Multi-faceted, Poly Dave Schlossberg tells his story on Episode 96

Multi-faceted, Poly Dave Schlossberg tells his story on Episode 96. Bringing the energy, experience, and education to build things that are more than the sum of their parts, Synergy and Poly Performance are running at full steam. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

4:24 – …he wrapped his whole house in tin foil

15:04 – I had passed out and spilled some Goldschlager on my chest, and this bear…

18:34 – I kinda subscribe to the philosophy that there’s always an angle, right?

21:09 – just got to follow the wind, there are doors open

28:01 – I made sure little Johnny left with more than just a skateboard

34:17 – I can speak Hillbilly, so I’d get on and help these guys…

38:25 – if I could sell a pair of shocks a day, I’d be set for life

53:00 – guys want to sit in their underwear and order parts from their living room while they’re pounding beers and watching NASAR, you know what I’m saying?

1:07:19 – as long as my guys want to work, I’ll be there to open the doors.

1:19:04 – there’s no silver bullet and magic, you’ve got to put in the work

We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.

www.maxxis.com

www.4lowmagazine.com 

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

All Automotive with Matt Clawson
Automotive related topics. Anything from owning an repair facility to racing. Anything...

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Transcript

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[00:00:01.150] - Speaker 1

Welcome to The Big Rich Show. This podcast will focus on conversations with friends and acquaintances within the fourwheel drive industry. Many of the people that I will be interviewing, you may know the name, you may know some of the history, but let's get in depth with these people and find out what truly makes them a four wheel drive enthusiast. So now is the time to sit back, grab a cold one and enjoy our conversation.

[00:00:29.430] - Speaker 2

Whether you're crawling the red rock of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of Champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis tread victoriously.

[00:00:55.990] - Speaker 3

Why should you read 4low Magazine? Because 4low Magazine is about your lifestyle. The four wheel drive adventure lifestyle that we all enjoy. Rock crawling, trail riding, event coverage, vehicle builds, and do it yourself tech all in a beautifully presented package. You won't find 4low on the newsstand rack, so subscribe today and have it delivered to you.

[00:01:20.410] - Big Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Dave Schlossberg. Dave is the owner and founder of Poly Performance and Synergy Manufacturing, CEO of both. I believe it is your official title. Dave, thank you very much for coming on board and spending some time with us.

[00:01:42.370] - Dave Schlossberg

Well, hey, Rich, I appreciate you reaching out to me and inviting me to be a part of what you got going on here. I think what you're doing is pretty awesome and happy to be here chatting with you.

[00:01:53.320] - Big Rich Klein

Well, great. So let's jump right in with both feet and get started at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:01.990] - Dave Schlossberg

Born and raised in Northern California. It used to be a small little town Folsom, California, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains there. Some people are familiar with it from the old Johnny Cash songs there. Folsom Prison Blues And you got Folsom Lake over there and just kind of the gateway to the foothills, not too far from the Rubicon Trail, actually. So that is where I was born and raised, and all my family still lives up there and try to get back there as much as possible. And I grew up there. And after I finished high school there, I ended up going down to Cal Poly State University in San Luis and resided down here ever since. But do you have a place up the Hill up near Lake Tahoe that I ventured back to as often as I can?

[00:03:10.100] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. It survived the fire.

[00:03:17.270] - Dave Schlossberg

It's pretty incredible that it did. So our little cabin up there was built originally by my grandpa in the 50s. It's up on what's called the Philip Track up near the Sierra  Tahoe Resort and Echo Lake area. And when that CalDor fire blew through back in late August, there that burned the whole neighborhood down. I think 56 or 58 homes burned down. So it was basically my place that I had rebuilt back in 2012. And my neighbors on either side of me were the only surviving homes out of the fire. So pretty amazing to still be standing.

[00:04:04.730] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I saw you post the pictures of the video that was circulating online with one of the news reporters. And it was strange because driving down the road, everything's just burnt out, still smoldering and everything. And then there's three houses in a row.

[00:04:24.110] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. So kind of an interesting story with that. So I rebuilt that place in 2012 and use the construction material kind of design. It's called ICF construction. It's like these foam blocks where you pour concrete in the middle of them and then you can attach drywall to the inside and you can stucco  or do other stuff to the outside. But we use a Hardy board. So pretty much the whole house is built out of concrete. And the lot was cleared really good when we did that about ten years ago. So I really attribute the construction that we used to build the place and no exposed and metal roof that kind of allowed it to Dodge the fire. And then the guy on the east side of me 48 hours before that fire blew through, he came up there and he's like an aerospace engineer type of guy. And he wrapped his whole house in tinfoil. And somehow that kept him from burning up. But my neighbor to the west of me there, there's no explanation on why he's still standing. It's pretty incredible. So just happy to be still together in one piece and really sad about the neighborhood and about all my neighbors up there.

[00:05:40.350] - Dave Schlossberg

And a lot of history since that neighborhoods.

[00:05:42.810] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:05:43.210] - Dave Schlossberg

A lot of the people living up there were cabins handed down through the generations there. So really sad to see that. But hopefully we'll be able to build back.

[00:05:55.310] - Big Rich Klein

So an aerospace guy engineer using tinfoil for something Besides a hat. That's awesome.

[00:06:04.180] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. It's pretty incredible. And they make special material to go do that. And that's not even what he used. He was just some industrial grade 2000 thick aluminum foil he had leftover from another job he was working on and just jammed up there and stapled it all up to his house. And it's incredible. Really.

[00:06:25.030] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. So growing up in Folsom, what, you're in your 40s, I think.

[00:06:35.360] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. 42 as of today.

[00:06:38.330] - Big Rich Klein

42. Okay. Congratulations. Happy birthday.

[00:06:43.050] - Dave Schlossberg

Something like that. It wasn't too long ago. Yeah.

