in just a coastal town in, you know, we love it, we're thankful for it.
[00:09:02] My dad's side, I'm fifth generation lobsterman. My dad was a lobsterman. His dad was a lobsterman. His dad was and there's boat captains in there, different things like that, but basically just the quintessential living on the main coast lobstering family. And then there's my mom and her father. So my mom's father huge influence on many, many people.
[00:09:32] My great grandfather came over from England my grandfather's father came over from England after the war, and he used to work in lace factories. And he was an excellent lace maker. He came over here and started making lace.
[00:09:49] It's a very involved process, and lace was a really high quality item.
[00:09:57] Anyway, he was good at making lace, but he was not a great businessman.
[00:10:03] He wasn't very good with people. He's kind of mean by many accounts.
[00:10:12] So my grandfather apprentice worked in that lace shop his whole life. This was in Rhode Island.
[00:10:20] And he would always talk with his dad.
[00:10:28] My grandfather had just he was very capable. And, uh, so he kept talking his dad, what he should be doing differently. And his dad actually sent him to New York to work with the Jews and the Jewish culture people there, because they really knew New York, not New York. They really knew business.
[00:10:55] So he went up and prenticed with them, learning about the lace industry and business.
[00:11:01] So then, anyway, he came back to continue working at his dad's mill. So I said, hey, dad, we got to do this, we got to do that. And he goes and his dad said, well, if you're so bloody smart, why don't you run the company? So he said, well, I will. And he's 18 years old, so part of the hard knocks, especially back then, but with him and this family.
[00:11:28] My grandfather went to make payroll on the first week and there was no money in the account. And he said, dad, what's going on here?
[00:11:39] And he said, well, if you're so smart you can run the company, try running it without any was. It was hard learning back.
[00:11:52] So my grandfather found out a way with some of the guys he worked with in New York to borrow some money. And his dad never asked him how he got it, but he kept the company going. So anyway, lace industry, he runs that company for a long time, moves it up to Maine, where they used to vacation and they loved and close to where I live now, and actually where my father's rope mill stands now.
[00:12:22] So he moves it up here, they move the whole family up here and they just about get it going. These are huge machines, a lot of moving. And the lace industry starts basically falling apart.
[00:12:36] It gets replaced by a cheaper, not as well made item that looks kind of similar.
[00:12:42] So that kind of starts going by the wayside.
[00:12:46] My grandfather was just this very, just innovative guy. What is the next thing he can make? And he was really capable.
[00:12:53] So he had already been starting on some other things. He had started getting into rope making.
[00:13:00] Him and his brother and his dad got into in the lobstering industry, how you haul traps up from the bottom of the ocean there's rope is connected with a buoy down to the how you haul that up now is all hydraulics. And we just call it a hauler in the lobstering industry. So the hauler we have now is actually my grandfather and his brother. They invented together. I mean, there was already that type of hydraulics around and similar things, but they made it specifically for the lobstermen. So they had that going too. I'm not sure the timing of all this, but it was around the time the lace industry died.
[00:13:41] So they got that going. They had a rope company they had just started called Crow Rope, and that was from scratch. My grandfather found this old guy in Rhode Island that kind of knew how to make rope. And they first used kind of, I think, recycled materials and spun it and the rope was okay. But he learned how to make rope.
[00:14:08] I believe that was in the 60s.
[00:14:11] So in the 70s they really get crow rope going. That is my grandfather's rope company. And his brother takes a hydraulic company. He takes the rope company and he goes on to grow it and to the point where in the mid eighty s to the mid 90s, they were the biggest rope manufacturer, I believe. Don't nail me down on a solid quote here. At least in the United States, could have been worldwide, I'm not positive. But they were a large company. They had over 500 people and right here locally in Maine, which was really neat.
[00:14:50] So they made a lot of products. I mean, they sold from everywhere, from chain grocery stores to local lobstermen. And that's what he loved to do. He was always trying to make the next thing. And when that got to be too much, he sold that company around 1995.
