S&YE212 - IRONMAN 4X4

Hello, this is Luke with Ironman 4x4, and you can find us at ironman4x4.com.

You are listening to episode 212 of the Subian New Podcast.

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Subian New Podcast.

This is one of those episodes where I would have never imagined that I would have the CEO

from Ironman 4x4 America on the podcast.

I didn't really know a whole lot about the brand before this and even before Overland

Expo because I don't use any of the Ironman products except for the quick release system

that they have for awnings.

It's the only Ironman product I have.

I know that they have the Spec B, the Spec C. I know that they do have awnings.

I know that they have other products for off-roading and overlanding and just outdoors.

But I don't really know much about their products or I didn't anyway.

But this episode was really great.

I learned a lot and Luke really opens up about some things which was, I feel, really, really

important for him and also for Ironman 4x4.

Just to put it out there, in the very beginning right now, there were some issues and may

still be some issues going on with their suspension kits and there are also some

issues going on with bearings or bushings.

He addresses that and I think it's extremely great that he did that, that he faced it and

that he opens up about it and he talks openly about it and doesn't try to hide behind anything.

He sent him an email with all the questions and I said, hey, I heard that you were talking

to some people at Overland Expo about some issues.

You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.

And he responded back and said, everything's on the table.

So for those of you that kind of know what's going on, I just want to let you know that

Luke did open up on the podcast and I think that says a lot about him as a person, his

character, and of course, Ironman 4x4.

So that's what we need more of from these companies.

And we will get into that conversation in just a little bit, but first, a word from

one of our sponsors.

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It's a great site, has a lot of great products.

Thank you.

I talk a little bit about it in this episode, but when I went to Overland Expo P&W, I was

talking to Derek, who goes by Unpave P&W, and he was telling me that he had talked to Luke,

and he said, I can introduce you to Luke, and maybe you could talk about potentially

getting him on the podcast.

So he took me over and introduced me to Luke.

Not at their booth.

He was just kind of, he was actually kind of near the Subaru space.

And I ended up meeting him very briefly, started following him on Instagram, and then I messaged

him after the event, and he said he had to go look at a picture of me to remember exactly

who I was, because I'm sure he met a lot of people that day, as did I.

But it was great talking to him.

I'm glad that he was open to doing the podcast, especially after some of the stuff that

was going on out there and what was going on with Iron Man 4x4, because I think that's

really important.

But it was great talking to him, and it's, as you can see, it's a pretty long episode.

But we get into a lot of really good stuff, and it's just so great hearing the story

behind Iron Man 4x4 America, how that got started, and then also learning more about

him and just the evolution of the brand here in the US.

So it's a great, great episode.

So thankful that he was on here.

Speaking of great brands, there's another one.

It's called Subimods.

You may have heard of them.

They have been at the Subi events this year, and they will continue for the rest of the

events that will be going on through 2025.

They have a big, giant setup at Subifest, Subifest, Texas, Subifest, Florida, Midwest.

They had one at Boxerfest and Wicked Big Meat, Subimods.

Check them out, Subimods.com.

They have a lot of really great products, and it looks like they might be venturing over

into the overland and off-road market as well.

They already have some products for the Crosstrek, for the Forester, the Outback,

and for the Ascent, but maybe we'll see more stuff from them because they did

some stuff with Adventure 1, and it was very exciting looking.

So go check out Subimods.com.

You can also join their memberships and save money on your purchases.

And real quickly, before we get into this conversation, I just want to say thank you

so much to everybody for continuing to listen to the podcast after four and a half years

and 212 episodes.

Thank you so much.

I really, really appreciate it.

I would also appreciate it if you go check out my buddy Ben's podcast, Dirt Subis.

He puts out episodes every other Wednesday, so go check it out and give him a follow and

show him some subi love as well.

So now we will get into this episode with Luke and Iron Man 4x4.

Thank you very much for that introduction.

I appreciate that.

That was great.

You're welcome.

I met you in person at Overland Expo PNW and through my friend Derek, who goes by PNW.

We were sitting there chatting, and he was like, hey, would you want to go meet Luke

and maybe potentially see if you could get him on the podcast?

And I said, of course.

So he took me over there, introduced me to you.

It was very brief, but it was great to meet you, and I'm excited to have you on.

I'm excited to have Iron Man 4x4 on because I've heard a lot about your products.

I've seen it all over the place, especially in the Subaru community, which is what this

podcast is all about.

So thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

It really means a lot.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm very happy and excited to be here.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to the conversation.

Good.

Me too.

So before we get any of the business stuff started, I have to ask you the most

important question, and that's whether you prefer waffles or pancakes because my buddy

Sierra, who goes by SLT-Trick, started this a while back, and it's just become a

Subi and you podcast thing.

That is an easy answer for me.

It would be pancakes with the caviar of using creme fraiche, which is not the white

butter that they add in the US, which is attempting to look like creme fraiche, but it doesn't

taste anything like it.

That is the secret ingredient, which I don't know if it's that common here.

It's certainly not on the West Coast.

They always put this dollop of butter on there, so creme fraiche, that's the secret

for me.

All right.

Good.

Yeah.

I love pancakes too.

I love waffles as well, but pancakes do it for me.

Yeah.

What do you put on them?

I just put butter and syrup.

There's this restaurant called Spiral Diner.

It's a vegan restaurant in the DFW area.

There were three of them, but there's only one left in Fort Worth.

The way that they make their pancakes, they have this nice crispy edge to them, which

is a huge plus.

They just like, I don't know, the density of them, the way that they taste overall.

I always end up putting a little bit of butter on there and take a bite before I put

syrup on it because there's something about the taste and the consistency of the pancake

with the flavor of the butter before putting the syrup on there.

I've been doing that for years where I take a bite before I eat it with syrup.

That sounds good.

I will be down.

I know that for sure I'm going to be down in that neck of the woods in February or

March next year, so that needs to go on the hit list.

In fact, let's go do this together.

All right.

Yeah.

Let's do it.

Okay.

What is your role at Ironman 4x4 and how long have you been with the company and how long

have you held that role?

Yeah.

I am the CEO for Ironman 4x4.

I'm in North America just at that because Ironman 4x4 is a global brand.

I'm responsible for the US and Canada.

I've been here as long as it's existed in North America because I stood this, well,

when we started it was back in 2019 and I saw an opportunity with Ironman which wasn't

really sold in the US and I had an experience with the product because I put it on a foreigner

that I owned.

I bought a foreigner and Toyota foreigner, swear word on this podcast, I'm sure.

You got to get your start somewhere and you've made your way to Subaru, so thank

you for that.

Yeah, correct.

Absolutely we did.

Yeah.

Anyway, I bought this foreigner in 2018 and I knew that I wanted to accessorize it to get

off-grid because I got real passion for the outdoors.

I was looking for a way to get suspension on the vehicle and I knew people that did what

I wanted to do so they were like, oh, you know, go and buy this brand or go and buy

this brand.

There's a lot of noise out there in terms of what to go by that was relevant for the needs

and they were all like $5,000 suspension kits and I'm like, that's up there.

I am not going to get that one signed off by the wife.

I knew that so the conversation continued and then a neighbor actually that was working

for an off-road shop, he was like, hey, we sell a little bit of this brand called

Ironman 4x4 and they're like, here's really good, you should try that and it's right in

your price point.

I think it was like $1,500, $2,000 maybe for a kit for the foreigner and it was a thumbs

up pro suspension.

So I put that on and it absolutely transformed the vehicle, the way that it handled, it got

rid of all the nose dive, it got rid of all the body sway, it gave it a much better

stance.

I could load the thing up and go off-road and they did a few other things to it

as well but I still needed to keep it fairly moderate because ultimately it was technically

my wife's vehicle.

And anyway, that was it.

I was like, okay, I'm off to the races.

I didn't think anything else of Ironman at that particular time until I was out climbing

with one of my friends from in the UK, we were down at Smith Rock which is about three

hours away from Portland.

Oh yeah, I've been there on my last trip.

It's like just epic, it's one of my favorite places in the world, it's so amazing.

And yeah, we were driving around and climbing and what have you and he's like, hey, he started

a business and built a mega business in Europe called Go Outdoors which was the,

I think it was Europe's largest outdoor retailer so he built that, sold it, done

very, very well for himself.

He was like, hey, do you want to start a business?

I'm like, heck yeah, I never thought you'd ask.

So then we started looking for businesses and there's another story where I got stuck

in Canada and I didn't have anything to do other than try and break through US border

control and I rang the guy back up that I bought the suspension from and was like,

hey, do you have to think like they'd want to get rid of the distribution or do you think

that the current business that was doing some distribution of it would want to move things

on and it's like, yeah, I was like, okay, if I get back into the US, we'll have a meeting

and we'll super consult something out.

So we did and over the course of, I think it was really, through the course of 2018

went through the motions of understanding what there was which was a bit of a website

and so a hodgepodge of inventory and that was it.

So anyway, we did a deal and I started Ironman 4x4 America in January 2019.

Very nice.

Yeah.

So then we start to invest in the business that we put a team together.

We started to brand the business.

We started digital advertising.

We started community events.

We went to Overland Expo in Flagstaff in 2019.

We started engaging with forums and groups and start to get this thing going.

And then in 2020, we became the brand.

So in 2020, we've done, Canada did our job too well because we got noticed by the

Australians which is where head offices and like these guys in the US are doing a really

good job and they bought more product from us than anybody else has ever done in the history

of the US.

Even when Ironman tried to do it themselves, which was like 10 years prior.

So you started Ironman 4x4 in America kind of separate and independent of Ironman in

Australia.

Correct.

So you...

Oh wow.

We were effectively, we became the North American distributor so we would basically

just buy the products from their international warehouse in Thailand and then bring them

into the market to sell them.

We did things in a very different way because the other distributors around the world would

just bring it in and sell it.

But we brought it in and started to build a brand and start to provide feedback on

product development and a whole host of things.

We started creating content.

We started doing instructional videos and things that they'd never seen before and

also that were quite new for the market at the time.

Wow.

Yeah.

So we grew pretty quickly in year one and then the Aussies were like, hey, we want to

buy you effectively.

And then at that point, we became a part of the brand.

Gotcha.

Wow.

That's pretty impressive.

That's nice.

Yeah.

Frozen cons to it, honestly.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

There's some definite benefits because we were able to then buy the product at effectively

the factory price, the FOB price as opposed to a distributed price, which was like 50%

more.

Oh, wow.

So it meant that we could really sharpen our pricing up for the market and it opened

up the other categories of rooftop tents and awnings and other things like that which

weren't feasible in the first model.

Gotcha.

And then we were also hooked into the product development team then in Australia, so we really

start to build a collaboration there and bring in products to market, hence our movement

on the Subaru front.

So I want to ask two questions.

One, you said your buddy was like, hey, do you want to start a business?

What were you doing before this?

And then the second question is, are all of the products that you sell in America

through the Ironman 4x4 brand name still designed in Australia?

Yeah.

So first question, I moved to the U.S. in 2015 with my wife and our son.

Son was two and I worked for a footwear company and I'm up in Portland, Oregon and

Portland, Oregon is like the footwear epicenter of North America.