[00:06:45.380] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Now back then, it was still kind of rural, a lot more so than it is now. Eldorado Hills have started expanding.

[00:06:59.710] - Dave Schlossberg

None of that was there. I mean, you basically had two main roads through town, and the town was pretty much like that Sutter Street area and then the high school area and then started really stacking it up and building it up. And that is a different place today than when I grew up there. That was for sure.

[00:07:24.670] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And the schools changed location, hasn't it? The old high school became oh, yeah.

[00:07:33.490] - Dave Schlossberg

The high school is now one of the junior highs. My sister actually is a junior high school math teacher at that location.

[00:07:40.370] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, really?

[00:07:40.840] - Dave Schlossberg

I went to high school and teaching junior high. I think there's at least there might be two high schools there now. It's grown really a lot. I haven't paid too much attention to that sort of stuff. But like I said, that town is not what it used to be, but it's still cool. It's a cool place to hang out sometimes.

[00:08:07.340] - Big Rich Klein

It's pretty much built up all the way from Sacramento, all the way up to Cameron Park, at least anymore.

[00:08:15.070] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. And they're really starting to cut and build stuff over near the Prairie City off road where they have all the four races at.

[00:08:23.530] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:08:24.030] - Dave Schlossberg

I see them starting to develop all that stuff. So they still got some room to spread out over there before they start going up the Hill. I mean, I guess they're already doing that. They're building all the way to pastorville now.

[00:08:38.110] - Big Rich Klein

So growing up at that time in Fulsome, what were the things that you are interested in? What got your heart pumping?

[00:08:48.190] - Dave Schlossberg

Well, I mean, when I was a kid, I've always been to like been into automotive stuff and playing with cars and then in the RC stuff as you get a little bit older. But I think what got me going on the Jeep stuff really was I took my first Jeep trip when I was about eight years old, and it was with one of the associates of my grandpa had a construction company up there and his partner for the construction company had some Jeep stuff and a little cabin. And I remember just riding in the back of this old going up these Jeep trails. I got a couple of photos, anyone but there's just smile from ear to ear on me back then. And as I got older, you start reading magazines. Back then there was no Internet. So when you're a kid, you got something you're interested, you're reading some skateboard magazines or you're reading some BMX magazines or you're reading some RC magazines. And then when you get a little older, you start reading some Jeep magazines, right? Yeah. So I remember rushing home from school, always checking the mailbox to see what magazine was coming in the mail and just reading four wheel drive sport utility magazine, JP magazine, four wheel and off road magazine had all the subscriptions that you could have and just really excited about that stuff.

[00:10:36.590] - Dave Schlossberg

So came of age of where you could start saving up and getting your license for a vehicle. I worked at a pizza joint over there, Pizzeria Classico. I think it's still around. They got a couple of locations. There at least one in Fulsome. And Jeez I think I worked there on and off for three or four years but saving up go to buy my first Jeep which was a 91 Jeep Wrangler and did some work to that just doing some four wheel and it's funny actually back then I mean there was always stuff to go and do but back then where the intel complex is at that's where we go wheeling out and so I remember vividly one time we go at lunch we had this deal in high school where we could go four wheeling like you could go off campus for lunch and we always go four wheeling at lunch and remember wheeling out there one time and seeing I didn't know who it was at the time but it was this dude in this old Commando with these it was like Louis rocking like 35 inch boggers back then. It was a really big deal to see a Jeep like that.

[00:11:58.950] - Big Rich Klein

And Amanda you must be talking rogue.

[00:12:02.230] - Dave Schlossberg

No this was Scott Whitaker actually. Scott Whitaker, okay yeah, Billy Bob there his kids seeing this dude climbing this giant rock pile. You know back then, you know, nobody's around and cutting these trails back there. I remember that was a pretty memorable memory for me and then actually he ended up living a block or two away from a buddy of mine and maybe six months a year later I remember seeing him start to build that old black CJ seven he had in an alleyway under a carport and this must have been 19 seeing that thing go together. That's what we did. And on the weekends we go up to Loon I remember lots of trips up to Bassie Falls. I don't know if you've ever been up there or not but that was the spot for us being high school kids you get up into the woods driving Jeeps and trucks around and doing some stuff you probably should be doing a little bit driving in the woods and shit.

[00:13:31.610] - Big Rich Klein

Slows down.

[00:13:33.170] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah we always tried to clean up but you get some other clowns up there making a big mess of the place and that's why that spot got shut down I'm sure but we were always really respectful of trying to clean up after ourselves getting up there but that was a cool spot and I think you can hike back in there now still but it's a really cool place to hike up to that waterfall back there but lots of good memories wheeling back there and camping and having fun.

[00:14:06.770] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah I used to go up there a lot, 86 Chevy, one ton pick up so it was probably 87, 80, 89 somewhere in there and used to wheel up there and then running around with some of the guys from Georgetown, some of the Land Cruiser guys and some of the Jeep guys and we work our way up and around and come in the backside of Bassie.

[00:14:41.130] - Dave Schlossberg

Oh yeah, you take that top line the road in from the top, and then look around.

[00:14:47.010] - Big Rich Klein

Those are some good times back then.

[00:14:50.010] - Dave Schlossberg

I remember a pretty good camping experience one time they're bear getting into camp pretty good anyway.

[00:15:01.110] - Big Rich Klein

Would they get into your ice chest?

[00:15:04.750] - Dave Schlossberg

I had passed out on the back of the CJ Seven, and I had spilled a bunch of gold slaughter all over myself. And I just remember being really worried about that bear wanting to come in and get after that goodness. He pulled ice chest off the hood of that Jeep and got right down to business and tore that thing up.

[00:15:33.130] - Big Rich Klein

So he didn't climb up there and try to lick all the gold slogger off.

[00:15:36.300] 

Yeah.