[00:15:11] And my father then a few years later, with all of my grandfather's knowledge, which wasn't his father, but his father in law, and some of the people that used to be part of Crow Rope, they could see that there was still this need, especially for the local market, for a good they called potwap lobster rope. So my father started his own rope mill, much smaller, but took all the best ideas from like 30 or 40 years of innovation and made these machines and used these concepts that had been developed and made a great mill. So much of the rope making in New England, in this country, maybe even outside the country, came from Crow Rope, him and his team.
[00:16:05] And having him in my life was I mean, I spent a lot of time with him. We would go to he had, like a houseboat. We called it a used yacht. And we would go to Vinyl Haven almost every weekend in the summer. I had this amazing childhood I was blessed with that I'm really thankful for.
[00:16:29] And we would go to Vinylhaven or North Haven or wherever, somewhere in Maine, and we'd anchor up and spend the weekend and go clamming and fishing and whatever else we might do and just spend time on the boat together. But he was always talking about what we wanted to do.
[00:16:52] I don't know about what we want to do, just more passionate about having your own business and making things. And he always treated us like adults, as children and always had great projects ready for us and couldn't wait to do them and whether it's making something out of plaster or I remember one year we did these intense glass candy, gingerbread houses and all these different things. But he was really a neat guy, and he was very forward. He wasn't perfect like any of us and could certainly come off as rash and maybe rude to a lot of people. But he was also very encouraging. As my grandfather's company was growing Crow Rope, sometimes competitors would go out of business and he'd buy all their stuff and he would send a lot of times my father out during the winter, and he would go basically disassemble all their machines, bring them back up and get them going.
[00:18:02] So my dad learned a ton through that and also during all that. So there was a one piece of equipment that my grandfather didn't want to use, and he gave to my mom and dad, and my father got that going, which made a monofilament fiber that made like, backpack straps, and that was a good business for a while. My dad started this, like I said, he would go down as a lobsterman. It was very quiet in the winter. Now guys go more year round, there's more to catch. But at that time, there wasn't any money to make.
[00:18:33] So in the wintertime, my grandfather would send him to someplace that he had bought, and he would disassemble all the machinery and bring it back to Maine and put it together and help get it going.
[00:18:49] And he was always naturally very mechanically inclined, and he's just a super capable guy that with electrical, mechanical things, definitely entrepreneur oriented mindset, very bold and gutsy. Is not scared to make moves, but also is very realistic.
[00:19:12] So he started Highliner Rope, which is still running today, where my grandfather's lace mill first was and which burned down. My dad built a different building, but I couldn't be more thankful for my dad.
[00:19:29] He always took me hunting and fishing. We did everything together, and we'd talk about business sub, but he never pushed it on me to be an entrepreneur.
[00:19:43] He just showed me in his work and what he did, what it was to be one.
[00:19:50] And I lived and saw the pros and cons. Yeah, you can get a lot of time off and create your own schedule at times, but other times you might be doing 100 hours and have the stress of making payroll. And when things go wrong, it's all on you and how that affects you and your family. So he's a great guy, and I'm thankful for him. And he continues to run the business today, and he's got a good team. He's been obviously a huge influence on me.
[00:20:26] So he started as a lobsterman. He was a lobsterman. Of course, like I said earlier, same time, just as soon as he get on a boat, he was lobstering. He graduated early from high school. I think he was 16 or 17 because he wanted to go lobstering. So he did everything he had to do to graduate early. And so he came out, and I think he went really hard.
[00:20:50] I think he was making more money than his teachers by the time he got done in high school at the time. And he built a 40 1ft boat, which at the time was like unheard of. A 34 foot boat was a big one. And so he was just always kind of innovative in that way, and gutsy. He always worked hard, very hard. And he loved lobstering. He loved what it was. He loved the pure fishing and that he can make some money.