So I came over, I think my first role was, my first role was in product who was in product

development and had come from the European business.

So I came over in a product development role and then that evolved into marketing and then

it also evolved into sales.

So by the end of it, when that brand got sold, I was in charge of sales, products and marketing.

Okay.

Which was a really good foundation to be able to go and start a business, especially in

the UK and Europe where I've been, I've done a lot of national account management

and product development there for private label products.

So again, I've just had this experience of I guess everything regarding business, finance,

operations, logistics, sales, marketing, merchandising, inventory management, the works.

So it set you up.

It's a really good foundation.

Yeah, it 100% did.

I was like, okay, I think I can probably figure this out.

Yeah.

You went from moving people to moving people, if you think about it, moving people with

their feet, to moving people with their cars, that's pretty cool.

Absolutely.

Which was why it was a fairly, even when I was at the footwear brand and I wasn't even

thinking about Ironman at that time, but I saw the Overland audience.

I was like, okay, we've got this group of what I would now just refer to as outdoor

enthusiasts.

So this group of outdoor enthusiasts, but some people use their vehicle and they

love their vehicle and that's really, I would say your Overlander.

They just want to equip that thing and go on expeditions.

That's the main focus point.

But then you've got this other audience, which I would say really fits within the

Subaru community and I have a stereotype here, but I would say that the Subaru

audience is definitely about the vehicle, but probably more so about the activity

in the community.

So it's like, I want to go hiking, skiing, biking, whatever it may be.

And the vehicle's a mode of transportation to get them to that point of activity.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Because there are a lot of people that are wanting to go hiking or biking and their

vehicle can get them further up to higher points and different trailheads.

That was literally the whole premise behind ATS.

It was to get you that little bit further out into the back country or whatever it is

in a safe manner so that you can go and enjoy your activity.

Yep.

Yeah.

That's great.

And what was the second question?

The second question is, are all of the products that you sell here in the U.S. under the

Ironman 4x4 brand name designed in Australia?

Yes, they are.

So everything that we do is, and really like literally everything we do now is

a real collaboration between our business unit here in the U.S. and then the Australian

business.

So our product teams work together literally on a daily basis, designing and developing

new products for North America.

And obviously there are going to be products that Australia develop because it's a global

vehicle.

Let's think of an example, a Toyota, what they call the Prado 250, what we now here call

the Land Cruiser.

That's a global, that's truly a global vehicle.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

So we've got some unique products for North America that they just won't sell in Australia

and vice versa.

But ultimately like they've done their own product development there and some of these

come over here and we've done our product development here and some of these gone

over there.

Yeah.

What you see on the Ironman 4x4 USA site isn't necessarily the full lineup of Ironman

4x4 because it's directed specifically for the U.S. market, what you have on your

website.

Yeah, correct.

And that's definitely been an evolution over the years when we first came to market

back in 2019.

I only had to work, I only had products that had global overlap and that's where,

that's really for the most part why we started with Toyota is because that's what

Ironman globally supported the most and Toyota do a really good job of using the same

platform no matter what country.

There's definitely nuances.

Yeah.

But...

And it makes sense.

Yeah.

So that's where we started.

So how did you get into the Subaru market?

Where did that come from?

Yeah.

So again, I was really looking at the audience that we served as outdoor

enthusiasts and again, I live in the Pacific Northwest where it's one of the Subaru heartlands.

Oh yeah.

There's a real high density of Subaru's on the road here and so one, we see the customers

using their vehicles in the outdoors, that's a check mark and also loading their vehicle

full of gear, so kayaks and bikes and roof up tents and all the other gear that we would

normally see on a Toyota.

So it's like, okay, so they're getting into the outdoors and they're carrying weight on

a vehicle and as soon as you've got that, you've got a recipe for needing a suspension

solution.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And then we worked with a Toyota, we still do, we work with lots of different

dealerships.

We worked with a dealership specifically here in Wilsonville and they had a sister dealership

which was Subaru of Wilsonville, like big dealership and they were cobbling together

Subaru lift kits from all different manufacturers.

They would have a set of coils from one brand and then would have a collar from another

brand and then they would have to plastic dip some certain things because to stop a

squeak, there was just like a mishmash of stuff that they were bringing together to try and

lift the Crosstrek, Forester, Outback, Ascent.

So we had that connection and we saw what we were doing like, okay, we know we can

do this better.

For a few different reasons, we can make it a one-stop shop, so you know how to cobble

all these pieces together, so one, we know we make all these pieces, two, we know we

can make them better, and then three, all of the things that they were doing weren't

actually adding to the performance of the vehicle.

It lifted it, which was from an aesthetic perspective, better and it allowed them to get a more

aggressive wheel and tire on.

So the aesthetics of the vehicle were better, but the performance actually was hindered.

The spacer kit is going to detract from the performance of the vehicle, so we're like,

okay, so we can check this box, this box, this box, and enhance the performance of

the vehicle at the same time, and probably at a better price, so that's where we...

There are some people out there that are like, how big of a tire can I get on my Subaru?

100%.

Yeah, correct.

And you get that in all the different, you know, with the Jeeps and the Toyotas and you

know, there's always that particular user, it doesn't matter which brand.

So anyway, that was like, we were like, okay, blah, blah, blah, and we also understood how

many units they were selling, and again we were connected to lots of other Subaru dealers

around the country.

And then we did sell some Subaru product as well, so we had uprated coils for the Forester

and the Outback, certainly the Forester, that dated all the way back to the, that dated

all the way back to 1997.

Oh, very nice.

So we had like that range of Forester coils that allowed people to lift their Forester

and again, add more payload capacity.

So we had some dealers that were Subaru-specific dealers as well.

So you had a start.

We had a bit of a start.

Yeah, we had some knowledge, and then again, we had the observational, from the observational

knowledge or research from the, being in the Pacific Northwest, and then we had the

dealer and seeing what they could put together.

So we got to work, I put together, I've probably still got the presentation on my laptop,

you know, put together the deck and the business case for why we should go into suspension

for Subaru and what we needed to deliver, who the ordinance was, this is how we would

launch it.

These would be the people that we collaborated, for instance, we collaborated with Dirtfish

to launch that program and do product testing.

Very good.

Yeah.

So we worked with the team up there and Nate Tennis, the videos all over YouTube of him

testing the suspension, like right out of the gates and comparing it to a stock Forester

I think they were in.

And yeah, we got the green light and, you know, we got off to the races.

So I think it took us realistically a year and a half, two years to bring it to market,

maybe a year and a half, but we launched, I'm going to say 2021.

Okay.

It was October the first 2021.

With Subaru products.

With like the line of ATS for the CrossStrike Forester and Outback.

Gotcha.

Very nice.

Yeah.

And it was, you know, you still never know, but we started in October and we

started to sell a few kits and then by February 2022, like it took off and Subaru ATS kits

have been in our top 10 best selling products.

Very good.

Week in, week out.

Yeah.

So what was the initial perception from Subaru owners?

Were y'all doing some sort of like, like market study cases with people that were

getting these products or were you just like, like organically getting feedback from

them?

Like, hey, I just brought your product.

This is what I think about it.

And were you intentional about trying to get that data as well?

We definitely, we definitely were.

When we went through the launch, again, we did our, we obviously, we always do lab

testing.

So it was a heap of lab testing and we, so we bought every single vehicle.

We bought the CrossStrike.

We bought the Forester.

We bought the Outback and I got an angry phone call from the owner of the business going,

Luke, what the F?

You've just spent $90,000 or whatever I spent, $9,220,000 on three vehicles that we've not

even sold a single product from yet.

I'm like, yeah, but like, you got to trust this.

Like we're going to do this.

Just wait.

I'll see.

Yeah.

He was like, you don't spend that money.

I'm like, well.

I did.

Well, actually, to be fair, we have no choice.

And the backstory is that we actually borrowed the, we borrowed those vehicles from the dealership

to outfit and the, and then go and do the shoot up at Dirtfish and they really put the

vehicles to the test is what I can say.

Oh yeah.

They came back.

Yeah.

And so they came back and the vehicles were like, all the tires were like worn on the edges

where they, I mean, they really ripped around in these things.

And there was like scuffs on all the plastic work from the gravel and things.

I'm like, I can't give these back to the dealership.

Oh, so now it makes sense as to why you bought them.

It's like, yeah, I can't return them like this.

You can't return them like this.

They kind of forced my hand.

Yeah.

They have to go and buy them.

But that's good.

So that you can do more product testing.

Exactly.

And that's what we did.

So yeah.

So we worked again, we worked, we worked with Dirtfish.

We put those vehicles out into the field.

We are, we personally lived in the vehicles and took them out camping and onto the trails

and what have you, not just for the photo shoot, not just for the, for the lawn shoot.

And then I try to remember we seeded kits to various different like influences, macro

influences within the Subaru community to let them go and test the product and give us

the, and give us the feedback, um, you know, and that got the ball rolling.

Yeah.

And that's important.

We've handed them over to dealerships and things like that.

Yeah.

No, that's good.

That's a great story.

Having to buy the cars, man.

That's funny.

I forgot about that one until just now.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

The word is out.

Yeah.

That's super cool.

I like that.

Yeah.

So you, you started Iron Man four by four here in the US.

So obviously you're like, oh crap.

I just, well, I'm just assuming, but like, oh crap, I just started this business.

Now, now I have to make it work.

Uh, obviously you have to build a team.

So what was, can you take us kind of through the progression of how it started and, and

who it started with as far as like when you bought it and decided to do this

as to where you're at now as far as like just some logistics of, you know, the team

and growth and all of that.

Yeah.

Again, when we started, it was me and my wife.

So I had to build a website, order the products, answer the phone, receive the containers, ship

the orders like the whole thing.

And you know, that was a lot, but it was also a lot.

And I didn't have to, I wasn't alone on my own for very long.

And where were you receiving these?

We, so we ended up getting a, I don't, I don't even know how small it was.

It was probably a 3000 square foot at most like little shack that was in Newberg, just

off like it, which is a town, like a little town just down the road here off the back of

this airstrip and a, there was a company in there that it was literally a sweatshop.

There was a company in there that was like making sleeping bags or something like that.

And they went out.

So I managed to get in there and I kind of built the racking, like put the racking

up myself.

And yeah, we start to take delivery and, you know, get the, get the product in there.

And we used to pull the, because we, we didn't have a, a dot like a, like a, like a, a dot

low, a leveler, yeah, we didn't have a leveler in the, in the warehouse.

So it was a case of like, use the forklift that we bought, then hook it up to the

stuff of it, like the pallets at the back of the, you know, 40 foot container or

whatever, and like pull it out with a, pull it out close enough where we could then get

the forks and get it into the warehouse.

So we were busting at the seams with inventory, but we moved on from there pretty quickly.

And I think within, I'm going to say within three months we were out of there and going

into a bigger, into a bigger property.

It was like eight, 10,000 square feet and with regards to the team, yeah, it started

as me and my wife.

And then, and then I recruited my neighbor, who was a sheriff for the Malton

Nome sheriff's office, I think it, I think it was, so, which there's a story to that

as well.

Chris, he, you know, by trade, he was a cop.

And on, you know, in his personal time, he just wrenched on stuff.