[00:15:38.710] - Dave Schlossberg

Not that time. No. He started to hit the air Horn there, and that got him out of our stuff. But that was an interesting memory that I just dug up there chatting with you. I hadn't pulled that one up out for a long time.

[00:15:55.890] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. So then when you went to school down there, especially at high school, what kind of things Besides general, math, English, that kind of stuff, what kind of classes are you taking?

[00:16:13.550] - Dave Schlossberg

It's kind of an interesting little story about getting into school down here in high school and stuff. I'm not a super smart guy, but I try to work hard and put the time in and get things done that way. In high school, I didn't test very well, didn't have very good test scores, and GPA was pretty mediocre. And so I went to go apply to school. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I was interested in engineering and building stuff and doing some things like that. Pretty much every College that I applied to, I didn't really put down a major, just kind of general back then. And most of the places you didn't have to declare major, except for Cal Poly at that time, which is still the case, you got to declare something. So I knew I was interested in engineering, but I knew it was really competitive to get in. So what I did was I got the course catalog from the year prior and went through all the engineering majors that they offered, civil, electrical, mechanical. And then I stumbled upon a newer engineering division that they had started called Materials Engineering.

[00:17:42.410] - Dave Schlossberg

And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I looked at the enrollments for all of the majors. And so you got hundreds of kids and all these other majors trying to get in. And then when I flipped to the materials engineering Department and it showed the enrollment and there were 17 kids in the major from the year prior, I was like, Holy shit. Like, there's not enough students to have a Department here. They probably want to juice that Department a little bit. So I applied under that. And actually, Cal Poly was the only University that accepted me. I was denied at every other College that I applied to. Mine is a couple of other state schools.

[00:18:33.870] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome.

[00:18:34.800] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. You look at the numbers, and I kind of subscribe to the philosophy that there's always an angle, right? So you got to find the angle and see what the angle is and kind of work it that way.

[00:18:52.890] - Big Rich Klein

That was good. Obviously, there was probably a lot of people that didn't think that way, I'm sure.

[00:19:00.480] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. Even to this day, I think people it's still a super competitive school unless you have, like a 4.2 GPA and Sat score of 1400, I don't even think you're considered. So I get some people that ask me, hey, I want to go to school here. What's the deal? And then I kind of like, I'll lay that story out, and then they're like, oh, that makes pretty goods sense.

[00:19:33.170] - Big Rich Klein

Because once they have your money and you're there, you can probably move around.

[00:19:38.790] - Dave Schlossberg

Well, that's another story, and I can chat about that here real quick. But just recently, I helped a family friend get in under kind of the same deal. So what I did is I was studying engineering. I was doing okay on the major course work and stuff like that. But I was just getting my ass kicked on some of the engineering support classes, like the high end calculus stuff and the physics stuff. I would study for hours and hours and hours and just like, I just couldn't do it, you know, like, I just couldn't do it. And so I was walking the line on academic probation all the time, every other quarter. And then I hooked up with a buddy of mine, and he's like, hey, he kind of was in the same spot. He was in another engineering Department and was having a tough time. And he came across another major. It's called the Industrial technology, and it was out of the College of business. And basically what that was is that was a mix between engineering and business, but not getting too deep on either. And it kind of geared up more towards engineering management type of discipline that they were trying to develop.

[00:21:09.250] - Dave Schlossberg

That's what I transferred into. I was actually they have horror stories about transferring around school, at least a Cal Poly still to this day. And I remember going in on a Monday and I made an appointment with the head of that Department at the time. This guy's name was Dr. Fred Obedia. He was a really wonderful guy, and he sat me down and we talked about what the deal was. And through engineering, I had completed a lot of the sub, like the prerequisite classes to transfer over. And I had started the transfer process on a Monday. And by the end of the day, Friday of that same week, five days, I was able to migrate over to that Department. And I tell that story sometimes today, and people are just that's totally unheard of. I mean, you got people taking 3456 quarters to transfer now, if they're even able to do it at all now. So kind of just again, one of those things when the star is aligned, just got to follow the wind. There doors open, and it's your responsibility to kind of poke your head in there and look around. And if it looks good, step on through.

[00:22:32.090] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. And you made the comment that you're not the smartest guy, but it sounds to me like in knowing you, I would disagree with that overall general statement. First of all, well.

[00:22:45.840] - Dave Schlossberg

I'm smart about different stuff, okay? Book smart. You know what I'm saying? How about that?

[00:22:51.580] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Perfect. Because I know you got your shit together because you're running successful business. You built it from the ground up. So Congratulations on that. But getting back you go you're in school, high school, your interest is in engineering, stuff like that. You're driving a Jeep, 91, 92 Wrangler, 95 Wrangler or something like that.

[00:23:24.040] - Dave Schlossberg

You said 91. I remember the first year of fuel injection.

[00:23:27.840] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so that was the YJ then, square headlight, right?

[00:23:31.680] - Dave Schlossberg

Indeed. Yes.

[00:23:32.830] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:23:37.870] - Dave Schlossberg

I remember to this day throwing pizzas. That Jeep cost me seven grand back then. I remember. I remember the day I bought it.

[00:23:47.690] - Big Rich Klein

And throw and dough. Sling and dough.

[00:23:50.130] - Dave Schlossberg

Throw and throw and dough. Saving up for Jeep. Shit.

[00:23:55.010] - Big Rich Klein

Did you get involved in athletics in school?

[00:24:00.630] - Dave Schlossberg

Did I get involved in what?

[00:24:02.090] - Big Rich Klein

Athletics?

[00:24:04.230] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah, not really. I'm not a super athletic guy. What did I do in high school? We were doing a lot with the I like playing the drums a little bit still to this day playing an old punk rock band. But in high school, the marching band was really competitive. So we were doing the drum line stuff and competing all over California, doing that sort of thing. And that took a lot of time. That was six, 8 hours a week plus competition stuff on the weekend. So I wouldn't say that's super athletic, but after some of those competitions, I mean, it's a lot of work. You're carrying drums, marching around, and by the time you get out of a performance like that, you're soaking wet.