[00:21:21] It did become where there was a lot more. It wasn't what he was used to, so he didn't like it as much. And the rope company had started was doing well enough. So he did kind of retire. I don't know if you ever fully retire as a lobsterman. You always kind of keep your license and it's out there and it's part of your roots. But he did stop a few years ago and just runs the highliner rope now. And they make quality rope, a lot of rope with a few guys. And they would sell to local fishermen, local lobstermen and some crab fishermen in Florida and things like that. Then coming up to me, going through school, high school, I went to college, everybody told me to go to college.
[00:22:14] And that was just what you did then I guess that was what they were told to do. So I go to college and I go for construction engineering, which I figured by the end of it I did not like.
[00:22:28] And so I come out and I go lobstering.
[00:22:32] But around the dinner tables is always just talking about business all the time was a lot of talking about business, and especially my it wasn't like always hardcore business, you might think of it, but a lot of encouragement. My grandfather is basically trying to get everybody, every person in his family, to start their own business and had tons of ideas. So one of these ideas, when he had crow rope, he started making these rope doormats a little bit and they never put a lot of effort into it.
[00:23:13] So my grandfather was trying to get somebody in our family to make these rope doormats, especially where my dad made rope, seemed like a pretty good combination.
[00:23:24] So a couple of people kicked it around and I was lobstering, and it seemed like nobody else wanted to do it. And I knew I wanted to start my own business.
[00:23:35] So I said, this is the best opportunity I have.
[00:23:39] So we started, and me and my stern man, when you go lobstering, you have a team helpers.
[00:23:46] Call them stern men. Me and my stern men.
[00:23:52] Thankfully, my dad made us some rope and gave us big terms to pay them to pay it and good price. Thanks, dad. And that's another thing. You can't listen to any entrepreneurs. Not that we've made it big or anything, but people have had help. There's bootstrap people out there, but people have had good breaks, blessings, help. Whether or not they talk about it, there's always a lot of help, and we're very grateful for that. So we didn't know what we were doing. We had all these random colors and threw these mats together. I can't remember if we made 500 or 1000, but I'm trying to figure out what to do.
[00:24:38] How do we start selling these things? So somehow I found out to go to this local show in Maine, new England Maine Products Show.
[00:24:46] And we go and people, lo and behold, start showing up to our booth and buying some things. Very exciting. And I can remember that. I remember the first person that came up to a booth. I'm like, how are these people going to be? Are they going to be like hardcore business people? Like, trying to work me down.
[00:25:06] The first guy that came up to a booth, this guy saw a lot of other shows, too.
[00:25:14] He said, what are your prices? Very sternly. And I think I just told him our prices, and he just kind of went upside. He went up me one side and down the other and just kind of was very mean. And I was like, wow, this is a good start to just this whole venture.
[00:25:36] But the rest of the show, everybody was really nice, and that was a very rare thing.
[00:25:41] So that was it. That was 2013, in March, and we really just started this out of an entrepreneur opportunity, I would say.
[00:25:52] And pretty quickly we started learning. And because we had the capability, which most didn't necessarily have, but this is where my wife's eye, Hannah's eye, comes in. But a lot of people were doing the bright colors and more like coastal lobstering vibe, which is great. But one thing I did know, I knew we had to sell things, but I knew we had to differentiate. Why would they buy our stuff?
[00:26:25] Like everybody's already doing these other things?
[00:26:29] So we really got into the really design forward patterns. Colors really was about color, a lot of neutrals. The brights are really cool and a lot are really pretty, and you have to be very careful how you put those together. And they're great for beaches and cottages.
[00:26:47] They're good for a lot of things, but you don't always want to pull the trigger on those brights for your house.
[00:26:55] A lot of times most of us want to be safe and get a neutral color that matches the house and everything and blends timelessly. So we really just kept leaning into that more. I was lobstering full time.
[00:27:10] We got married, started this business right after we got married. Got married in September of 2012. And when we launched this spring of 2013, so lobstering doing this, we were making some mats, and we hired some people in house, and that didn't work out so great. Then we got into more of the cottage industry people making these at their homes, which we had a great family or two making those, and we're really thankful for.
