Guidefitter Spotlight Episode 17: Tristan Talvi, Founder of VIAM Outdoors

Transcript

Bryan Koontz (00:00), Hi, this conversation is with Tristan Talvi. He's the founder and owner of a back country lightweight equipment company called VIAM Outdoors. And they're based right here in Bozeman, Montana where Guidefitter is based. So join me in this conversation. Tristan talks about how he got into hunting in the first place influenced by his grandfather. And ⁓ actually later Tristan got his father involved, little reverse. Usually it's the dad who gets this uninvolved in hunting, but Tristan got his dad involved later in life. But anyway, join me in this conversation. Tristan talks about VIAM Outdoors, ⁓ various products they have, their shelters, their teepees, their stoves, their game bags, which are very popular. We talk about hexagonal ripstop designs and why that's important. So give it a listen. And it's always great to hear an entrepreneur who sees opportunities to improve things in something they're passionate about, like backcountry hunting, and then does something about it, like making better products. So join me in this conversation with Tristan, and welcome to the Guidefitter Spotlight.

Bryan Koontz (00:00), were you able to get out at all yet this year?

Tristan (00:02), ⁓ I went out opener and it was a zoo. my buddy was in there on Thursday. And he was in there about 10 miles and Friday rolls in. And next thing you know, there's camp after camp after camp coming up there. I got up there Saturday mornings. I had to drop my kids off. And I think I got in about two o'clock and we just hung out. And next thing you know, the neighbors that were there, like no joke, they pulled right next to us. It was to the point that it was four guys and it was their week guys week trip. And they had quads up the yin yang with trailers and these huge shelters and they even brought golf clubs. So we're golf.

Bryan Koontz (00:47), golf clubs just like those like doing like teeing off off the mountain kind of thing.

Tristan (00:52), I haven't been to this spot in five years. And I was telling these guys, was like, you know, I hunt the other side. I don't come up here at all. And they're like, yeah, we come up here every year. It's this busy. And I'm just like, dude, this is insane. There's so many people and we're like, well, let's go see if we can find elk. And we went to the very north end and, this is on a trail system. And we found like four more camps, you know, and this is now pushing probably 18, 20 miles. from a trailhead. And we came back and those guys are golfing, you know, and they're like, yeah, we've been doing this for 10 years and they had their clubs and they had their own holes lined up, you know? And so it was kind of cool, but the next day we were out of there and we were just like, no,

Bryan Koontz (01:30), like Yeah. Well, given what you're doing with VIAM, know, it seems like that wouldn't be your game, like hiking in, going lightweight. All that seems to be more your MO. Were you born in Montana? Are you Montana native or where are from?

Tristan (01:43), No. Yeah. So my generation, me and my sister are the only generation from pretty much Washington. Yeah, yeah. My mom, she was born in Great Falls. know, her, her mom and dad came from like North Dakota area and same with my dad. My dad's family is from Geraldine in Montana and my mom's from Great Falls. So my grandpa, Eugene, you know, he, he's the one who got me into hunting.

Bryan Koontz (01:57), Washington. Mm-hmm.

Tristan (02:19), When my mom was born, he was a bricklayer. So ⁓ industrial boom or bricklaying and all that stuff was in Seattle. So he followed the work. So that's where I was born. And by the time that I was of 18 or of age, I was able to make my own decisions, you know, and I said, I didn't want to turn wrenches because I really enjoy working on cars, working with my hands, but there just wasn't a career behind it. you know, I made the choice to It's time to go back to Montana. You know, by that time, when I was in ninth grade, my grandpa retired and he moved to Plains, Montana. So funny story is, you know, I just, wasn't going to college, you know, and I, my, I cleaned up my act in the 12th grade and, you know, got straight A's and I got my GPA up and I applied for the university, but I didn't know university, right? Staples, you know, so I, I just applied and I told my grandpa, Hey, I got a, I got accepted to MSU. He's like, yeah, that's great. But that's, you know, like six hours away. You know, so I applied for MSU when I was supposed to be applying for U of M with business school, you know, so I pre applied for U of M. So yeah, I ended up going to U of M graduated there and then, you know, did a stint back in Washington with my career job, you know, and, know, having two kids and being in six gear all the time traveling, you know, it was 15, 20 miles to work. I was living in Maple Valley and traveling to Bellevue. It was just a nightmare, like a rat race. So I just said, you know what, let's throw this away and let's move to Montana. And I told the employer and they said, well, what can we do? And I said, I'll work remote. And they said, perfect. So I'm working remote. I still go back once in a while to do

Bryan Koontz (03:55), Yeah, sure.