Like he was, he had a Humvee, like a military Humvee that was wrenching and doing all sorts

of stuff on.

And like, he's just hands on Mr. Mechanic, like, so he, what he was, but when he

was always doing that stuff in his garage, he was able to tell me with real clarity what

he was doing to something that I had no idea.

I've never seen a frickin' Humvee in my life, you know, and he's like, oh yeah, I'm doing

this and this and this and I'm going to put this AC unit into it and blah, blah,

blah.

And it works like this.

And I'm like, okay, I understand.

So I saw a skill set in Chris where he could take something quite complex and transfer

it into, have a method of communication that would simplify it for somebody that had no idea

how to understand what he was doing.

I was like, that's a great skill set.

And yeah, he could just break something down and simplify it.

So that's a great skill set.

And he can wrench on vehicles and he really has got a passion for product development

and making things.

And then, and you worked hard, did a lot of time in the police and what have you.

So at all these different attributes, I was like, I wonder if Chris would want to join

the business and maybe he could come in from a product development perspective.

And obviously at that point, there was no grounds to really have a product manager

because we didn't necessarily know that we were going to go into this real collaboration

with Australia.

But if we hadn't have done that, we were thinking about building

other brands and other products around Ironman.

So anyway, he left the police, big move because he'd been there for a long time

and joined Ironman, which was literally to put it in perspective.

When we started, when we started, the guy that was selling it before,

he did a grand total of $160,000 that prior year in Ironman products.

And we were generating when we started, so when we took that over and then

start to do things, our target was like getting $1,000 a day.

Let's get to $1,000 a day and then it was like get to $5,000.

It's like, OK, once we get to $20,000 in a day, Chris, I'm going to give you

a massage. It was like, post it on the wall.

It's like, that's Luke's guarantee.

So Chris came on board and then another guy that I knew from where I used to work

auto, he was our graphic designer at the footwear company.

And I knew that I needed a guy that could develop product

and break things down to simplify the message and talk to the customer.

And then I also needed the guy that could create the marketing assets

so we could go and tell the world.

And then and then Chris's brother, who equally actually had worked with

at the footwear company, he was a professional videographer.

So Chris, this other guy, I've got two Chris's.

I've got more Chris's than I know what to do with.

There's always a Chris in there somewhere.

There's always a Chris.

Yeah, but Chris Miller's real name is John, so he's just confusing matters.

So Chris was videographer.

So we had this. So I was like, OK, I've got the product guy.

I've got the guy that can shoot the video and I've got the guy that can make

all the assets from a graphic design perspective, advertising and what have you.

So that's where we started.

So we quickly within the first like six month had a team of four.

And again, we wore a million hats.

We were it wasn't as clear cut as that.

We were also again, we got to figure out on receiving things and

shipping orders and, you know, answering the phones and working with

dealers and blah, blah, blah, figuring out the website.

And then we got to a place where we moved.

And I think we started to layer on customer service.

Yeah, then we started to layer on some customer service people

because rather than me answering the phone, which honestly, I really enjoyed.

I always enjoy talking to customers and kind of walking them

through that journey of the right product for them, not necessarily

just by trying to sell the most expensive thing.

Um, but we need some customer service guys.

So then Bubba, we've got a we've got a real life, Bubba.

Nice, nice, we posted one.

We posted in the morning and then later that day, this Toyota Tundra

like comes into like comes into our parking lot.

We can see through the window and he backs in.

I was like, oh, this guy knows what he's doing.

He's backing into his parking course.

And then he busts through the door and Bubba's a big guy.

He's probably like 300 pounds.

And he's like, I'm here for your customer service job.

You know, you want me like just just do the right thing and hire me.

So, oh, that's fine.

OK, so anyway, he stayed in the building for like an hour

and we're talking about his background.

He just loves, um, he's a hunter.

He, uh, registers on his own vehicle, blah, blah, blah.

They're like, OK, Bubba, why the hell not?

Join the team. You're in customer service.

So we slowly and then we expanded customer service.

So I think after to cut this down

because you don't need war and peace on the adding, adding, adding a staff.

But I think by the end of 2019, we had

seven people or so, which was for the most part made up of customer service.

The people that I messaged that I already spoke about.

And then I think we start to add like one or two people in the warehouse.

OK. And then.

Yeah, we just continue to grow and add more firepower again to customer service

because the customer experience is very, very important to us.

Yeah. And be able to take the call quickly, deal with either the sale

or the follow up or whatever it is, the technical questions.

And then be able to manage the website,

make sure that it was representing the brand and the product quickly.

All that technical infrastructure was as sound as it could be.

And then get it out the door as quickly as possible.

It was within the market and this still it's got better,

but there's still an element of it today.

It's a case of somebody puts a manufacturer puts it on the website

and then you as the customer, you know, you make the purchase,

you pay them and then 12 weeks later, once they've taken your money

and actually use that to buy the materials and make the product,

you eventually get your product shipped.

And we were not in that situation.

It's like people want their product now.

Oh, yeah.

So if they place they order,

get it out the freaking door as quickly as possible.

So and we've always done that from the from the outset.

Sometimes, you know, in busy periods,

it might take a little longer than normal.

But I mean, even today, I got an email through

from our customer service is like,

I've never had shipping as fast from a company

than I have with you guys.

And so we want, you know,

soon as somebody's paid,

we want to get the order out within 24 hours.

That's our mission, really.

Yeah. And we continue to grow and add more people to the marketing team.

B2B marketing, B2B sales.

We got a VP of operations in nice.

We got a VP of logistics in because I knew we were doing

the essentials from a logistics perspective, but I knew we weren't.

We were working hard,

but I knew we could be a lot smarter from a logistics perspective.

So I OK, I need a pro in to kind of really set us up there.

Finance, obviously, is essential.

And yeah, just all the core pillars of what a business needs.

And as always, you go through some pain with

understanding whether that role eventually is the right fit

or the person is the right fit.

So, you know, you go through that.

And anyway, fast forward to today.

We have got in the US building, I think 20 people.

We actually have reduced.

I would say we've actually dropped about 10 people

over the course of the last like 18 months or so.

And a lot of that is from logistics

because we've changed the way that we deal with logistics.

OK. We went from our own warehouse here in Portland,

which was a 50,000 square foot building.

And we changed that format into having a three P.L.

a third party logistics in California in LA

and then another one over in Pennsylvania.

Oh, nice. So that we can get the product.

Again, it's all about speed of product to customers.

So we could get it to our customers much quicker.

So with that, we were actually recently,

when was it, October last year,

the property that we moved into, I'm going to say in 21,

we moved out of because a lot of it was just redundant space

with the warehouse that we were now shipping

from these other two places. Yeah. Makes sense.

So, yeah. OK.

So we're 20 people now.

And again, it's the core departments.

We've got sales, marketing, operations, finance.

Within, within marketing, we've got content

and econ management, logistics,

customer service, product development.

Yeah. OK.

So I have two more questions real quick.

Is the Fantastic Four, the original four group

that you started with, are you all still?

I mean, obviously you're still there,

but are the other people still there?

So Chris and Chris, yeah, Chris Miller

and Chris Wagner are still in the business.

So Chris, our VP of product.

And then Chris Miller is our VP of content.

OK.

Otto left at the point that we became

the subsidiary.

He wasn't comfortable with that.

He wasn't comfortable with that move.

And we weren't sure if the product development

that he originally was going to come on for

or that he originally came on for

was going to transpire.

So he actually went because his passion

was designing footwear.

Yeah. It was a graphic designer,

but he really loved designing footwear

and he's done phenomenally well.

And that's good.

You got to find your fit, you know,

and do what's best for you.

And then, obviously, it's best for the company

on both sides.

Yeah, correct. That was a tough day.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Otto was an anchorman for me.

He was a rock, but it was the right thing for him.

All right. And then my second question is,

when did you give Chris the massage?

How quickly did you get to the 20,000 a day?

It was pretty quick, actually.

Yeah, I'm going to say within the first six months.

OK. Yeah, I know.

And Chris is a hairy beast.

Oh, that's funny.

Did he go like go run a couple of miles

beforehand, too, to get all nice and sweaty?

Exactly. And I felt like I had a rolling pin.

No, that's funny.

So, so you started all that.

And I love hearing like these origin stories of brands

and like, you know, what kind of.

And then I know there's like just so much more to it,

but, you know, you can't.

It would take a long time to like iron all of it out.

Oh, yeah. There's also a sacanage in that.

Yeah. Yeah.

But it's great to hear these stories and, you know,

get to know like a little bit more about the people

and the brand and like what, you know,

what motivates you to keep going and just how it all got started.

But like, what would you say has propelled the growth

of the brand and the business over the years?

Like, what would you say are the key factors for that?

You've got nothing without product.

So without a doubt, the and again, you know,

you definitely bump into issues every now and again.

But the product value that we offer,

the value in the product,

which is that blend of quality, performance and price

is really, really good.

That was one of the reasons why I took that leap

in leaving my job with the footwear company

to start the business was like,

this product's really good

and it's not distributed anywhere.

And nobody's marketing it.

And it was just like such a good opportunity.

Not a given, but it just had the right recipe.

So the fact that we had a really good product

that just offered market leading value was, I think is

and still is today, like the bedrock

of being able to be successful.

If you don't have that, then eventually

you'll get found out and you know, you're done.

So that and then I think are

are marketing because we can have a great product.

But if we can't communicate that to the world

and reach the audience, then you can't grow.

Exactly.

And then obviously the delivery aspect from, okay, again,

we're on the end of, we've got a US team of customer service

or really everybody in the business does what we do.

We're all outdoor enthusiasts to some degree.

Like we've got our overlanders

and we've got our punters and we've got our

weekend warrior campers, but we all do what we do.

And when somebody calls in and they need advice on

what's right for them, we can talk with authenticity

because we do it.

And I think that and also giving a beep

about the service to the customer, you know,

those three things are a part of our recipe.

Yeah. And so I had some other questions that in line

before this other one, but you,

which you just said is going to lead me into this now

because I think it's very important.

And as you know, I met you out overland expo

in the Pacific Northwest.

And while you were out there, there were some people

that had some concerns and maybe some complaints

about their Iron Man suspension.

Not so happy with Luke at that time.

Yeah, correct.

And so I, you know, I wasn't over there,

but I just heard like, oh, it's going down, you know.

They, yeah, he went over there to Camp Subaru

and people were kind of letting him have it

or whatever, but and you know,

but so you went over there to talk to them

about their suspension because what I heard

is that people had had their suspension

for maybe a couple of years and it was starting to sag

and it was not as stiff as it should be,

as they felt that it should be,

that it should have maintained that level of stiffness

and quality for much longer than it had.

So you went over there to talk to them,

which I think is absolutely amazing

because you could have just been like,

no, I'm too busy.

I have to go do these other things.

I don't have time to talk to you,

but you know, you faced it and you listened to them

and you know, I think that says volumes about you

as a person and because you know,

you're probably going to go over there

and get hit with a lot.

Got a roasting.

Yeah, and then, but you know,

you as the CEO of the company and this brand,

you also have to do what's best for them

because you're ultimately here creating products for them.

And so can you talk through that experience?

I absolutely can.

Yeah, so we've been selling,

it was all around the ATS suspension.