[00:27:47] Yeah, storing, boxing, shipping, lobstering, doing it all, hannah and I, and it was a lot, and it was tiring. And there was times you're just like, what am I even doing this for? We're making you money.
[00:28:06] At least we didn't take any money out of the company for a long time, years, but I knew we just had to keep sales growing.
[00:28:19] I didn't know much about business, but I did know that.
[00:28:22] But there was many times, three or four years into it, just like then I hired a business consultant, and he was very expensive locally anyway, and he basically called it a hobby. And there was a point there. I had him for two or three years like, hey, this is no longer a hobby. Now you can call this a business.
[00:28:47] And it was a lot, but there's a lot of good things. Going to the trade shows is good. They're also exhausting. They're certainly not the fairy tale you think they're going to be. When you go to these different trade shows and you're going to go out and visit a bunch of things, it's mostly like we get there, spend the minimal amount of time and go to work, and you work hard and you meet a lot of good people, but it is many times exhausting. I remember going, we'd go to this trade show in Atlanta and one time I hauled through my traps at that time was three days. I was exhausted. Flew down to Atlanta that night, started setting up, set up some the next day, flew home, hauled for three days and then flew back down, set up the rest of my booth, and then did the show for a week.
[00:29:47] And I was very tired at first. We're bringing these into my dad's boat shop, warehousing them, throwing them in boxes. Boxes basically would push at the time was 70 pounds was the limit until you got an overcharge.
[00:30:04] So pretty much every box is 55 to 70 pounds.
[00:30:08] And I just remember coming in from lobstering and needing to pack like 13 or 14 boxes and just being run down. And thankfully Hannah would help sometimes.
[00:30:22] But you get to those moments again where you're just like, is this worth it? What are we really doing here?
[00:30:29] Not that everything's about making money, but at that time it certainly was more about making money than anything for us and surviving just to have a business.
[00:30:42] So you got to work through those things. I started trying to become a true business owner, so I really started studying the craft of business and being a leader entrepreneur. I started listening to a lot of great podcasts. Entree Leadership was a great one, and they get you on a lot of other good resources and it's like, why do we exist?
[00:31:02] We don't want to just do this to make money.
[00:31:06] So, boy, I've wrestled with that for many years. And so we had to basically start forming this company into something like, why do we exist? And even if what we're doing right now doesn't line up, how do we get it there?
[00:31:24] So started going through a lot of that kind of process, figuring out what we're passionate about, what we're great at, what our niche is, maybe what we're experts at, and why we want to show up to work every day and do what we do. And come to find out we're really passionate about quality and design.
[00:31:47] We love making things look really well. We want them to be intentionally made. We love when they have a story that they're very practical, functional, form and function.
[00:32:00] And to really get like, passion going, I think of my grandfather, the one that had crow rope.
[00:32:11] I can remember being in his garage. He would always buy so after he sold the company, he never stopped working. He'd buy these old machines. It might be a knitting machine or braider, which makes rope.
[00:32:23] All these different machines that would manufacture different types of products made with like fiber.
[00:32:30] He had tons of ideas, but I can remember being in the garage with him mid ninety s and he'd be working on something.
[00:32:41] He might have a wrench or something and you have a bolt and you're trying to turn a wrench and the bolt would round or the wrench would break or something would round in there where it wasn't good anymore and it would cause a lot of headaches and problem. I can remember him looking at that and saying, yep, made in China. And he chucked that thing and that was really the start, like products going. It was this period in time of products that we didn't even know anything different. I think in America at the time, they were just making quality stuff because that's what people wanted. It was this transition into, hey, we're going to make the stuff look the same, but now it doesn't really work. That know, we were very passionate about making really good stuff and that's the only way we want to make it.