Tristan (04:13), meetings and stuff like that. I do do finance for a living. know, VIAM. is more of a hobby of passion because if you're in a business atmosphere, you know, there's a lot less people in the outdoor space. you know, doing these trade shows and, you know, talking to customers, you know, it gives me, you know, that emotional high talking to them because that's what I truly love. And that's what I enjoy. funny thing is you go look at some of the reviews of the company.

Bryan Koontz (04:20), Nice. Yup.

Tristan (04:42), They're like, Tristan's great. I call him to buy something and he didn't want to sell me anything. He just wanted to make sure I have a successful hunt. it's not to me, we're not a big company. It's not about making big buku bucks. We don't have any influencers for that. We want to grow organically. I want to grow from word of mouth and that's where we are. So a lot of people have never heard of us and coming up on almost two and a half months, we're on a 10 year anniversary. we started

Bryan Koontz (04:50), Nice. That's awesome. Wow.

Tristan (05:12), you know, December of 2015. So that's what we're trying to

Bryan Koontz (05:16), Well, well, tell me, tell me, tell me more about that. Cause I always love hearing the startup stories because it takes, there are so many people that have, you know, great idea. And it's like, it's not bad to have great ideas, but like so many people have great ideas, but to go from idea to putting a business entity in place and then making an actual thing, like, know, your first thing. I mean, that's, that's putting the ideas into action and that takes a, that's a different sort of a person who's able to do that. So like, how did that all come together? And, you know, I know that I know firsthand, that's not that easy.

Tristan (05:49), Yeah, it was, I was more of like in a rock and a hard spot, you know, so this was, you know, I graduated college in 2008, you know, so that's the housing recession, right? So here I am and I've got this college degree and it's like, this is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know, and it just didn't pan out for me because everybody was going back for an MBA and I'm the first person in our family tree.

Bryan Koontz (06:02), yeah, sure.

Tristan (06:18), to have a college degree. My sister joined the Air Force. My mom cut hair. She owned her own business. My dad was an auto mechanic. The rest of the family was in trade. And so here I am in 2008. I went back to work at a tire shop, changing tires. So I didn't get my first finance job until 2011. And I was doing finance by trade. I'm a financial analyst. So I watched

Bryan Koontz (06:23), Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tristan (06:47), large chunks of money. ⁓ So I was working for a ⁓ construction company that built cell towers for the major providers. now fast forward, I started in 2011, fast forward till 2015. By this time, those major providers were leaving that Seattle area because they lost that contract. And they wanted me to go work in California. And I'm like, I am not moving to California. Two weeks later, I got a notice that said, we're

Bryan Koontz (06:49), Mm-hmm. you Yeah.

Tristan (07:17), you know, we dissolve your position kind of pretty much. So here I am, you know, I'm still enjoying the outdoors, doing what I do. And in all honesty, I sat there and I just got back from a hunting trip and I had a competitor's item and it was falling apart. And I was like, I can fix this, you know, I don't need to send it in. I can fix this, you know? So my mom, she's a sewer by, you know, by hobby, not by trade, but

Bryan Koontz (07:20), Yeah, right. Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tristan (07:47), you know, I reached out to my mom and you know, I looked at some of her stuff and she's got these nice machines and I'm like, no. So I went to Walmart and this is no BS went to Walmart, bought like an $80 machine and I just started fixing, you know, the things that were falling apart. And that's kind of how it started. And I had a couple of buddies that were like, Hey, I noticed that what you made, can you do this? You know, and I, I enjoy working my hands, you know, and I can just build a lot of things.

Bryan Koontz (08:11), Hmm.

Tristan (08:17), And when you're looking at that, I can see how to build other items. talking about VIAM as a product wise, it's not like we're inventing new things. We've already been harped on, or a lot of companies probably have been harped on, about a teepee design. How many teepees are out there? Nobody is the true inventor of a teepee except for probably the natives.