And we've been selling, like I said before,

we've been selling ATS, like we created ATS,

we launched it in 2021, I think it was October

and we've been selling it into the market

and doing particularly well with it.

Look at the online reviews, you know,

lots of, lots of very happy people out there

with ATS suspension.

But over the course of,

and this is a fairly recent issue,

but over the course of the last like six months or so,

it materialized that product quality slipped.

And there's a few, there was a few different things.

And it wasn't until Overland Expo

that I was able to actually really get a grip

of exactly what they were.

So, or the other component is like which vehicles it affected

because we measure our returns rate

against every single product.

And the returns rate against what we sell

was really quite nominal.

It was like one and a half percent,

which an industry average for a warranty in automotive

is like three.

We're like, okay, so do we actually,

do we have a problem?

Do we not have a problem?

I'm not quite sure.

There was just noise.

And it was around, like you said,

it was around sagging coils,

particularly with the spec C.

So we've got to not to get into the weeds on product,

but ATS is all based on the same shock absorber,

effectively their coil overs,

their pre-built coil overs.

Yeah, they all are in Subaru's.

And there's a performance,

which is designed to deal with X amount of weight.

So from stock weight up to,

I can't remember what the stat is,

but I can't remember what the official rating is,

but from zero to let's just say,

I'm making it up 200 pounds worth of extra weight

on the vehicle.

Yeah.

And then we expect-

So from Subisag to-

Yeah, exactly.

To like having that two inch lift.

So the ATS suspension was designed to give a two inch lift

and give you more weight carrying capacity.

So you got the ATS, just as standard,

is designed to give you more weight carrying capacity up to,

I'm just going to make it up 200 pounds.

And then we brought out spec C,

which was because we saw that people

were really loading up the Subaru's.

They were putting spare tire carriers,

like hitch mounted tire carriers on the things

and like a lot of weight on these vehicles.

You've got people have storage compartments,

refrigerators, and just a bunch of camping gear

and up on the roof.

Yeah.

It can get up there.

We came out with spec C,

which was a design to go from,

let's just say that ceiling on the original was 200.

And then we took it from like 200 to 440.

Something, and again, I'm making the numbers up,

but extra capacity again.

And it's with that, particularly,

where a lot of the issue seems to have materialized

for whatever reason the-

So we do all the design in the development

and then we use manufacturing partners to produce it.

Just like Apple do.

Apple don't make their own products.

They design and develop it.

It gets manufactured,

and then they bring it to market and distribute it.

And along the way,

something has gone off with the spring rates on spec C.

And there's actually, it's not just that.

There was also a rubber bushing issue as well.

We've seen some excessive rubber degradation

in the bushings.

Oh, okay.

For the shock absorbers as well.

So at Overland Expo,

we were able to get a grip of what vehicles

we're experiencing, what.

And one of the other challenging issues that we have

is getting the take-offs from people's vehicles

so that we can get the suspension that's not performing

and then send it off.

Well, one, we can take a look at it,

but two, really get it off to Australia

where our suspension lab is

and put it through the shock dinos

and the spring dinos

and really start to understand the reason why.

So yeah, at Overland Expo,

it was Derek who pinged me.

It's like, hey, Luke, can I have a,

like, is there any chance we can have a conversation

like some people that are not happy?

I was like, yeah, 100%.

So I came off the booth

and I went and found him and I'd chat with him.

And he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, I think things are not good.

What's going on with you guys?

I was like, yeah, we're kind of aware of these issues.

We've not quite got a grip of it yet.

We're trying to harvest information and what have you.

But in the background,

we had already started to do some things.

We'd taken inventory and started to already test that

and yeah, we'd already started to do some stuff

in the background to try and understand the issues.

It was like, we have a weekly management mean

here in the US and we have a pretty much weekly product

means with Australia as well.

It's like, we categorize these things

like P1 through P4 depending on the severity

and like the Subaru stuff was a P1.

It's like, guys, we've got to understand what this issue is.

So anyway, I was like, yep, I'll go down to Canada.

I need to go and talk to these people

because we've got to own this

and communicate that we, one, already starting

to get a grip of it

and are doing some things in the background.

Two, need the help, honestly.

And then three, there were definitely mixed outcomes

when it came to our customer service team as well.

One, two people might have the same scenario

but then the execution

of how our customer service team dealt with it was different.

So yeah, I went over to the lion's den

and sat with it.

Everybody's there, I don't know how many people were there

but everybody was kind of already in a bit of an arena.

So I went and introduced myself

and then start to ask questions

and pick away understanding the issues

that people were facing and really down

to an individual level and then communicate

what we were doing about it

and then what we needed their help with to execute properly.

So like I said, there was some product related stuff

that was also some customer service related things

and the outcome of it was very good,

albeit the hour that I was there

was a little uncomfortable

but again, it was fairly easy

because it just had the curiosity to learn

and want to solve the problem.

So for me, from an outsider's perspective,

it could be difficult, it was a little uncomfortable

but I needed the information to go and solve the problem.

And that's what we did.

So literally had it all out, understood the issues

literally on an individual basis.

I think I emailed our team back at the US head office

immediately saying, like, we need to get into this stuff,

get a meeting on the calendar.

I think we can't recall if we just stopped

selling some stuff immediately, I'm not too sure.

But anyway, then we started working

with the people that we met to get the product back.

We had all of the history of any conversation

that they'd have with us to really understand

like the vehicle, the product,

is this a one-time issue?

Is this multiple issues?

We tow tagged all the products.

That is now in the Australian lab getting worked on.

And then from those customer service issues,

we created a playbook,

which was all about reducing the friction

so that there's a standard playbook

of if somebody calls in like tomorrow,

if somebody is listening to this

and they've got an issue with the suspension,

which there's possible that there's still

some faulty products out in the market,

called our customer service

and they will 100% take care of you.

You will either get a replacement product immediately

and all the cost is on us, the cost to ship product back

if we need it, which we likely don't.

The cost to ship product to you,

the cost to install it is RF up.

And although it's not really our fault

in terms of we've not made the product,

but it is our problem as the brand.

So that's where ultimately they're the things

that we execute on the back of that meeting.

And again, we've now actually changed manufacturer

because obviously they can't do the job

that they need to do.

And we've got various different suspension manufacturers

that we've worked with for years and years and years.

So we were able to pick up the program,

plant it somewhere else, and that's now in production.

In fact, I think the first cross-trek suspension

out of the new factory is getting into a container now.

So it's gonna take a little while

to work through things, but again,

as people do, if they do have an experience

with a negative experience with the product,

with that sagging or the rubber bushing issue,

then we 100% take care of you.

Yeah, and big kudos to Frideric to approaching you

because I'm sure that may have been hard for him

to be like, man, we've got these...

I'm so thankfully did.

Yeah, no.

Otherwise I would have continued to struggle

with getting a grip of the problem.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was, I think it was just meant to be.

I was there, he was there, you were there,

and the crowd are there and is like, okay,

we can just got to talk, learn, understand,

get some solutions in place and take action.

Well, like you said earlier,

you're going into the lion's den

and a little bit of uncomfortableness going on there,

approaching all these people,

going like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen here?

But I just want to say that it's probably a good thing

that you know Jiu-Jitsu because if something

would have gone down, it could have helped you out there.

100% I feel a bit more confident

since I started doing Jiu-Jitsu.

That is everybody should try Jiu-Jitsu.

Oh yeah, I trained for a year and it was amazing.

Yeah, it was a gift from my brother actually,

so it was really cool.

Epic, ghee, no ghee.

It was mostly ghee, and then when he moved out here,

I started training ghee with him, or no ghee with him,

and I was like, I love no ghee way better.

Yeah, I do, I do like no ghee too.

Little sidetrack there, but yeah,

I think it's absolutely amazing.

First of all, thank you Derek for approaching Luke,

and then thank you, Luke, for going and talking

to all the people, because I think that most of the people

that you talk to are probably gonna be some of the ones

that are listening, I know some of them

are gonna be listening to this episode,

and especially when I put it out there

and they see that Iron Man was on,

I'll definitely in the intro bring it up,

and say you definitely wanna listen to this episode,

because it's, again, it's just,

I think it's great that you did that.

It speaks volumes about you as a person

and what you represent as Iron Man here in America,

so thank you for that.

Yeah, we will absolutely own the issues,

and again, they're fairly infrequent,

but when they do come up, we gather the information

and they will make it right.

That is just a part of who we are.

I don't know if Torsten listens to this,

but shout out to Torsten, if it's one of the guys.

Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, I'm sure it'll get around,

but I know people will want to listen to it,

and they may be in anticipation

if that's gonna be brought up,

but I will let them know in the intro that it is,

and again, thank you so much.

Yeah, yeah, thank you guys.

I really appreciate you working with me.

Yeah, there's a spot on your website

that says online retailer,

but there's also stores that the products are available,

and so what types of stores are these four by four stores?

Are you in Subaru and Toyota dealerships?

How are you marketed throughout the,

I guess, the brand in different retailers?

Yeah, so we segment into a few different,

we segment.

So yes, we work with dealerships,

and this is not officially through Subaru,

or Subaru America, or Subaru USA, whichever one it is.

Although I think they picked our ATS product apart

to understand that,

because we really showcased

that people want to lift their Subaru,

which I think was one of the

primary instigators for the Wilderness program.

Yeah.

And we actually did work with Subaru America

in the launch of the Wilderness,

kind of around the back door,

because all of the dealerships had to go through

a introduction to what the Wilderness program was,

and it was one of our dealers out east

that were used to,

they were hired to basically introduce

the off-road capabilities and run recovery classes

and what have you for the dealerships sales staff.

So I think every dealership in America

went through that course,

where they got to do a ride and drive of the vehicle,

and this is what the consumer would accessorize it with,

this is like recovery gear, blah, blah, blah.

But so, getting off track a little bit.

It's okay.

We work with Subaru dealerships all over the country,

not with every, but we work with the ones

that typically lift vehicles.

Yeah.

And I would say that's like

probably one in 20 dealerships, honestly.

Yeah, because there are dealerships

that will not touch a vehicle if it's been lifted,

which is unfortunate,

but there are select dealerships that people

who are modifying their vehicles

will go to those dealerships

because they understand that you just want to accessorize them.

We want to do more with them,

and that shouldn't like keep us from being able

to keep our vehicles maintained by the dealership.

No, correct.

And there's all this fee and mongering around warranty.

Yes.

Which is absolute BS.

So legally,

if you put an aftermarket accessory on your vehicle,

they cannot void the warranty

unless they can without any doubt prove

that that accessory was the cause of the issue.

So for instance,

if you put suspension on your vehicle

and the sunroof stop working,

they can't like void the warranty on the vehicle

because you put suspension.

Like they're just not connected.

Yeah.

And then some people just,

some of the dealers just not interested in it

for whatever reason,

they're happy with just doing general maintenance

on vehicles.

In fact, that's where a dealership really makes the money

is in the service department.

And maybe they just don't want to deal with it

because they don't understand it.

There's definitely a lot of that.

So which is that's understandable too.

Yeah.

And there's like different sides to every story, of course.

Yeah, correct.