[00:33:43] We're not the original creators of Rope Doormats and so we're thankful for the people ahead of us. But I also saw as I looked at Rope Doormats, I was like, we wanted to be different, so we made them differently. But also I was like, I think these things can be really nice, like next level nice.
[00:34:02] So we just were really intense about quality and how the corners were and how the mat lays and everything else.
[00:34:12] So we're really passionate about that.
[00:34:15] And then we got to combine what I cannot leave out about the origin of the rope company and myself and my wife is nothing I can't explain any better than just God. God and we're people of faith.
[00:34:34] I gave my life to Christ when I was 20 years old and it took me a while to really kind of walk with Him and have a relationship with God.
[00:34:47] I would say. I didn't really do that till I was 27, 28. I started the business when I was 24.
[00:34:55] And so that's our why.
[00:35:04] That's what makes us everything is God's. And we're a steward, you know, this business we're be a steward of for Him, to glorify Him so people can see Him through us.
[00:35:19] So that's how we see it, that this business is his and we want to do all we can with it for Him, which really means taking care of others, helping others, being others, focused, having integrity, knowing God's word and doing our best to live by that. Of course we're not perfect and we screw up all the. Time and if you ever meet me, you will see where I'm not perfect in many ways and I'm sure maybe even a hypocrite many times and maybe but certainly and those things combined, that is ROI why I get up. So I want to make the best company I can and treat our team and everybody we come in contact the best I can and be others focused and a lot of times that doesn't come super easy to me but incorporating that with the company that shows and we've just more started doing is giving. Well, we've been giving for a while, but of our time and hours and not just in support and financial support for other places. So we want to get into the local community and really do some good things for people and support good causes. So I'd say that's our biggest why. That doesn't mean that every member of our team forever, for always, we don't expect them to have the same faith, nor would we discriminate in any way of people who don't. But they would certainly need to know that when they signed up about what the founders and what we're really ultimately trying to do as owners of the company.
[00:37:17] But we love timeless, functional, practical, beautiful items and making really good stuff for people that want beauty.
[00:37:35] They want something to last.
[00:37:40] That's what we want to do. That's who we are. And that's why we started this podcast also.
[00:37:49] So that's our why, that's why we're here. That's what we talk about now in our meetings and we're excited about it. A huge thing to us is finding the right partners one way in sales.
[00:38:09] We experimented with a couple of rep groups, so we initially started selling just wholesale, just to stores and then they would resell it. And we experiment with a couple of rep groups so you can hire a rep group and then they go and sell your stuff with you. But our reputation is everything and we're trying to create a special brand and a special thing entity and the reputation is everything. So we don't know who these people are. Hire a rep group, you don't know each person and what they're doing and how they represent you.
[00:38:50] So we really have never not gone that way.
[00:38:57] We did just recently hire a salesperson and I mean, they are the face of the company, right? They need to have the same core values that you have.
[00:39:10] But these partnerships, other people that are really passionate about and their customers about making great stuff and buying great stuff that you take at home and maybe you use it a lot, maybe you don't.
[00:39:33] I think quality, a lot of times a great indicator of quality is that you don't even notice it. It's just doing its job. Everything we design, create is very intentional. Like, we just created this runner size doormat and I don't believe there's anything else there out there really like it. You have your normal things that go with the double doors of sliders.
[00:39:59] If they're usually three x six, maybe this is 26 inches by 6ft.
[00:40:07] So proportionally, when you look at something, it just looks great. At a house, I feel like sometimes the three x sixes look a little gaummy.
[00:40:17] Not always, but sometimes they can. Let's say these look sleek. They fit right in. They're big enough to put your foot down, no problem as you step in or out.
[00:40:28] But we tried a lot of different sizes for that. And we said, that's the one we tried ourselves and we said, this is a great size, a great fit.
[00:40:40] And we've really done that with everything we've ever done. If we're going to doing a new size or a new color, we just put a lot of time and effort and focus. We're trying to grow and continue to learn who we are and put great stuff out there. There was a time that we just kind of level out, but then we all of a sudden started getting noticed more and more by interior designers and other, let's say professional curators.