Bryan Koontz (08:37), you Right, sure, yeah.

Tristan (08:43), It doesn't matter what outdoor company has been making a TV. They're all their own iteration of it. So what we have done is we've just, we're not reinventing the wheel. You know, some items we do have that, but a lot of the stuff you're, Hey, I've noticed that this product has a fault. How do I fix this product? You know? And so that's what we're doing. You know, we're adding these more spokes to that wheel to make it a more stronger product. You know,

Bryan Koontz (08:49), Mm-hmm. Right.

Tristan (09:13), So that's kind of.

Bryan Koontz (09:14), Well, I mean, I think a lot of the times the best products come from, you know, the passion of someone who's into the thing, like backcountry hunting, for example, or whatever else it might be, like someone who's really into, they're passionate about something and they make something, they see an opportunity to make something better for them because of, to support their passion. And it, you know, I think nine times out of 10s, turns out that it's not just better for them. It's better for all kinds of people to enjoy that thing. Right. So I think that's like, that's an entrepreneur's path. And that's a great path. Like, let me make something really awesome for me, because I think it's really awesome. And I think a lot of other people will find it awesome too. So, you know, I think that's pretty, pretty neat. Yeah.

Tristan (09:55), Right. Yeah. And that's kind of how it started. I fixed that shelter that was falling apart and then it started with stuff sacks. just simplicity sake here, a lot of stuff sacks that people make, a manufacturer will take a template and they lay the template on top and they just cut around it. Well, by the time that you do that, now you got four edges. And this is just how simple things that we've not reinventing a product, but we've just altered the design.

Bryan Koontz (10:15), Mm-hmm. Sure.

Tristan (10:24), So instead of having four seams, that's a perimeter. You've got four seams all the way around. What we did is we'll unfold that thing, now cut out a template so when you're folding it up, you only have two seams on the end. So we just eliminated two stress points or failure points or even parts where water can get in. So that, in my opinion, is a better product because less parts to fail.

Bryan Koontz (10:37), huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tristan (10:52), And a lot of our stuff now is seam sealed. Nobody else has seam sealed stuff. So an end user, you know, a lot of other companies are going to charge to seam seal a shelter, you know, so we're paying upfront to get this seam sealed. So the end user does not have to do that, you know, as included in their price, you know, and a lot of our products are every thing about products. have lifetime warranty on this stuff, you know, so we're just making,

Bryan Koontz (11:03), Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's awesome.

Tristan (11:22), better products for the end user. And know, it all just started by fixing a shelter and a stuff sack, you know, so.

Bryan Koontz (11:30), And I think there's more and more people, it seems like to me, especially in maybe the last five years with maybe more of the rise of social media and other things, like the good side, there's also a very ugly side. But there are a lot of people, a lot of back country hunters in particular, that are looking for people like you that are like, okay, I wanna go track down the people who are living it and breathing it. made in the USA that know why the seams have to be a certain way because of, know, they failed a million things rather than go to like some big corporate owned by private equity, trying to make something for the masses and big box retail, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a room for that and all of that. But I think there's more and more people that are trying to relate and find companies like yours. know, they're like, yeah, I like that guy as well as I like his company and his products because I know what he does. And that's kind of what I want to do or that I am doing. And I think that there's a, there's a, like a white space there for companies like yours.

Tristan (12:31), Yeah, it was. It's difficult. And just to be clear, too, is we used to be made in the States. You know, right now we've got probably 60 % of our stuff that's pushed overseas. And and the reason being is COVID, you know, COVID killed us. And we've always been in the States because we wanted to have, you know, support the American worker. But, you know, in full transparency, you know, we used to pay probably five bucks a game bag to be, you know, just the labor just to be sewn up. And that was in the States.

Bryan Koontz (12:36), Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was hard. Yeah.

Tristan (12:58), Well, you've factored seven bags a set. That adds up pretty quick without even any labor, without even any company overheads. And the company came to us and they wanted $9 a bag because of the fact of what COVID brought on to us, the American citizens. So we took all of our designs and sent them over to one of our manufacturers over there. And they pretty much took our designs and they had been cutting and sewing for us.