So dealerships and then, yeah, off-road shops,

which we've got, I think on our books,

technically we've got around about 800 dealers

around the country.

Nice.

In terms of like operational meaning

they've purchased frequently within the next,

in the last six months.

Okay.

It's realistically probably around about 4,500

that is like trading on a regular basis.

Yeah.

And then we've got our website,

ironman4by4.com.

And then we've got these,

they're not quite franchise stores,

but they're as close to a franchise store

as you could possibly get.

So we've got six of these in the US.

So it's kind of like a more of an official,

official Ironman 4x4 America store.

Yeah. So if you went into the store,

if you went into any of the six stores,

they're going to look exactly the same.

They might be a slightly different shape and size,

but ultimately they're what we call our platinum dealers.

And we've got iron rigs 4x4,

which is in Beaverton, Oregon.

Okay.

And again, they do a great job.

They've got, they've literally got every Ironman product

pretty much on display.

Touch, feel, interact with it.

Touch drive vehicles, the works.

So we've got those guys.

We've got a couple up in Washington,

DX Off-Road and Nomad.

So they're like SeaTac and a bit further down the I-5.

Then we've got Urban Motors,

which is in Denver, Colorado.

Oh, nice.

And then we've got another one down towards Bend, Oregon.

And I think that's it.

Is that it?

I think that's it.

Come on, man.

You don't have one in Houston

with all of our flat terrain out here?

I know, I wish.

Yeah.

Does it make sense down here?

No.

Well, Austin is a big Subaru community.

Oh yeah.

No, there's a lot of Subarus in Texas.

I just, I joke because we, you know,

there's, I have people on the podcast

and they're like, oh yeah, like 10 minutes,

30 minutes, I'm in the mountains.

I mean, I'm like, oh yeah, 15 hours

and I'm in the mountains.

Yeah, I know, I know.

You've got your OE tree parks, right?

Yeah, we've got gravel roads, but I mean,

hey, I've ridden in a cross-track with a Spexy

on a gravel road at pretty decent speeds

and it was very nice.

It was extremely smooth and I was very, very impressed.

So good job there.

It does.

For the most part, it works well.

Yeah.

Except for those few issues here and there.

Yeah, correct.

So yeah, that's how, that's like what our partner,

partnership stores look like, you know,

from those platinum stores and then the four by four stores

and then the dealerships.

Okay.

And then our own online store.

Got you.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So you have, you know, we've been talking a lot

about suspension for the cross-track

and but is that the biggest seller of products,

of Ironman products in the Subaru market?

For sure.

Yeah.

Our ATS suspension is very, very popular.

And after that, honestly, it's our awnings.

We do phenomenally well with our awning collection.

We've got the 90 degree awnings.

We've got the 180 awnings.

We've got 270 awnings just because of the versatility

that you get out of those products.

Yeah.

And in turn, you know, it's just, yeah,

the awnings are freaking awesome.

And I've seen a lot of Ironman awnings out there.

Yeah.

And again, it's just another product

that we do a really good job

in delivering very good value.

It's not necessarily the cheapest.

It's not the most expensive,

but it's definitely the most feature rich,

you know, very, very good price.

And I have the only Ironman product

that I have ever purchased that I've ever owned

is the quick...

The brackets.

Yeah, the brackets.

Quickly release brackets.

Because my goal and my vision was to put them on my awning

and be able to just take my awning off

if I needed to, you know,

because I live in an apartment complex

and I was like, I don't know

that I want to just leave my awning out there

all the time with these little brackets

that you can just, you know,

unclip and then you could take it off.

So I ended up putting key locks on there.

Yep.

And then I kept it on

because I'm like, it looks really good up there.

Yeah, that's the thing as well.

You can just take it everywhere with you.

And those QR products,

those QR hooks,

they're one of the products that are made in Australia.

And we sell literally thousands of them.

And they're very durable

because, you know, it looks like

just a very hard composite plastic or something.

And I've been in some very, very...

I was in...

I was under an overpass

because it felt like I was in a tornado.

I don't know.

It must have just been like a huge, huge,

I forgot what it's called,

but it's like a big storm surge of some sort.

And whenever I got out of there,

there was an overturned

or three overturned 18-wheelers.

That was how strong the winds were.

And because I'm driving and I'm like,

is this thing going to like hold up to wind

and driving speed and everything?

But yeah, in that situation, yeah, they were great.

Yeah, good product.

Like they're very simple, but they're very effective.

Yes, very much so.

Let's see.

So yeah, suspension is...

Suspension warnings are what we sell

the most of for Subaru.

And suspension in general is our largest category.

Rooftop tents and awnings are number two

and then bumpers are number three.

We do that line of...

I would call them like bumper guards for Subaru.

And those things are incredibly stout.

They're also not for everybody.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's funny cause like I got hit from behind by a Jeep,

but I was actually the sixth car in the front

because some guy was driving way too fast.

And I was sitting still in the light,

but I got hit from behind and it dented my hatch

a little bit and dented my bumper

and my bumpers all scuffed up and people were like,

oh, you're gonna cut your bumper now?

I'm like, oh man.

So it's funny because like one, I don't need to

because I don't do any crazy off-roading.

And two, I have the rear reflectors

at the bottom of the bumper that have a decal

with a cutout of the shape of Texas.

And I'm like, I don't wanna lose those.

So I cut my bumper, I'm gonna lose those.

I know that's a funny reason to not have one,

but I also don't need to spend the money

on something that I don't need here.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

But so like with, you know, all you have all these

products, are y'all constantly doing like R&D

for new products for, you know,

and again, like you have a focused market

here in the U.S. obviously.

And then there's like you said global products

for the entire world.

And then specific ones for different areas.

But so are you looking at the market

and looking at what people are doing

and maybe what some other products are doing

like other manufacturers

and constantly developing ideas

and designs for new products?

Yeah, this like literally goes on every cent.

Like it's an everyday task.

Nice.

And we've had a lot of focus recently

on the new line of Pevtoiotas

because obviously they've done a complete refresh

of that line with the Tundra in 2022.

And then the Tacoma in 24,

the Land Cruiser in 24,

the Forerunner in 25.

So a lot of our focus has been there,

but we're also coming to the end

of that body of work now.

Which, so we've got,

we split the teams up from a product perspective.

So you've got your true suspension team.

That's all they do, work on suspension.

And then we've got our fabricator team.

So they're the guys that are doing the bumpers,

the steps, the rock sliders,

the roof racks, canopies that we're bringing

to market and a bunch of other stuff.

And then we've got our outdoor lifestyle team.

So that's rooftop tents, awnings, camp chairs,

blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

But with the new lineup of Pevtoiotas,

it's taken up completely the suspension team

and the fabricator team.

Plus, like you said,

you've also got other vehicles

launching around the world at the same time.

Australia have got their own version of the Land Cruiser,

which is the Prado 250,

which has got some differences to it.

They've got their Tundra, which is a bit different

and they've got some other stuff.

But then there's completely different brands.

So BYD is not here in the US,

but it is taking over the world everywhere else.

I've heard of it.

Yeah, it's a Chinese car manufacturer.

Okay.

And they are doing a ridiculously phenomenal job

at getting market penetration in Australia, throughout Asia.

I don't know, and across Europe as well, I think,

with the value for money that they're delivering

to the market.

And I think a lot of them are EVs

and I think they're plug-in hybrids, I think, maybe.

So the product team have equally been developing

products for the BYD and other things as well.

So we're always wrestling for prioritization and bandwidth

to be able to get our products to market.

And yeah, we're constantly in the market

looking at what's going on,

what are people putting on their vehicles,

what are the brands coming out with and why?

Is that worth taking a look at?

Is it worth picking apart?

And ultimately, again, being out there

and doing what our customers do

and understanding, again, it's like,

how can we improve this product?

So it's not about just making new products,

also evolution of existing products as well

to make them better.

Of course, yeah, yeah.

What are some of your favorite Ironman 4x4 products?

The awning's definitely number one.

Okay.

It's because you can put that on any vehicle.

You can put it on any vehicle.

You can use it anywhere.

If it's raining, it's going to protect you from the rain.

If it's really hot, it's going to protect you

and help you stay cool in the sun.

Give you an area for cooking.

You can turn it into effectively a room

so you can sleep in it as well.

It's a camp, it's a living quarters.

It goes anywhere with you.

And again, it's like,

I think our most expensive awning,

which is the 270 retails at 999,

and all the way down to a 90 degree awning,

which retails at like 249.

So a very achievable price with amazing benefits.

And you can put it on any vehicle.

So anybody that's-

Versatile.

Yeah, so versatile.

So that's my number one product.

My number two product would be suspension

because it really does transform

even in that stock foreigner that I was talking about

that I got in 2018.

Before it even taken it off road,

the stability that it gave the vehicle

over what it was stock just transformed it completely.

Forget about the extra weight carrying capacity,

the stamina that I get from being,

when I went and took it off road and what have you,

it's just really transformed the regular driving

of the vehicle.

And then my third would have,

oh, my third's got to be the bush toilet.

The what?

Because the bush toilet.

You got to go, you got to go.

Yeah, no, that's important.

Yeah, that's a very good, very useful product.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a very useful product.

Just flat packs, take it again,

just fits in a vehicle easily.

Very nice.

So yeah, they're like my top three.

I have to say too that like,

whenever Cross Trek specifically,

a lifted Cross Trek just looks so good.

It does.

They look.

It looks so good.

You get the offset of the wheel

with a slightly gnarlier tire.

You get the lift, it just, yeah, transforms it.

Oh, completely, yeah.

When you think about Ironman products,

what do you hope that customers feel

every time that they use an Ironman product?

I hope that they think to themselves,

I'm really happy that I bought this product

because it is allowing me to enjoy my experience

of whatever it is I'm doing,

more than I would without it.

And we've added, you know,

we've delivered really good value

in whatever it is that they've bought.

Yeah.

No, that's important too.

You definitely want your customers

to enjoy the products for what they purchased them for.

But it is, I mean, they're buying them

for a specific reason

because whether they buy suspension

because they want to get to more places

or just have fun with their vehicle,

you know, if you live somewhere like B&W or Colorado,

you know, there is a need for a lift

if there are places that you want to go that need a lift.

And then like you said with the awning,

the awnings are great, you know,

they're just, you can use them

for so many different reasons.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, one of my like personal passions is being outside.

And what I really get energy from

is being able to help other people

get outside and have a good experience.

Yeah, that's so important too.

You get so much from it.

Yeah.

Again, I was in footwear

and the footwear was actually outdoor,

it was outdoor hiking boots.

Oh, nice.

So we had the best selling hiking boots

in North America, statistically,

like I think we had like three or four in the top 10.

Okay.

It was about, again, just helping people

to get outside, good value, comfortable, yeah.

So this is the same.

Yeah.

So other than participating in events like Overland Expo,

do you have, you know, so you've got a presence there

when you go to these events, are there,

this is another two-part question,

what other events do you attend

so that people who may not end up like venturing

into a store can go to something like that

and see your products?

And then do you have like partnerships

with people out there in the community,

like influencers or car clubs

that can help you with promoting the product?

So like as an extension of marketing, let's say.

Yeah, correct.

So we do,

I think we do all the Overland Expo's,

the California, the Pacific Northwest.