[00:41:17] I think our first big publication was Remodelista, and they put into words almost better than certainly what I could have at the time explained to people what we do, that we're not nichey kitschy.
[00:41:34] That we are timeless, durable and made with intention and with a story that was very exciting. And we definitely think things grow then. And we had a Washington Post article that kind of went viral. I didn't realize when one paper does an article, a lot of times a bunch of other major other newspapers will pick it up.
[00:42:06] And it was something like top Doormats.
[00:42:10] And then later on the year they did another one called Best Doormat, Best of 2023. And we were the only doormat featured. So these things happen and you start to grow a little more. Then we finally made a website and said, well, we sell wholesale, but to show our wholesale customers, we might as well just start selling things on our own website, too. We started doing that and we made it, but we never put any effort into it. We never marketed it. We still really haven't.
[00:42:44] We put more in time now and effort and money and everything into making a beautiful website and one that's easy to use, intentionally made. But we haven't really ever done any marketing of any kind, advertising, I would say.
[00:43:00] So we start to take off a little bit more. And then we met this company came to see us at a trade show called Food 52, still a good customer today.
[00:43:17] And they decided to make a video with us about the Rope company. Or they asked us, and we said, yes, we'd love to do that with you.
[00:43:30] And that was just a really neat experience. They had great people, good interviewers, lots of talent, and they made a really cool video on the rope company. Maybe it's not the one that we would make because it feels very food 52, but it's a really neat video, and it's just part another step, like, whoa, this is actually happening.
[00:43:55] We're more of a company now. And then basically COVID happens. And everybody's at home buying things.
[00:44:06] I mean, everybody we all kind of shut down for a week or two, but then everybody's at home buying things. And thankfully, we had some good online relationships and started selling a lot of product, and we couldn't keep up. And then we had to tell some people they couldn't have their stuff, and that was a blessing. It was very hard and stressful at the same time, as I'm sure a lot of people can relate. Just sales are amazing, but it's exhausting for you. Just couldn't get anything, couldn't speak to people the way you needed to.
[00:44:50] Had to let a lot of people down. And Disappoint was also I was still lobstering and tired and wasn't doing the best job of really being there for at the time. We had one main employee, renee was basically running the company. Thank you, Renee. And was great. But between me not being there for a lot of support, not really understanding what she was going through, talking with all these people, and just the COVID rush, I mean, it was just so many customers know, hey, where's my stuff? What's going on here?
[00:45:36] Over things that were out of our control. But learning how to do all that, it just poor Nay. It just burned her out. And I'll take all the blame I can.
[00:45:49] So that's growth. But with that comes pain, and I learned a lot out of that. And then at the same time so it was time to hire new team members and change as a leader, as a business owner myself.
[00:46:05] And that was about the time that we decided and we prayed about it a lot. And it seemed like it really felt like, okay, we've got two new children, young children, and the business is doing okay. It's time to either I'm working 60 to 90 hours a week between lobstering and the rope company. Maybe more than that. And I'm too tired to be who I need to be for anybody. I'm just more of a half grouchy self.
[00:46:39] What are we doing? So we'd done this, and we had really, at that point, come a long ways in what we'd call, hey, God, this is your company. What do you want us to do? Prayed about it a lot. And it was pretty clear to us that we should, which is a huge leap of faith, because lobstering provided well for us ever since we were together and ever since I was very little. And same for her family and mine to put lobstering aside, at least for now, and to go all in on the rope company.
[00:47:17] So that's what we did. And this will be my second season. Not lobstering. I do miss a lot of aspects of it and definitely hope to get more into it on either a very small scale or maybe a little bit bigger scale someday.
[00:47:33] But right now we're all in on this company and we're excited about it, and we love to see where it grows. But at the same time, this is also a period, as I'm talking right now, when you're coming off, when sales were booming for COVID for everybody, and now they're slower. So was just a lot of growth going on and learning.