Bryan Koontz (13:04), Sure, right. Right.

Tristan (13:28), So our Madison shelter, it's a big one. It was about 700 bucks. And that was in the States. And that same shelter now that's produced overseas is 450. And on top of that is you get a waterproof zipper, you get vents, it's seam sealed. ⁓ So you get a lot more product out of going overseas with the same warranty, same fabric.

Bryan Koontz (13:28), Got it. Yeah.

Tristan (13:57), And then also the savings gets passed on to the customers. So a lot of big box stores, like you said, they don't do that. ⁓ They go overseas and even in our MySpace, they do that. And you can see by looking at the prices of these products, compare them, and you'll see where the disconnect is. ⁓

Bryan Koontz (14:18), Sure. Yeah.

Tristan (14:24), But that's what we do. we do still have some stuff made in the States, our more one-off products, not mass-produced items, but the stuff in high demand that's all overseas.

Bryan Koontz (14:33), Right. Got it. So what are some of the top, like what's, I always like it, two questions. What are some of the top products that you have? looks like with us, it's your game bags for sure. And then what is your, like, do you have a favorite? Do you have a product in the portfolio? You're like, man, I'm so proud of that one. You know, like that's my baby or something like that.

Tristan (14:57), Yeah. So funny thing is, is I started the company. never wanted to make game bags. I never wanted to make game bags because there's great game bags out there. ⁓ But you know, what sets ours apart is it's a hexagon grid, ripstop nylon. And I've done several, I mean, as a business owner, you look at your competitors and so many companies out there say they're proprietary. They are not proprietary.

Bryan Koontz (15:05), Interesting.

Tristan (15:26), you know, because one manufacturer, they call them A, uses the same as C and they're both proprietary and they're the same fabric, you know, so they're a, they're a cotton or they're some type of blend, but ours is nylon, ripstop nylon, you know, so this fabric has been around for decades, right? But instead of a square grid traditional, we have a hexagon. So when you stack hexagons,

Bryan Koontz (15:26), Hmm. I got you. Yep.

Tristan (15:52), they intertwine so you don't have the horizontal and vertical stress points. And what we do is we focus on the construction of the bag to make sure it can hold the weight. And then we also have a pair of cords by 50. So other manufacturers use shoestring material, literally, or micro cord. So that's where I looked at it. And I'm like, OK, this is a market where I want to go after because of the downfalls in these other

Bryan Koontz (15:57), Hmm. Hmm.

Tristan (16:22), competitors. So that was, that's what we're known for. And then we started with quilts. So quilts are more from a thru-hiker. They're about 25 % lighter than a traditional mummy bag. And when you have a mummy bag, you get your insulation off of the loft and the insulation from the, you know, loft with the insulation. So what's happening is when you're laying on a mummy bag, you're compressing all that loft. So there's no arbi-

Bryan Koontz (16:23), Yeah, right. Yeah.

Tristan (16:51), And everybody's like, Oh, I got to have an eye on a high R value pad. Well, your high R value pad doesn't do you anything when you're laying on a sleeping bag, compressing all that loft. So a quilt pretty much has the backside open. And then you have pad straps that pretty much affix it to your high R value pad. So now you're 25 % lighter, know, mummy bag versus quilt because you don't have a backside. Now, if you're like me,

Bryan Koontz (17:17), Hmm.

Tristan (17:21), You know tall and skinny you can wrap that quilt around you snap it together. So you do have that mummy bag feel ⁓ We've just pushed all of this year pushed all of our quilts over overseas because they're highly sought-after item ⁓ The quilts are flying off the shelf and then what we because we've always have done synthetic, but there's a huge demand for down and if anybody is a sewer down is you know, very difficult because they had their own little baffles and you got to put every, you know, the amount of down in each little baffle. So I've never mass produced that stuff. So now we're mass producing it. So all quilts are produced overseas. ⁓ so they're flying off shelves. So we do have the down is hydrophobic 850 fill power down, you know, and they're 350 bucks. If you look at our competitor, they're almost double, not quite double, you know, but 700 bucks and Ours has an integrated hood. It can open up for us a top quilt, under quilt. It could be used as a blanket. So at MSU here every summer, we go to watch a movie on the field with the kids and we take quilts and lay them out because they're a big blanket. And a lot of people.