We had a representation at Mountain West, East.

I don't know if we didn't do Flagstaff.

Okay.

And that's a, why do we not do Flagstaff?

I can't remember why we didn't do it.

I do remember it being quite a journey.

It's like the equivalent of driving

from London, UK to Moscow,

going from Pacific Northwest to Flagstaff.

It's quite a journey.

Anyway.

So we do those and then we partner with some of our dealers

to run like Riggs and Coffees.

Yeah.

And if you've heard of those before,

Riggs and Coffees happen all over really the West Coast

and not so much on the East Coast.

So we work with our dealers to help collaborate on those

and certainly those platinum stores that I mentioned

will participate in the one in Beaverton like all the time.

Okay.

Yeah.

So there's those events.

And then we've done a couple of Subaru events.

Oh, Subifest.

Yeah.

We've done a couple of the Subifests.

Okay.

And so that, I think that's it.

Yeah.

I think that's it from an event perspective.

Okay.

It's like we go to as a brand.

Yeah.

And then in terms of influencers

and other people that work within the market,

we've definitely got a stable of people.

And this is actually a project that I'm currently working on.

It's two-fold.

We're really working on building our community engagement.

It's something that we start to,

when we started the brand,

it was something that we did.

And then we just grew so quick.

We got detached from it a little bit

with the digital marketing

and all the product development

and moving head office like four times in like four years.

Yeah.

Yeah, that can be tough.

Yeah, it is.

That is an adventure in its own right.

So anyway, yeah, it's literally,

I got a sheet paper somewhere in my office here.

And one of the company goals

and that's allocated to me

is actually onboarding our community manager role

that we're bringing into the business.

Nice.

So they will be responsible for a few different things.

One of them is working specifically

with groups.

So you're specifically with super-oriented groups

in Facebook, any particular forums

and being there not to just promote product.

In fact, really not do that at all.

Again, it's been about other communities

adding value through content that we're able to develop

and maybe through some product development

or as we're fitting a product to a vehicle,

we can showcase or we've done something to one of our own

because we've got, which vehicle do we have now?

We've got a 2024 Crosstrek in the fleet.

Oh, nice.

Showcase how we're building that out

and just be there for Q&A when it comes

to outfit in a vehicle or whatever it might be,

camping sports, blah, blah, blah.

So they're gonna operate there

and then also a part of that role

is around our ambassador program.

So we've got, like I say,

we've got a short list of people that we already work with

but it needs better management.

It needed some software tools to amplify it.

And make it a bit more manageable and measurable.

And then also to go out and engage with new influencers.

Both, I would say from when it comes to Facebook,

the top contributors within groups

through to micro-influencers

and then people on a bigger scale.

And then behind that is building a program

that is a win-win in terms of it might be gear,

it might be commissions on sales.

But again, a proper structure to that program.

Okay.

So yeah, it's like working for literally,

I built everything, I had a guy

but then he got a, he'd like the week he was starting,

he got offered.

I remember you talking about that.

Yeah, literally his dream job.

Yeah.

So I was like, good for you, but...

Yeah, exactly.

Nolan, get after it because that is exactly

what you've wanted to do forever.

So go and have fun.

Yeah.

As far as, we talked about customer service earlier

and had the whole scenario with Overland Expo, PNW,

but how are the reviews of your products

and then like what sort of retention rates

or percentages do you see with customers?

So we have, from a review perspective,

I think we're running around about like

for the brand as a whole, like 4.8 out of five stars.

That's good.

So it's, again, we're not flawless,

but we're pretty good.

And again, we're just like striving to be better

every single day, constantly looking at

how can we improve really in every level of business

and specifically within customer service?

Yeah.

So we measure everything.

We measure the amount of calls coming in,

the amount of calls we've missed,

the amount of calls we've called back,

how long cases take like the works

with regards to resolution time,

and then ultimately customer satisfaction.

Last time I looked, it was like 4.7, 4.8,

something along those lines from a review perspective.

Do you have an example of like a review

that was like really, really good, that really moved you?

The best ones are when our bumpers

have literally saved people's lives.

Nice.

Yeah.

So they're always satisfying.

We had one of those around about a month ago.

A guy was in his Lexus GX and a drunk driver

hit them head on.

Oh my gosh.

The bumper did exactly what it was supposed to do.

It protected the people within the vehicle.

The vehicle looked trashed,

but it's designed to just like it's got crumpled zones

and what have you to take the impact and absorb it

and move, disperse that energy away from the passengers.

All the airbags, the car was written off,

but the crew were safe, thankfully.

So those ones are always really good to receive.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then another one that sticks out in my mind,

and I met these people at Overland Expo in 2019.

They've traveled around the world now actually,

they've traveled around the world twice.

Wow.

In their Prado, in the Toyota Prado,

with the same set of Ironman suspension.

It was actually for himself.

Very nice.

Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah.

It's always good.

It's obviously, you can get negative feedback.

Of course.

But for the most part, we get positive feedback.

And some of it's, oh, I like my product.

They shipped it really quick.

And some people really go into depth

and I appreciate all of them.

Yeah, absolutely.

What is your long-term vision for off-road equipment

and what you're going to bring to the market

and then especially like how the market is changing

and where you can see bigger growth opportunities

and do you see yourself or Ironman here in the US

specifically venturing off

and offering even more product lines?

Yeah.

I think over the last five or six years,

we have been guilty of getting distracted

on new product lines

or different business opportunities.

So first and foremost, what I've certainly learned

is make sure that you have a good understanding

make sure that we're executing the core deliverables

toward the best of our ability.

So that is, you know, our current line of suspension,

those fabricated products

and the rooftop tents and awnings

to the audience that we have today

that have supported us from day one.

So it's the Toyota, the Subaru and

really are our two primary brands.

Oh yeah.

100%, like I said, the Subaru product

is in our top 10 best sellers every single week

and that's been now for years.

So first and foremost, I want to make sure

that we continue to deliver on that front

and we still got some work to do, honestly.

Then with regards to new product categories,

obviously the vehicle landscape is changing

with regards to hybrids and EVs.

And I'm not sure about the EV thing,

we seem to have gone in one direction

and got very excited about it.

There's been obviously, there was a massive push

from the authorities, the government,

to like getting into EV, getting into EV, getting into EV.

And everybody's backtracking on that.

And it's not just the Tesla thing,

like the, you know, VW have been,

VW made massive, like a lot of car companies

made massive investments into EV

and appealing them back.

Yeah, off the record, that came up

during an Overline Expo with Subaru like,

oh man, we've invested all this money in EV technology

and like, what are we gonna do now?

Yeah, everybody just got,

I think everybody got excited about it being another market

that they could go and capitalize on

without really understanding

if the customer actually wanted it.

Yeah, there's, but I mean,

they were also kind of being directed to, you know,

and whether the customer wants it or not,

it's this pushback from people like,

I don't want an EV, you know, I want my gas vehicle.

Get that out of here.

Yeah, correct.

So, but that is gained, you know, in Australia,

that has gained a good amount of traction,

but hybrid seems to be like the sweet spot right now.

And, you know, weight of product is a,

is I think an issue that needs to be addressed.

So in, again, it's not many things that Australia

kind of lead the market on,

but they're really honing in on weight or weight reduction

and starting to make a lot of products out of aluminum.

Oh, nice.

So starting to see, certainly for like the BYD products

that I mentioned, for the new Lexus GX550

that's coming out there and a few other things,

they're doing a lot of aluminum development

from a fabricated product perspective.

So I think there's going to be an element of that

that transfers over here,

but I'm a bit dubious because the aluminum products

are a lot more expensive.

It adds like 30% more to the cost of the product

and whether people are willing to stomach that, I...

Is it worth the weight reduction?

Yeah, I don't know

because I've not had any experience

with the aluminum products.

We've got new aluminum roof racks coming to market

from October onwards, and that makes a lot of sense

because the weight carrying capacity

of the roof of vehicle is not a lot.

In fact, it's just got less and less

on all the modern vehicles.

So you want your roof rack to weigh

as little as possible

so that it's only your gear that's taken up the capacity

and not the rack itself.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think we're going to see evolution in our suspension line.

Obviously today we've got ATS from a Subaru perspective

and then for the other makes and models

we do a Nitro Gas, which effectively is like an ATS

and then we've got Foam Cell Pro

which does very, very well for us.

That's the military developed product

and then we're launching a product called IM 2.5

which is a two and a half inch mono tube shock absorber

much more in the, much more kind of tuned to performance

like a racing shock.

This isn't, this is all about comfort

but with inherently with a mono tube shock absorber

you can get the precision around the valving

much more dialed in than you can on a twin tube

like on a twin tube shock absorber.

Nice.

So I think there's going to be more evolution there

from with regards to our product line

and then with regards to the market generally

I really don't, I really am not sure.

ATS, so the driver assisted technologies

like eyesight for instance,

the Subaru is something that we've constantly

got to work around

and whether autonomous vehicles like really take off

the Subaru audience and the Toyota audience

at least for who we serve

love for the most part to drive their vehicle.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

The autonomous component

I don't think we've got to worry about too much

in the immediate future

but with, and this is maybe a bit too much of a tangent

obviously with the emergence of AI

and the productivity and what have you

hopefully more people will be able to spend time outside

which means the market as a whole can grow.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

The certainly the aftermarket

is predicted to continue to grow.

It's a $52 billion market in the US

and I think they continue to see it grow

like 5% year on year.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot.

Yeah.

So it's a big, big market.

Definitely.

You're in the right spot.

Yeah.

So we're going to get into this last segment here

in a little bit but is there anything else

that you wanted to share that I didn't ask you

that you want people to know about?

I do have one actually.

Okay.

And it is about the mirage

of OEMs bringing out off-road capable vehicles.

Like the wilderness edition.

Yeah.

Because it looks the part

but it's not necessarily the part.

Yeah.

And I don't want to offend anybody.

I mean, they're still getting modified.

They're still going to get modified.

Yeah.

The wilderness editions.

Yeah, I mean like there's the,

they have a skid plate, an engine skid plate on there

that's different and a little bit more

than the typical plastic that you see under there

but it's not the beefiness of what people

are putting on their Subaru's

because of the type of off-roading that they're doing.

So, you know, Subaru did do a really good job

with bringing out the wilderness edition.

I completely agree.

In the fact of they saw what was going on

out there in the community that people are.

And I think that probably the wilderness edition

may have been targeted for a specific audience

of people that want to have their vehicle

more off-road capable than typically the Subaru's were

but they don't really,

maybe they don't know how to go about it

and maybe they don't want to add

all of these additional aftermarket products

and so they want something

that is gonna be more capable right off the showroom floor

and they don't really have to do anything to it

and then maybe they don't understand it

as much as some of the people

that really take the deep dive into doing it.

And it's great.

I mean, they've done a lot of testing with them.

There are people that take them as they are

and do a lot of stuff with them

and they're extremely capable.

I mean, just a regular Subaru's

that are not the wilderness edition

are extremely capable and way more capable

than people give them credit for.

And then, you know, people buy these cars

and they take them out as a stock cross,

you know, cross-track forest or outback, even the ascent.

And they're very surprised at what they can do.