[00:25:01.920] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:25:03.510] - Dave Schlossberg

I mean, that was about the gist of what we were doing in high school. We were doing that playing music and working on cars and trucks and stuff. So working on Jeeps. I remember helping a buddy of mine restoring old Alpha male or doing that sort of stuff and just doing that and trying to every weekend the goal is trying to go camping somewhere or party somewhere. Right. It's kind of what we were doing. So not too much change once you get into College. You got involved with the Cal Poly had a really good off road club. The Polygon is the name of it, and they're still around today. I think that's the oldest club on campus. They have actually started back in the 60s, my memory serves me right. So just made a lot of lifelong friends, friends I still have today from that club and also being involved in the loss that I do in College, we were doing the Society of Automotive Engineers, the SAE Club, where you build a little mini, basically the design constraints, pretty much nothing, but they give you a ten horse Briggs and Stratton motor and some basic design constraints, safety constraints, basically.

[00:26:27.130] - Dave Schlossberg

And you build a little buggy and go compete collegiately. I remember doing that for about three years. A lot was learned there, and that was a lot of fun, too.

[00:26:37.870] - Big Rich Klein

And with being involved in the club and then your materials engineering, but then switching over to the more business application, which was probably a pretty solid thing for what you're doing now.

[00:26:55.870] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah, really. My education kind of lined up with my day job, ended up being kind of so it was kind of cool.

[00:27:05.470] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Mine didn't.

[00:27:07.930] - Dave Schlossberg

Well, I don't think it does for most people. Right. I think school is important, especially College degree. If you're going to go out and go to work somewhere, that sheet of paper, that degree is the door opener for you. That's the opportunity maker. The rest is up to you to make what you want of it. But I found that kind of will set you above some of the rest if you're going to compete for a position somewhere.

[00:27:40.070] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[00:27:40.760] - Dave Schlossberg

You got that going, and the rest is on your own. But that helps open some doors to some others that might not have that or have access to an opportunity.

[00:27:53.810] - Big Rich Klein

So when did Poly Performance come about? You were still in school, though, weren't you? Yeah.

[00:28:01.680] - Dave Schlossberg

So I was in school. And you got to understand, this is the late 90s. It was 99, so I had been in school. I was working at my first real job that I had down here. There was a mail order company called CCS mail order, and they did mail order skateboard and snowboard supplies. So I worked in a call center, basically, and just answering the phone and tussling kids out of their parents money, basically was the job, if you will. So I don't know what the audience here is exactly, but back in the day, they send out these little mail order catalogs out and you flip through the catalog and you pick the skateboard you want with trucks you want and the wheels you want. And it's my job to make sure that when Johnny was calling up to order that he left with more than just a skateboard, he left with a new backpack, a pair of pants and a fresh pair of skate shoes or something. I would say that job really helped kind of dial in and tune in my sales techniques and abilities, I guess you could say, and taught me how to be confident and work the phone a little bit.

[00:29:37.710] - Dave Schlossberg

If that makes sense. And so after I'd been working there a while, I took some time off of school and I ended up getting a position up at a company just outside of Folsom in Rancho Cordova called Rubicon Express. Oh, yeah, you might have heard of that. I think that was in 99. So I started there basically just assembling control arms and assembling parts and packaging things and doing stuff like that. And by the time I left, I was sitting in a welding booth all day, burning metal building sway bar links and XJ shackles and Jeep TJ track bars and all kinds of weird shit. We're well enough. So most of that stuff they're making over there was made at a Fab shop around the corner. They weren't doing too much in house Besides the assembly, packaging and then the outbound shipping side of stuff, but they were doing some stuff. I was a kid there in 115 Deg Sacramento. Heat welding in my cut off Jean shorts and some old ratty skate shoes, catching my shoes on fire. I remember many times some Jordz. Yeah, no, that's how we did it. So after spend some time there.

[00:31:15.760] - Dave Schlossberg

And that was a good opportunity for me right there because that showed me kind of behind the scenes on how stuff worked and I was really interested in that. So after leaving there and going back down, back to school, this is late 90s, so the Internet is starting to pop right now. So what I did is I was back in school and I was working. Where was I working back then? I was going to school. I was working on campus a little bit, teaching one of the metals labs. And then I also had a job at Gateway Computers. So doing some more sales stuff. During the day I was selling computers and going to school and then just trying to figure out what my next step was. And so I remember this experience pretty vividly. I was laying in the back seat of a Toyota Four Runner on our way to one of the competitions for the SAE Club, the mini Baja competitions and just smashing old English forties in the back of this forerunner heading out to Kansas. And I came up with the name Poly Performance, actually. So Poly is Latin for many.

[00:32:52.890] - Dave Schlossberg

Let me rewind us a minute from there. So I was really interested in off road stuff and the Internet was going on right then. So I knew I wanted to do something, maybe with some Internet sales and maybe selling stuff online because nobody was really doing that at that time. And we're pretty involved with the pirate Four X Four site. So lots of banner going on there and just thought that I wanted to start selling some off road stuff online. So what had happened was you'd get chatting with a lot of these guys on the Internet. And this is when people were starting to link stuff. You know, people were getting away from lease, they weren't getting away from lease spring stuff. But Lincoln, a Toyota or a Jeep started to kind of be a thing. We sat down and learned a bit on how all that stuff sort of works. And so we'd start giving pointers to guys on Pirate about setting up link suspension stuff. And then you have guys trying to source parts. So what happened was you'd have like a Hillbilly Bob out of Alabama who's building an old Toyota trying to stick some Rockwell axles underneath this thing and link it up.