Bryan Koontz (18:31), Hmm. If you don't wrap them around you, then you can just lay them out flat. that's the idea. So there's the insulation thing, which isn't doing anything for you anyway. So then you save the weight to get back for the lightweight stuff. Huh. So does it have little clips on it? Like I need to look at one of these. Now I'm intrigued. Yeah.

Tristan (18:36), Yeah, exactly. Yep. That's right. Yeah. So if you're like said, if you're skating like myself, you just take out the, the, the patch strap and they'll clip in male, female end. And, and, and if you, you know, if you're an active sleeper is what you call you toss and turn. If you toss and turn, you could expose your backside, which you feel a draft. So then you'll use the pad straps, which is an elastic bungee that will wrap around your pad. So your, your quilt wraps around like a cocoon over your pad.

Bryan Koontz (18:57), Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. You're bad, okay. What's your, so what's, what, what pads do you use? What's sleeping pads do you use? What do you, what do you think are the best out there?

Tristan (19:19), ⁓ I have to hurt. Yeah, I have two herniated discs So I used to have the thermo rest X term, but I recently switched to that seat of summit. They're extreme ⁓ It's heavier. It's it's like two and a half pounds compared to the thermo rest which is like one and a half But that that seat of summit is four four inch stick, you know, so I've got the cushion for my back so So yeah

Bryan Koontz (19:24), ⁓ shit. Mm-hmm. Nice. Very cool. Yeah. I'll have to look into that. C2Summit's a partner verse too, so I'll have to check into that. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool.

Tristan (19:51), Yep. Yeah. So that's the newest product that's, you know, that's got me raving, but you know, our shelters, you know, we've got a lot of shelters, you know, all of our shelters we physically have designed, ⁓ you know, so it's not like other companies where they say I want product B and they rebrand it with different colors. You know, this is stuff that we have designed, you know, even our newest one, which is our Pintler and our, our Bridger.

Bryan Koontz (20:12), Hmm.

Tristan (20:20), You know, those ones there, they're freestanding with, they got like a bathtub floor. You know, we designed those too. You know, we worked with our manufacturer to say, hey, this is what we're looking for. A lightweight enclosed shelter. Let's build something. You know, so that's kind of how it started going back and forth. And, you know, this is what we want. And, you know, they did a lot of CAD drawings for us and kicked it back and forth. So shelters are big. You know, we've got stuff anywhere from a one man all the way to a six man.

Bryan Koontz (20:36), Yeah.

Tristan (20:50), Yeah, so it's we still try to stay light, you know, our one man is It's one and a half pounds, you know for that one man free standing with a full bathtub floor You know all the way to the sixth man, which is just like three and a half pounds, know, that's and that's or less so By the time you go to like I say a six man, you know, I'll carry the shelter you carry a stove and our buddy carries You know the cook system, you know, and so you're going in with

Bryan Koontz (20:53), Yeah, that's cool. Hmm. Yeah.

Tristan (21:15), three pounds each, you know, of that particular gear. So, you're distributing your weight much easier.

Bryan Koontz (21:21), Right, right. And then the stoves. You mentioned the stoves. Let's talk about those too. ⁓ So they're designed to fit perfectly with the TPs.

Tristan (21:22), So yeah, though. Yeah, so we have a titanium stove. It's called our Loco Stove and you know they're on Guidefitter right now. We just got those, you know, right before I think it's about July timeframe. You know we worked with a different designer out there that he actually approached a bunch of other companies and said, hey, I want to sell this design, you know, and then he called me up and I was like, you know, we're working on our own. You know, we're not really interested and unfortunately our designer couldn't do it anymore. So we called him back up and I said, hey, this is what we could do. We could work out a deal, kind of like a royalty deal. But we don't want what he has. ⁓ The fundamentals were there, but sizing, the door placement, the venting, the way that the flue goes into the piping, the dampener, everything of that we changed. So we pretty much used

Bryan Koontz (22:09), Yeah. Hmm.

Tristan (22:32), his foundation of this, the top and how the legs fold in. ⁓ Which he got off line of another company that went out of business or no longer produced them, right? So we pretty much went on his core foundation and threw all the VIAM. stuff at it and said, this is what we want. So going back to the comment, like, as ⁓ a designer, build something for yourself that others would like and

Bryan Koontz (22:37), Right.