That's why Subaru has grown.

Well, one of the primary reasons

why Subaru has grown so much over the years

is the functionality that it delivers.

I remember I grew up in rural England

and I vividly, I was like, I lived in the countryside

and the only vehicles that were out

when we had like massive dumps of snow

were tractors and Subaru's.

I seriously.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're great.

They're bloody awesome.

Oh yeah.

Continue on.

Yeah, the, you know, it's just understanding what you're,

I think it's understanding what you're getting.

So for instance, when it comes to a lifted OEM,

a lifted vehicle from an OEM, it's lifted.

So it gives you, like we were talking about before,

it gives you the aesthetic, it looks good.

But if you're going to use it

more than, you know, a gravel,

like a light gravel road

and you're starting to deal with an inhalation

and what have you, that lift has actually been delivered

through a spacer kit.

So it actually affects down travel

and it certainly doesn't.

So that down travel allows the wheel to stay

in contact with the ground.

So if you're limiting that by lifting the vehicle,

three wheeling.

And then you're traction with a road in an uneven surface.

And then the other component is, if you are,

if you're loading the vehicle with gear,

it's not being designed to deal

with any additional weight carrying capacity.

So again, that's a massive element

of why people upgrade their suspension

is actually to carry more weight.

In Australia, you have to have a GVM certification.

So when you get to a certain,

when you get to the GVM of the vehicle

and people don't really know or care about this in us,

in the US.

No, no.

But the risks that you've got

by overloading that vehicle are really significant

to the point in Australia where you have to have

your vehicle modified to be able to hold

and deal with that extra capacity image,

which means suspension and this, that and the other.

And if you don't do that and you get caught,

they're gonna impound your vehicle.

Is that serious from a safe perspective?

I've heard of that, yeah.

Yeah, so, and again, I think the other thing to consider

is when you're adding a lot of weight to your vehicle,

is the impact on your brakes,

which everybody does, like nobody pays any attention to,

but brakes are important

and weight's a real problem for the brakes.

So consider that.

Oh yeah, yeah.

No, that's really good.

And it's important.

And that's, I think Subaru understands that

and they know that people that are gonna take

the wilderness edition and want to do more with it,

they're gonna modify it.

Yeah, correct.

And it's not unique Subaru.

No. Because Toyota do the same

and Jeep do the same and they all do it.

But the OEMs really don't understand off-road.

Yeah.

Thankfully.

Because if they did, it'd make a lot harder.

Yeah, it's very true.

It's very true.

But yeah, no, thank you for all of that.

So this last segment is where we get to know you

a little bit more.

But who is Luke, as in describe yourself?

Well, obviously I'm from Louisiana.

Oh yeah, I heard that.

Yeah, so we mentioned earlier also, I'm from the UK.

That's where I grew up.

I just mentioned in rural England.

So I spent a lot of my time outdoors.

In fact, where I spent all my childhood

is just I'm at school or I'm outdoors from,

as many people are, I'm sure, less so today,

depending on where you live within the US.

But out the door at dawn and kind of back in at sundown.

Yep, dinner time.

Just adventuring.

Going out and causing trouble.

I think the things that I've got,

wife, two kids, so my wife, Lauren.

And then I've got a 12 year old boy, Colby,

who is an avid soccer player.

And then an eight year old daughter, Mia.

And she is a avid dancer.

She's really bloody good at it.

Nice.

So yeah, we live here in the Pacific Northwest.

And between running the business,

kids after school activities,

or just activities in general,

because it's not just about after school,

they're on a lot.

You know, the rest of the time is really

trying to get outside as much as possible.

And I'm an relentless learner.

Yeah.

I love to learn.

And then apply that learning where I can

to enhance our family life,

enhance the business, enhance our products.

I really aim to lead by example

and improve myself to help other people.

Yeah.

Is really what makes me tick, I think.

How do you go about like your work-life balance

because you're the CEO of this business

and you have a very important position there.

But then of course you also have a family life,

with a wife and two kids.

Again, this is where I'm learning continuously.

And I think I've got to,

where I am right now is probably the best place

I've ever been in my career,

be it we're in the UK with the footwear brand here

with the footwear brand or today with Ironman 4x4.

And it's the

utilisation of my calendar

and being very, very disciplined with my calendar.

So I start work at five a.m.

and I get up and I attack one of my biggest rocks,

for instance, like when it comes to like goals

of the business.

I start at five, I get up, get after that

for an hour and a half every single day.

And then I'll take the dog for a walk

and then I'll go myself and my wife for cup of tea

and I'll get ready for work and I'll get into the office.

And then it's just, I'm time blocking

all of like the similar things

that I've got within the business.

So on a Monday morning or on a Monday,

it's my one-on-one meetings

with the people that report into me.

So people have marketing, operations, product.

So Mondays and a little bit of Tuesday morning,

they're gonna be more one-on-ones.

And I rotate them because

I've got quite a few people to report to me.

So there's a rotation of like bi-weekly meetings there.

And then I've got focus time specifically

within my calendar.

And then when it comes to family time,

I know that every day I am out at

five, I mean, every day I'm out at five

and then I've got a family responsibility

of some description.

I might be taking my son to soccer,

which is normally the case.

Or that might be my opportunity to go

and get some jujitsu in.

And again, that's a bit of a balance

between like one day soccer will be on,

the next day, you know, go to jujitsu.

And then the weekends are fairly free.

You know, there, I used to work a lot

at the weekends as well,

but as the business is

more stable

than for the most part,

weekends are family time.

So can you and are you able to

and do you try to leave

work out of family time as much as possible?

You know what, the business,

we're so invested in the business

mentally and emotionally.

Yeah.

You know, it's kind of built this ship from scratch.

So, you know, it is woven into our lives.

Yeah.

And we enjoy it.

That's good.

But like, there's never a time where it's like,

oh, shut up about work.

Yeah.

Because my wife equally does work in the business.

It's on a part-time basis.

But having her connected to the business is

very good as well.

Cause she understands for the most part

what's going on, she's in it part-time.

It's a good sounding board.

And again, she's

mentally and emotionally invested in a success.

Yeah.

And she's got a very good understanding

of what you need to do

and what your role is with the company.

So, that's actually really good

because I know that,

and I'm sure that there's so many couples out there

where you have one person that maybe stays at home

or one person that has a job

and then the other person has their job

and they might be completely disconnected

and somebody's still working in the evening time

and the other person may not understand

why, like why are you still working?

You need to be in here with us.

So, it sounds like that's a really good situation

that you're in that everybody has an understanding

and I'm sure you're probably not just like

constantly working throughout the evening

when you're trying to spend time with your family

but I'm sure there is time for that.

Yeah, the definitely is like, it's pretty common.

Once the kids are in bed finally

and it all depends on what their schedule is

with their soccer or dance.

But, I'll crack the laptop open

and I'll either be looking at my next day

and getting a scan of what I've got going on

or some moving meeting or something else

but I'm really getting to a place.

I used to, kids go to bed

and I just work through like 11 p.m.

and it's get up, rinse and repeat

and I don't do that anymore.

That's good, yeah.

What is a favorite memory from your childhood?

Sounds like something to do with outdoors probably.

Yeah, it definitely is.

It really is the just being outside,

being outside with friends, exploring

because you just learn so much.

You learn independence and you learn resourcefulness

and you learn how to overcome obstacles.

Your bike falls off a cliff

or you go climbing and get stuck up a cliff.

Yeah.

Or if you fall off a wall and cut your leg open,

it's like, okay, what do I do now?

All things are real.

So, yeah, it would be

having that freedom to explore the outdoors as a kid.

Yep, yeah, I grew up with that too.

Yeah, it's so good.

It's fun.

Oh, yeah.

You just appreciate nature.

Yeah.

And you're in the perfect spot for it, where you live.

Yeah, that was one of the definitely a motivating factor

for when there was the opportunity in the U.S.

I'm like, okay, I love the mountains.

I love the, I've always wanted to come to,

I'd always wanted to come to the U.S.

for various different reasons,

but one of them was its diversity

from a geological perspective.

You know, it's just fricking amazing place.

I'm sure you were looking at the U.S.

and like definitely not moving to Houston.

I had no idea.

I always, I always give Houston a hard time.

I've been to Houston.

I've been to Houston a few times.

Yeah.

I have the best ever, what is it, prime rib?

I'm not saying that Houston is a bad spot.

It's just after having seen mountains myself

and them being so far away, that's the tough part.

And then, you know,

so much of the community is in other places.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, the fact that, you know, where we are,

we've got the ocean an hour and 15 minutes

from where I live,

or I'm an hour and 15 minutes

from being on Mount Hurden in the forest.

Yeah.

And then a couple of hours

being in the high desert.

Again, that diversity that I've got right here is amazing.

That sounds rough, man.

I don't know.

I have so much sympathy for you.

I just need more time to go out and take advantage of it.

Yeah.

No, that's good that you have it though.

Would you say that this is your dream job?

And if not, do you have one?

I mean, because it sounds like you're,

it sounds like you have a lot of passion for it,

that, you know, you're working

when you probably don't necessarily have to work,

but I know that that looking at your day ahead,

like you said, cracking up your laptop,

that comes from a passion for what you do,

not just necessarily probably because you have to do it,

but because you're like,

I wanna know what I'm gonna be doing next day.

I wanna start planning ahead

because this is something that I really enjoy

and that I want to be invested in

because I'm truly enjoying this journey.

Yeah.

I think it is.

Again, I found a, pardon the pun,

vehicle to help people get outside

with a brand, another one of my core values is

being able to do that,

delivering like great value

so that many people can afford to do it,

not just the few.

Yeah, so, and one of the things that

I've always wanted to do was create a business

that people enjoyed working in.

Yeah.

Because I've been around a lot of different businesses

from the biggest brands and retailers in the world

through to like mom and pops,

both in Europe and over here.

So you get to see the good

and you get to see the not so good

and being able to learn from that

and try and apply it to the business,

certainly the not so good components,

like, okay, that sucks.

Being able to, yeah, try and create a,

sounds a bit cheesy, but a great place to work.

That is not cheesy at all.

It's not.

It's something that I've always wanted to do

because I've either seen it or experienced it.

And again, I know we can always do better,

but it does give me satisfaction

when I see the team getting amped up

about the new products or I can hear them

because I've got my office here,

but like our B2B team are here

and then we've got some marketing folks as well.

And I can just hear them having a good time.

They're working hard, but they're having fun doing it.

And again, there's a lot of diversity with what we do.

So our sales guys, they're on the phones

servicing their B2B customers.

But at the same time, Mac, for instance,

or Luke get to go and take part

in some of the marketing videos and be actors or talent.

So we try to stay focused and on task,

but at the same time, we've got to get things done.

We've got to get things done

and it allows for that exposure to other things.

But you want to have fun along the way too.

That's important.

We absolutely do.

Nobody has probably generated by me,

but nobody takes themselves too seriously.

And everybody, what about core,

well, we've got a few core values.

But an element of our core,

one element of our core values is service.

And that's not just about service to the customer,

which is very important obviously.

There's also service to each other within the business.

Being there to help when somebody needs help.

It's about honesty and transparency.

Yeah.