[00:34:17.290] - Dave Schlossberg

Guys like that were calling places like Off Road Warehouse and CarTech, trying to get advice on how to set suspension up and stuff like that when you can only understand every third word this guy's saying. Like they're pretty much getting hung up on when they're calling places like that, right? And so I speak Hillbilly. So I get on and try to help these guys. What happened was being involved with the SAE Club. I got connected with a Rod end supplier and they had a pretty sweet deal for students buying some Rod ends and had another buddy working at a machine shop and just started making some parts. And the machine shop was actually a shock company, a company called Sway Away. I think Afe owns that now. Afe is making the shots over there for them. But back in the day, the machine shop was making some machine rotting hardware for me on the swing shift. And so what I did is I just thought that that's what I wanted to do. So roll forward to me riding in the back of this forerunner smashing old E 40s on the way out to Kansas. We were at Cal Poly.

[00:35:51.550] - Dave Schlossberg

So Poly was the name that I came up for, this company name. So Poly is Latin for many. So it was Poly Performance Off Road products originally. And if anyone's listening using the Way Back Time machine, you can go back on the way back the Internet, Way Back Time Machine and see some of the first iterations of the Poly Performance website back then. But after I came up with the name, what I did was I just went in this little eight by eight room I shared with this guy by the name of Pips. Pips knew a little bit about some computer stuff and I knew a little bit had taken an HTML programming class in College. It was a requirement actually. So that wasn't my choice. It just so happened that I had taken that and learned a little some basic HTML programming and bought a 30 rack of Budweisers and didn't come out of my room for four and a half days, I think, and taught myself some basic HTML programming in there and launched my first ecommerce website like that, using some basic script from PayPal back then and just started slinging some Rotten's, you know, Rod ins.

[00:37:21.780] - Dave Schlossberg

Helping guys build bank suspensions in Alabama basically was the start of it. And just kind of one thing led to another because I had sway away making some machine parts on the swing shift, became friendly with the sales manager there and got going with selling some shocks. Just kind of started stacking one thing onto another and slinging more stuff. And then got connected with the guys at Ibox, started selling some Springs, and then we started selling some fuel cells and we started selling some seats and shit. Just one thing led to another.

[00:38:09.510] - Big Rich Klein

It's kind of crazy was everything dropship back then with selling seats and stuff like that, or did you have to order again and then reship it?

[00:38:25.290] - Dave Schlossberg

Some stuff was like that, but shocks as they are today, we're still kind of hard to get a hold of back in the day. So you'd have some inventory. You got my stock drawers full of Rottens and the closet is full of fucking coil Springs and you got stacks of shocks under your bed. And that's kind of how it started. So not too long after that, I realized that I needed to get some space and got a little shop shared with a buddy of mine and just started buying more stuff and trying to sell more stuff. And I remember back then, you know, I'd say, Geez, if I could sell, if I could sell a pair of shocks a day, I'd be set for life. And it's definitely spooled way up from there. We're selling pallets of shocks a day now, not just a pair, but back then that was kind of the deal. So Poly Performance is really born, I would say late 2001 ish and had our first real set of books started January of two, if my memory serves me right, and just started going from there. I remember finishing school right around then and my parents telling me like, hey, when are you going to get a real job type that sort of stuff.

[00:40:11.410] - Big Rich Klein

They're not saying that anymore, are they?

[00:40:13.930] - Dave Schlossberg

No, not anymore. But that was kind of the talk that I'd have every time I chat with them or go and see them like, hey, are you done goofing off yet? You're going to go get a real job. And that's kind of how that happened. But again, I'm not a super smart guy when it comes to stuff. So I knew that what I had just figured out how to list stuff and sell stuff online. This is before Amazon was just barely a thing and they were just selling books. I didn't realize at the time that Bezos the books thing was just a tester for selling everything, right? And so once he got the book thing figured out, he just started stacking on and adding on everything. So I knew that everybody would be selling stuff online and, you know, kind of, you know, three or four. Like, I better think a little bit harder about trying to make some things. So the guy I went to College with, we kind of partnered up with, he was working at Sway Away, designing shock absorbers along with another buddy of ours, and we started just trying to make some other stuff.

[00:41:45.170] - Dave Schlossberg

So he was working on another Jeep company in Bakersfield, and July of him and I, we started Poly Performance Manufacturing, and that was a business to just make stuff that we wanted to make items that we were buying from other manufacturers that were not of good quality, had really bad lead times, or had really bad margin. That was kind of the low hanging fruit because there was sales history there already. So we knew if we could make those, they probably go, all right. So doing that and then knew that there was a new Jeep platform coming. So this is fast forwarding a little bit further. Now we're into, like, 2007. And so the Jeep JK was coming out, and that was a new platform. We knew that all the Jeep manufacturers were going to need to start over, not from scratch, per se, but start over making stuff. So started making a couple of steering parts. And I think the hardest thing in the beginning was just sourcing things, figuring out where do we get the bushings to make the control arms and where do we get the tie Rod ends to make the steering components, and who do we have make coil Springs for us?

[00:43:20.750] - Dave Schlossberg

Lots of time and energy went into trying to figure all that stuff out and then stepping into trying to make stuff like making five or ten or 20 or something. It's not too bad, but once you start seeing some orders come in for some big quantity, you really start scratching your head with like, hey, we should really figure out we got something here, something's going and how to get it figured out to where you can make more of these widgets we were coming up with.

[00:44:01.170] - Big Rich Klein

Back then was there one thing that stood out that came along, and you just knew that that was kind of like a turning point? Or was it just everything just kind of went?

[00:44:18.970] - Dave Schlossberg

I mean, everything was really slow in the beginning. I would say one of the big turning points for us was we were making some I think it was a Jeep rocker guard. It was a pretty cool, like, boat side rocker guard that had high clearance. It was a cool piece. Nobody had really made anything like that. We were starting to get calls from four wheel parts and, like, Quadratech guys interested in carrying some of the stuff that we were making. So keep in mind that at the time this is Poly Performance Manufacturing was the name of our company for making parts. So there's Poly Foreman's and Polyphores Manufacturing.