Tristan (23:01), That's what we ended up coming up with. So the stove is, you know, it's a 15 inch body. It collapses to about an inch thick. And you know, with an, comes with an eight foot pipe. ⁓ It's, right at, with the cordura back or the storage case for it, the right at three and a half pounds, you know, so depending if you're running our, let's say our Madison Mini, that's five foot tall, you can trim that stove pipe, you know, so a lot of other manufacturers, it's easier for them.

Bryan Koontz (23:19), Amazing.

Tristan (23:30), you know, because, you need, you got this shelter. This is the pipe you need. It's you have more inventory on hand doing that. But for us as you know, a small company, hey, you get an eight foot pipe. If you need to trim it, you can trim it. You know, so now I only got one skew rather than, you know, a five foot, seven foot, eight foot pipe or whatever. So I trim my skews. But yeah, so it's three and a half pounds and you know, that thing will smoke you out. So it's 15 inches long.

Bryan Koontz (23:38), Sure. Yeah, bet.

Tristan (23:58), Yeah, eight inches square. And if you take the door off, you know, the door is probably like this big, you know, to, stuff large chunks of wood, because that's the problem with those titanium stoves. Yeah, they're light, but they just don't retain the heat like a cast iron does. Right. But you're not tacking that in. So it all depends on the quality of wood you're feeding it. You know, you're feeding it dry stuff. goes up like a matchbox, but you know, hardier wood.

Bryan Koontz (24:16), Yeah. Yeah.

Tristan (24:27), You know, you can get an hour and a half of burn out of them, you so.

Bryan Koontz (24:32), I'm sure even in the snow, I'm sure you could get down to your skivvies with you. get that thing cranking in the TP, man.

Tristan (24:35), yeah. yeah. Half the time you leave those doors wide open and you're still hot in there. By time you go to bed, you close that door up and you dampen down the front of the stove because we got a damper on the front. And then you got a damper on the top of the spark arrestor. The more you push, the more it shuts air off. So that's why you're enclosing those gases in there longer. So it'll burn you out of there. It's insane how hot they get. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (24:41), Yeah ⁓ That's awesome. So what's next for VIAM Like where do you, where do you want to take it? Like what, you know, what can you give us like a little hint or a preview of a product roadmap or like, you know, like, yeah, where are you going? You know,

Tristan (25:10), You Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm very upfront, full transparency. Obviously, I tell you about costs of game bags and designing stuff, you know, so I do finance for a living and everybody asks, you know, when are you going to quit? When are you going to quit? You know, I I get good perks at my job. You know, they pay for my health insurance, you know, except for it's all a card. So, you know, I've got a pension plan. I've got a retirement, you know, and anybody who runs a business, they know that.

Bryan Koontz (25:22), Yeah. Yeah.

Tristan (25:44), That's a lot of money. And me and my co-partner, Aaron, he came on about two years ago. ⁓ I needed help with business, day-to-day operations. So me and Aaron, some of the stuff that we see in the future is obviously growing. We've got a lot of distributors, especially in Montana, going back to the growing organically. That's what we want to do.

Bryan Koontz (25:45), Yep.

Tristan (26:11), ⁓ We don't want to go to the masses, ⁓ as it would be nice because it'd be good for the paycheck, or the bank account, because even Aaron and I, we've never once had a single paycheck. He's retired military. I've got a full-time job. So all of the money stays within the company because we take those funds and buy our inventory. ⁓

Bryan Koontz (26:25), Mm-hmm. Yeah, putting back in the product and all that.

Tristan (26:40), A lot of competitors, you'll see them. we're doing a pre-order. Well, anybody knows about a pre-order. They're taking your money. They're holding an account to pay that stuff. And then it's going to come back at a later date. So they're using customers' funds to fund their business. Sure, that's a business model, but that's not our model. We fund all of our stuff out of pocket. So that way, it's at the doorstep,

Bryan Koontz (26:55), Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tristan (27:09), And you order it, you get it. You don't have to wait three, six months to get it. ⁓ So that's what we do a little different at VIAM But, you know, we just, want to do like sheep show this year. That is our total market. You know, it's just, they're expensive, you know, full transparency to going to the Western HunnExpo. We started that in 2016. You we started in December. We were there at ⁓ HunnExpo, which is February of 16th.