You said that you have these one-on-one meetings

with people that you alternate throughout the weeks

or other weeks.

What do you think that the people that report to you

and that you're sort of like the boss of

or a supervisor to whatever it may be to them,

what do you think they would say about you

as like a boss, as somebody that they work for?

Well,

I had a call with our Econ manager not so long ago.

And a part of his feedback to me,

because I always ask for feedback.

Part of his feedback to me was

he appreciated how calm I can be.

In challenging situations.

So that's definitely one attribute that I think I've got.

And then,

gosh, I think I've got some cards back here, actually,

from the team.

Oh, nice.

Let's have a look at what they say.

I'll try, this is a cheat.

No, that's fine.

That's fine.

Okay, Luke, I truly appreciate this.

This is where I got to make it up now.

Luke, I truly appreciate and respect your style of leadership.

Your genuine approach to taking our company

to new and exciting levels will no doubt, let's succeed.

I look forward to helping the team reach all of our goals

and set new benchmarks in our industry.

Oh, and this must have been after a management meeting.

Thank you for keeping the last two days afloat and on course.

Very nice.

So I think leadership seems to come up a lot

because as you mentioned there,

I don't treat anybody as a subordinate.

I think we're all equal and all play our part

in the success of the business.

So it's about, for me, leading by example, coaching,

and this is something that I'm working on personally as well,

is the default to coaching and allowing the team member

to utilize their own skills in the right term,

I'm trying to say here,

but trying to allow them to go through the,

sometimes like the friction,

like trying to problem solve or execute an idea

and then try to use it as a way to do it.

Like rather than me saying, hey, do this like this,

it's a case of, okay, well, I don't know,

you're the expert in that position.

So you tell me what you should be doing.

You tell me the right thing to do.

And then I'll just like, sense check it.

Does it make sense?

Okay, let's go do it.

I think my default is yes rather than no.

And I've been around a lot of places

where the default is no.

When people bring ideas and suggestions into a business,

I think that's certainly a trait in the UK

and within Australia.

And less so in the US,

I think there's a more general positive

can do attitude here.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good.

I just, I was thinking of that question

as you were talking about people that,

you know, you have your one-on-one meetings with.

So yeah, just very hard to ask.

Yeah, cool.

What other hobbies do you have?

I mean, it sounds like you like to get out,

you've trained Jiu-Jitsu, do you have any other hobbies

like biking or skateboarding?

Yeah, I love getting outside.

I've not been climbing for a while,

but I love climbing.

And, you know, somewhat for the similarity to Jiu-Jitsu

is like when you're doing it,

you just focus on it

and everything else melts away into the background.

100%.

And to be fair, I'm very good at detaching.

So I don't let things bleed into each other too much.

So it's not as if I need that

to be able to forget about work

or an issue or whatever it is.

Yeah.

So yeah, the like being outside, climbing,

really anything outdoors

and anything from like a physical exercise perspective,

but there's nothing like,

I just love being outdoors.

But there's nothing like,

I just love being active.

Yeah.

It's good for you.

Yeah.

It's freaking good for you

and that just for me is like a great vacation

or a great, you know, a great weekend.

Yeah.

And then outside of that,

we've got a dog.

So I spend a lot of time with the dog.

Nice.

And getting him out on hikes,

which is another great excuse for me to get outside.

Of course.

Yeah.

That's good.

And then, you know, my other,

I guess my other hobby,

it's not,

I really don't see my work as work.

But again, that constant like learning

and self-improvement is kind of a hobby in a way.

I don't know.

I just constantly trying to learn

and self-improve

and then apply all that learning

to whatever I do,

be it with the family or in the business.

So that, I just, again,

I love spending any of my free time doing that stuff.

Yeah.

And I've seen,

I've been following your account now for a while

since I met you

and seeing all of your stories

and talking about your coaching

that you've been doing.

So it's,

it's great.

I think it's great.

Yeah.

It's good.

The social media stuff is not

the most comfortable thing for me to do.

Yeah.

You're doing it.

That's kind of why I'm doing it

is I'm getting outside of my comfort zone

and challenging myself, which is good.

Yeah.

And you just steadily get better,

you know, a little bit better every time.

Absolutely.

The idea, at least.

Yeah.

What is something that makes you want to get out of bed every day?

Learning and serving and helping people.

That's a good reason.

And the implementation of the learning

because information without implementation

is just a waste of time.

Yeah.

That's true.

Very true.

So that, I don't really, yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I got out of bed in the morning.

All right.

What is something that would make you want to stay in bed?

There is nothing.

Unless I was like super sick.

Yeah.

I'm not staying in bed.

Okay.

That's good.

It's a fair answer.

Yeah.

What is something that really scares you?

This definitely scares me,

but I use it to try and motivate me

and that is getting to the end of my life

and regretting that I didn't take that leap,

whatever it was, like starting a business.

I just, obviously there's a lot of risk behind it.

Yeah.

I had a very well-paying job.

Again, something that I love doing.

We had a great team,

but I just knew that if I didn't take that leap,

I would regret it.

I would rather, and I did say this in one of my videos,

is the truth.

I would rather try and fail than fail,

fail not trying.

I don't know if that's the right way to say it,

but ultimately...

No, I know what you mean.

I've got to do it.

I just had to do it.

I couldn't not do it.

Yeah.

Even if it all went wrong, I was like,

okay, well, Jeff Bezos talks about one-way

and two-way doors and for me,

quitting my job and starting the business,

it was a two-way door.

Or moving to the US, it was a two-way door

because if I move to the US

and it doesn't work out for whatever reason,

guess what?

Just go back.

Or go somewhere else.

Yeah.

You want to start the business

or the business doesn't work?

All right.

Well, you know what?

I've probably learned a load

and I can go and get into the job

or try and start a different business.

Yeah, absolutely.

So try and look at things like that.

Yeah.

What is something that really excites you?

It would be really exciting to see Louis Hamilton

start winning in his Ferrari.

That would be really exciting

because I'm a big F1 fan and a big Louis Hamilton fan

and it's been a couple of tough years.

Something that really excites me,

that definitely does.

Adventure.

Yeah.

Going on adventures.

That's always fun.

Yeah.

You've got plenty of it there.

Yeah, correct.

There's adventures all around us.

There's the adventure of getting out

into the wilderness,

but again, there's an adventure in business.

There's the adventure in...

There's the adventure in going to Jiu Jitsu for the first time.

Oh, yeah.

Or to that networking session.

And it's like...

This is going to be an adventure.

So I really like risk and risk.

Fear and adventure kind of lay in a similar place for me.

Okay.

I like to try and run and say,

oh, we're going to do this.

I'm scared of this.

It's like this is going to be an adventure.

I've got to learn from it.

Yeah.

You always end up learning something

even if you think that you won't

or you're scared to do it.

Yeah.

You look back at it

and it may not have been exciting.

It may not have been easy,

but you always learn something.

Yeah.

What is the...

There's a saying for fear.

I've heard it a few times recently.

There's two things, actually.

Fear stands for...

false...

something like...

false...

something...

appearing real.

False information appearing real,

something along those lines.

But actually, one thing that I really like

is that fear is an ocean-wide,

but just an inch deep.

You look at it and you're like...

Oh, yeah.

Oh my God, I'm never going to cross that.

And when you take that step,

you realize it's just a puddle.

But you've got to take that step.

Yeah.

That's good.

And then that leads me into the last question.

What would be your best bit of advice

to give to someone about anything?

Oh, okay.

So, did you know that Beethoven was deaf?

I think I've heard that.

Or Henry Ford worked in a steel plant.

Or Shakespeare painted pots.

And...

Oh, what's the chap's name?

Frederick Douglass?

He was a slave before he was a part of the movement

to end slavery in the United States.

Those people,

they changed the world with a dream

and taken action

and never giving up on the dream

through the sheer determination,

the commitment, the faith

to believe in what they believed in.

And they failed along the way for sure,

but they kept going.

And history is littered

with all these different people.

So, what are your dreams?

What gives you that feeling of weightlessness?

The energy,

the feeling that gives you the energy

like a thousand horsepower engine.

You know, it's in there somewhere.

It's in everybody.

You might not have found it,

but it's in there.

What's stopping you?

What are you afraid of?

We were just talking about fear.

Again, history is full of people that have changed the world

and those people have come to the circumstances

that no one would have ever thought it was possible

that that person could do that.

So, why not you?

Yeah, you never know who...

not to say that like,

oh, you're gonna be the next whatever,

but you could be that for yourself,

for your family, for your friends,

for a new business you decided to start.

You never know.

And you'll never know

unless you do something about it.

Take that first step.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

It's pretty awesome.

I appreciate your time.

I appreciate your conversation.

Yeah.

I hope...

I hope it's been somewhat of value and entertaining

No, it's been great.

to everybody that listens to it.

Yeah.

And if anybody has any questions,

then obviously they can read...

any of the listeners have any questions,

they can reach out to me through my social media,

which is my name,

it's luke underscore schnacker,

I think on Instagram.

So, feel free to message me,

comment from an Ironman perspective.

You can contact us via our customer service team.

You can email us, you can live chat us.

We try to be very approachable.

And again, we'll screw up, I'm sure.

But if you let us know about it in those instances,

then we'll always try to do the right thing.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it.

It was great to meet you in person,

which that's a huge, huge deal for me

because being that I record these from my closet here in Houston,

it's like I don't get a whole lot of opportunities to get out,

but I'm glad that Subaru invited me to go to Overland Expo

and attend these events.

And because of that, I was able to meet you

because of Derek, who I had met for the first time.

And so you just...

you have all these collaborations,

you get to meet these people,

and I just have a good time doing this

and I really appreciate your time.

It's a big brand out there in the Subaru community,

so I feel very fortunate to have had you on.

Oh yeah, no problem whatsoever.

It's all genuinely my pleasure.

All right.

And don't be a stranger.

Yeah, no, I won't.

Thank you.

You have a good night.

See ya.

Okay.

You too.

Bye.

Hello again, everybody.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much to Luke for taking the time

and recording with me.

He's a really busy guy,

so I know that...

So to me, it was a really big deal

that he took the time out of his day to do that.

Thank you so much, Luke.

I really, really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for sharing so much of your story

and journey with Iron Man 4x4 here in America.

And thank you for just being so open

and honest about what was going on with the lift kits

and some of the other issues.

That's really, really big.

And I think everybody...

I hope everybody thinks that, you know,

the same as I do that that's really great of you

and shows a lot of character of you

and Iron Man 4x4.

So thank you.

If you are not following Luke, go give him a follow.

I tagged him in the Instagram post.

I'm not going to attempt to pronounce his last name

because I think I might get it incorrectly.

I should have asked you how to pronounce your name properly,

Luke, your last name.

But you can find him on the Instagram post.

And of course, you know Iron Man 4x4 America.

So go give them a follow as well.

And again, thank you all so much for tuning in.

Thank you for listening to another episode.

Be sure to go check out the Dirt Subis podcast as well

and get some more Subaru-themed podcast content.

So thank you.

I hope you all have a great week.

We'll see you next Monday for the Subi Scoop

and then following that for another regular episode.

Much Subi love.

Raf.

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you can find them on Instagram at Subi and you podcast.

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Let's get started.

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