[00:45:02.630] 

Right.

[00:45:03.310] - Dave Schlossberg

And these guys, like four parts and Quadrate, they liked what we got going on but the Poly Performance name competed with what they had going on, right? So they didn't want to carry Poly Performance stuff because Poly Performance was selling the stuff anyways. So we had just finished our suspension packages, and back then, you'd have, like, Rubicon Express had the Extreme Duty line. That was what they called their suspension line. And Teraflex had their LCG stuff, and every suspension manufacturer kind of had a name to what they were doing. So I just remember jumping out of the shower one day, and I'm kind of into alliterations we were making suspension stuff. So what kind of would drive with suspension? And so I came up with I had a buddy down here in St. Louis that had a screen printing business. It was called Synergy Screen Printing. And I thought, well, Synergy, what does that mean? So you looked that up, and it means that the sum of all the components is greater than the individual components by themselves. So I thought that that really made sense for the things we're making. The kits were definitely the way to go if you're using all the parts we're making together as opposed to the individual components.

[00:46:37.890] - Dave Schlossberg

So we dubbed the suspension line the kits the Synergy Suspension Kit. And through a recommendation of the President and the guy running Quadratech buddy of mine, he goes, hey, you really need to change the name of what you got going on so we can sell it and not feel like we're competing against it. And I said, okay, so Synergy Suspension was born shortly after. So we kind of peeled off all the things we were making and kind of started to land it under the Synergy Suspension name. When did that happen? Probably around maybe 20, 09. 20, 10 was when that rolled out like that. Maybe nine. Timeline gets a little fuzzy for me sometimes.

[00:47:46.690] - Big Rich Klein

No, I understand.

[00:47:51.670] - Dave Schlossberg

So anyways, that's where that was born. So the product line became Synergy Suspension, and we started selling stuff through distribution. Once getting a couple of key distribution channels lined up was really a big deal. Once we got into doing floral parts and doing Quadratic and stuff like that, things kind of started to spool up pretty heavy and just kept our heads down and kept digging the ditch and rolling to 2011. I think, if I'm recalling this correctly, partner that I had for Synergy there wanted to move on. And so he left, and I continued driving that boat on my own till today, essentially. But, yeah, just over time, we started making more than just suspension stuff and actually got into a little bit of a legal battle about our name. There was another company that sounds similar to what we have that wanted to fight me a little bit about our name. So from Synergy Suspension, we became Synergy Manufacturing, which made more sense to me because we made more than just suspension components.

[00:49:26.100] 

Right.

[00:49:27.210] - Dave Schlossberg

And spent a bunch of money fighting with somebody that wanted to fight, I guess. And we were able to still keep our name. So that was cool. Didn't need to go through the whole rebranding process. So that's kind of how that was born. And along the way, you try to push as much stuff you're making on your own through your regular retail channels. So we try to even to this day, we try to sell as much Synergy gear through Poly Performance as we can, even though Poly Performance has, I don't know, 70 or 80 different brands that we sell currently. So that's kind of kind of how that works. Probably performance also wholesales a lot of stuff now, too, probably like the business there is probably be to be through doing the wholesale stuff. And that does real good for us as well as taking care of our regular retail customers.

[00:50:27.330] 

Excellent.

[00:50:28.010] - Dave Schlossberg

So hopefully that painted the picture a little bit about how that works and how that happened, I guess.

[00:50:37.160] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[00:50:39.630] - Dave Schlossberg

But I did leave out a pretty important part. There's a lot of going to events and doing stuff back in the day. And I remember going to a lot of your events that you would put on rich you. And I remember when your kids were little out there helping you set those courses up. And I'd be out there and my little ten by ten Walmart easy up and a banner and trying to talk to guys competing and enthusiasts out there watching and just doing all that stuff from the beginning, going to some of the what was it Arca? Is that what was back then Arca.

[00:51:23.710] - Big Rich Klein

Then you rock. We did the cow rocks and we rock.

[00:51:29.790] - Dave Schlossberg

Yup, Yup. All that stuff. But I just I remember going out there and sleeping in the back of my truck and hanging out and watching guys compete back when nobody would show up. And it was fun. That was a lot of fun back then.

[00:51:48.390] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. And you were able to build the business and expand during the Dark Ages. I guess that.

[00:52:06.050] - Dave Schlossberg

Was an interesting time because we were still pretty new and business was growing. We were adding lines and selling more stuff. And through that whole economic turn, the six, seven, eight, there's no down years for us. I go back and I can go and review the financials back then. And there's no year where we took a hit. It would just kept going and going and going. We put our heads down and just hammered right through it.

[00:52:40.730] - Big Rich Klein

That's great because so many companies that were smaller companies, but it was a hard survival time back then. The JK well, the JK kind of kept things going.

[00:53:00.610] - Dave Schlossberg

Absolutely. I would say the other thing that happened then, the e commerce thing still wasn't fully like there were companies fighting it still and not wanting to get on board. And those companies that fought e commerce are the ones that got left in the dust. Not just automotive and what we were doing, but that's like, across the board. I got a buddy of mine who had a big bike distribution business. It was all through mail order catalog. And he fought the Internet and didn't get on board when it was time. And fuck, the guy got smoked. He's doing it today and things are okay. But if you didn't get on board with Ecommerce early on, you're getting left in the dust, right? I was just right place, right time, and I could read the writing on the wall. E commerce was the wave of the future. Guys want to sit in their underwear and order parts from their living room while they're pounding beers and watching NASCAR, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, that guy doesn't want to go to the store. Maybe he does. If he can get some good help over the phone, like, why leave the couch?