Bryan Koontz (27:14), Mm-hmm.

Tristan (27:37), You know, we were the very back corner with little 10 by 10 and now we've got a shoot. It's a 20 by four 30, but 20 by 30, think it is our 40 by 30. I don't know what it is. It's a big booth, but it's like 12 grand, you know, just for the, just for the booth space, you know, so it gets costly, but you know, that's how we get new customers, you know, and we, we expose them to, you know, things that we do. And it's been growing every year. So that's what we want to do. We want to grow organically like that.

Bryan Koontz (27:49), Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tristan (28:07), We've got customers that come to see us. Matter of fact, the other day, one of my buddies posted a picture of a game bag and I had a customer reply on it. He's like, dude, I'm still using your game bags from 2015. know, so that's what I like, you know, and even at the expos, you have customers come up saying, hey, I love your stuff. Still using it, you know, from way back when. What do you got now? You know, and those are the interactions that I like. So I don't I don't have any plans to quit my job.

Bryan Koontz (28:18), Nice. Mm-hmm. That's super cool.

Tristan (28:36), You know, it's still growing the company. ⁓ Yeah, we're just still doing what we do and still ⁓ design stuff like I don't know about shelters anytime soon because we just came out with about like five of them this last year. I don't know about any new products and full transparency. We don't have any new new products in the works right now just because the stove, all those shelters, the quilts, they've all just been released last year.

Bryan Koontz (28:38), Mm-hmm. But the theme ⁓ seems to be that it will continue to be like thoughtful design, lightweight, good products for the back country, go light, go fast, back country hunter, or it doesn't have to be necessarily the hunter. Someone just wants to go deeper than the normal average person with a pack and go lightweight. It goes lightweight and as comfortable as you can. Yeah, those kinds of things.

Tristan (29:12), Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, our motto is, you if you think about it, if you want lightweight and you want quality gear, and it's typically not affordable, you know, so you can't have all three. So our motto is lightweight, quality, and that is affordable. So, you know, it is lightweight and it is quality and you've got, you know, it's affordability. So that's the market niche that we're hitting are those three things. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (29:42), Mm-hmm. I like it. like it. Well, awesome Tristan. Well, this is great talking to you. And finally, we get finally get a chance to talk and, and, um, I'm going to have to get my hands on some of that stuff now that I haven't yet. So, uh, if you're ever by the office, by the way, we're I mean, we're practically, we are neighbors more or less. So you have to come by sometime and hang out and maybe grab some lunch.

Tristan (29:59), Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (30:13), We were to occasionally drag the trigger outside and, you know, throw on some, throw on some meats and stuff. So.

Tristan (30:19), Yeah, I don't know. Did you guys move? heard you guys moved.

Bryan Koontz (30:23), Yeah, we did. We used to be over by MAP, a brewing company down that area closer to you. And I think, and then we moved over here behind Big Sky Archery. So there's a little area over here and it's nice. So now we have a garage door we can flip up and it's kind one of those warehouse office things, which works pretty well. So, ⁓ except, except that we have a guy next door and our neighbor, he grows truffles over here. So I like truffles. I just don't like smelling all the truffles all at once. So occasionally we get, we get a little truffled out and have to crack the garage door. But, anyway, well, you're welcome anytime, man. And it's, it's been great. Yeah. ⁓ so anytime you're welcome and, ⁓ appreciate the partnership and, any, anyone who's.

Tristan (30:52), Right. Yeah, I know right where you guys are at.

Bryan Koontz (31:08), on Guidefitter are interested in awesome, locally designed ⁓ lightweight gear. Check it out and go check out VIAM's website. ⁓ yeah, hopefully we can get you back on at some point in the next year or so once we see ⁓ how the new shelter products are panning out. ⁓ wish you some success as your week long hunting adventure is coming up and hopefully get something down on the ground.

Tristan (31:33), That's the plan. I appreciate you guys having me. you. Yep. See ya.

Bryan Koontz (31:37), Yeah, sounds good man. All right, take care.