[00:54:28.410] 

True.

[00:54:30.810] - Dave Schlossberg

But I will say I do attribute a lot of the success that we had early on, just being real active on Pirate Four X Four. Fortunately, that site was born in my backyard. So Lance Clifford started that thing and he lived up the road from me. I wasn't tight with him back then, but some of the guys that were in that club live down the Hill in the neighborhood. So just getting connected that way. And then it just so happens that another one of the guys that own Pirate Camo. You're familiar with him, Eric? Yeah. So, Mr. Eric Linker, he was living in Morrow Bay, California, which is 15 minutes from me. And he was over there running his glitter. He had a glitter factory, like, I was selling get 50 gallon drums of glitter in and break it up and put it in little packages and sellers at the Walmart and Joanne's and Michaels and stuff like that. Actually, I had talked to him about going to work for him, actually, when I was finishing up school, before my business started to get some traction. I remember one instance vividly selling Rodins to him for a buggy.

[00:55:55.270] - Dave Schlossberg

He was having John Hall built in his backyard in probably 2000, selling Rod ends out of the back of my Tacoma. But again, just right place, right time. Like, just happened to run into that guy. And he was basically running that board live in 15 minutes from me. It's kind of incredible, right? But Poly Performance was the first paid vendor on that site back in the day. And that was where we went to sling parts and helped guys build rigs.

[00:56:34.210] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, it helped me get to get things started. It was kind of the advertising there when I got on that board. When I met Lance and Rogey, it was down there in Arizona that first year Arca and found out where they were from. And my wife was from that area, and people knew each other and stuff. And I knew I was moving back to California, and that's what we ended up doing. And I started Calrocks at that point. And first one was November 2001.

[00:57:14.290] - Dave Schlossberg

No, I have a very vivid memory of Lance and Rogue. It was an Arca event and not St. George, but what's the Cedar City. Cedar City. And these guys were wheeling their shit and it was like obstacle, a something. And there was a climb at the top of this Hill and they were in a Land Cruiser, I think, and they were high centered on an obstacle and fucking. This is the craziest shit Bob was driving. Lance was spotting. Bob throws a string into low, low first gear and just lets the clutch out and the tires are just creeping and they both get out and start pushing and pulling on this thing and there's nobody driving it. This fucking crowd is going ape shit. You had to have been there for that. Did you remember that at all?

[00:58:18.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, absolutely. They stayed at my house during that Cedar City event.

[00:58:24.010] - Dave Schlossberg

What year was that, Rich?

[00:58:26.590] - Big Rich Klein

That first Cedar City event was 99.

[00:58:33.410] - Dave Schlossberg

That was the craziest shit I've ever seen.

[00:58:35.600] - Big Rich Klein

That's when Lance stepped on the fire extinguisher and it blasted in his face because he was hanging out of the cage trying to rock it back and forth and step on the fire extinguisher.

[00:58:49.310] - Dave Schlossberg

People were losing it. It was bananas.

[00:58:52.270] - Big Rich Klein

It was crazy.

[00:58:53.870] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. What a great time.

[00:58:58.770] - Big Rich Klein

So anyway, yeah, Rubicon still kind of the home trail for you?

[00:59:06.850] - Dave Schlossberg

Oh, yeah. Anything NorCal up there, that's the home track for me. So I try to hit. I do a lot of events now, and most of the events that I do are just me stuck at a vendor booth talking to people, which is fine. I have a lot of fun doing that, but I do like going out and wheeling. So I try to make sure that we're hitting Jeepers Jamborees for every year is a good trip for me. It's not just a work event. It's a wheel and trip. That's fun. So we like to try to do all the Jeepers jambery trips, the big and small trip. And it's been a while since I hit the Sierra Trek event. But Ford Ice and stuff is really fun, too. Anything up there is all good. And we got our little NorCal office that we can crash at and work out of if we need to up there. It's nice to know anytime I go past year, I'm able to go see and check in on my family. My parents are still up there, and my great aunt and uncle and my sister and her husband and my niece and nephew are up there.

[01:00:14.080] - Dave Schlossberg

So always a good time to be able to go see them.

[01:00:18.670] - Big Rich Klein

Like you said, your parents don't give you a hard time about getting a real job anymore.

[01:00:25.270] - Dave Schlossberg

Not too much anymore. It's grown quite a bit for me by myself starting and we're running. What have we got now? 50 guys between both companies, and we're in two big buildings looking for more space now, and things are cruising. Running a business is a crazy, crazy thing, and it has its highs and it has its lows. But once you get that snowball rolling and you get some momentum behind it, you can kind of relax a little bit here and there. But that's not how I roll. To me, enough is never enough. I keep pushing for more and more and more and trying to hammer on it more and get more done and invent more things and sell more stuff and just kind of keep pushing it, I. Equated. Being the coach of the baseball team or the football team. You got to keep moving the ball forward, and sometimes you got to back up and punt. But, you know, sometimes you got to throw the hell, Mary. And sometimes you just got to keep your head down and run the ball, you know what I'm saying? So running a business to me, I think, is I've never been a coach of a sports team, but I kind of equate that to what I do now.

[01:01:58.460] - Dave Schlossberg

My job is to make sure we got good people at the office doing the work. And I'm happy to say we got some guys here that have been there a long, long time that have put the blood, sweat and tears in and along with me that I've been able to take with me along the ride. And as the business grows, I'm able to help take care of these people more and more. And not just because of me. It's because of their own hard work, too. So I for sure wouldn't have nothing if it wasn't for our people. We got great people working with us at the office.

[01:02:33.090] - Big Rich Klein

And you're manufacturing your own stuff. Stuff for Poly. But Poly, it's not truly a brick and mortar. It is all ecommerce, correct?

[01:02:48.330] - Dave Schlossberg

No. I mean, we have a store where people can kind of come in. So we do have a service Department where we're building trucks every day. We're building Toyotas and Jeeps and shit. I think we built last week a van doing some of these van jobs a little bit. So I don't know. We'll take on any job as long as it's paying. All right. You know what I'm saying? And we got a little bit of bandwidth, so we're not in a highly populated area. So it's not like there's a ton of service work like that, but there's enough. And we're able to be pretty picky about what jobs we pick up. The guy that shows up with an 88 half ton Chevy that wants to put some cheap lift on there, those are the guys will tell them we just can't help them out. But somebody rolls in with a new 392 JL and they want to go to town on it. We'll help them with that sort of deal.

[01:03:54.340] - Big Rich Klein

Right. What do you think of all the what's the best word, the best way to phrase this? So many companies are being bought up. They're creating all of these, like, Keystones and financial investment companies that are buying up and putting together all these larger companies creating yeah.

[01:04:30.810] - Dave Schlossberg

There'S some stuff out there happening. I see the private equity groups coming in wanting to get a piece of this automotive space that's popping pretty heavy. So there's outsiders that come in that try to buy their way in. And there's existing groups that are involved in the space trying to basically add what's called a Bolt on Bolton on to what they got going on.

[01:04:55.400] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:04:57.410] - Dave Schlossberg

That's definitely a thing that's happening out there.

[01:05:03.510] - Big Rich Klein

You're not looking for something like that. Build it and sell it. Do you want to?

[01:05:11.650] - Dave Schlossberg

Well, I'm the type of guy that everything's for sale. It just has to be if you don't have that mindset with things. And I think that's bad business to me. So everything's always for sale. Am I out there trying to work a deal or do something? No, I'm happy with what I got going on. I'm extremely content with what we're doing and how we're doing it. And we don't have any money problems. I got plenty. Everything's real good right now, especially you would have thought with this covet stuff happening that would have slowed things down. People getting real nervous when that started happening. They started locking things down in the beginning of 2020. But with the government printing a bunch of money and people working from home and still making what they were making, they got a little extra money and they're not spending money traveling and going on vacation. So the guy that's working from home, he's taking his 15 minutes. He goes out to his garage. He's staring at his Jeep and pieces in his garage like shit. I might as well start working on this thing or put it together. Hey, I want to buy this for I want to buy that for it.

[01:06:29.760] - Dave Schlossberg

And pretty much any of the recreation that was happening at that time, people going out on their own, you know, people going out and doing their own Jeep trips and their own camping trips and things like that, where there weren't a lot of people involved, any type of event where you could kind of go off and do it on your own without a bunch of people that's kind of a stuff that was popping, boat stuff was popping, RV stuff was popping, camping, four wheel stuff popping.

[01:07:02.210] - Speaker 1

Go buy vehicle.

[01:07:03.250] - Big Rich Klein

You go by any new car lot. And companies are lucky. These car lots dealers are lucky if they've got 25% of their lot filled.

[01:07:19.130] - Dave Schlossberg

Oh, yeah. That's a whole another topic that's some supply chain stuff that they're having issues with. So, I mean, it's crazy because being in California, I remember when in March when they kind of shut everything down. I remember the police, the police Department called me and they said, hey, we're shutting down. Everything's supposed to be shut down. You're not supposed to be operating. And I told them to fuck off. I just said, hey, I'm going to keep working. I don't care what the fines are. You can come arrest me, put me in handcuffs, and haul me off. As long as my guys want to go to work, I'll be there to open the doors and let them come to work. And it's just my mind is totally blown that people were like, that was a thing. Like the government was trying to shut everything down. It was madness. I still look at it right now, and I go. I go, Rich, has the world gone mad? What in the hell is this?

[01:08:28.430] - Big Rich Klein

The last two years? Yes, it has.

[01:08:31.310] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah, but back in the beginning, that's how it happened. I did file some paperwork and claim there was some exemption stuff out here in California. Automotive repair service type stuff was an area that was exempt, but I didn't even play that. The police tried to shut me down twice. Actually, that happened two times. And again when they called again, I said, no, you can come arrest me and haul me to jail if you think that that's what you got to do. And I don't care what the daily fines are. 1000, 5000, $10,000, whatever you want to build me. A, I wouldn't pay it, and B, I'm just going to throw it in the trash. And they didn't do shit. It made me so angry that they were doing that. And then, B, I just keep thinking, like, how. I just kept thinking how soft people were to just abide, to roll over. They just fucking rolled. People are just. They got, like, where were all the people standing up for themselves? I mean, there were a lot of people that did, but it just, man, I don't know. I didn't subscribe to that. Coverage is a very real thing.

[01:10:06.950] - Dave Schlossberg

There's people getting sick. I've known several people that have passed away from it, and I'm not here to say that it's not a real thing or whatever. It's definitely a real thing. And if you're worried about it and you think you're subject to getting it worse and making it sicker than stay away, stay at home, get vaccinated, do whatever you got to do. But I know people that have gotten sick and gotten some really weird medical issues that arise after that vaccine. Also hard to say one way or the other. I know for me, like I said, as long as my guys were willing to come to work and we sent everybody home that could work from home and guys that wanted to come to work, I was there every day to make sure we were open and they were able to work and feed their families.

[01:11:06.230] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. So what's next. Anything on the horizon that you can share?

[01:11:17.130] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah, for sure. So over time, Poly just does what we do over there. Pretty much the game right now is just having stuff. So our purchasing Department has got the green light to just drop big, big bombs on trying to get stock. You know, shocks are a pretty big game for we do. And all the shock companies are like it's getting a little bit better, but they're looking at like twelve month lead time. So we're having to order a year in advance. So you're dropping big six, seven figure POS on stuff to try to get ahead of it because it's one of those things where if you have it, you'll sell it, you know what I'm saying?

[01:12:06.600] 

Right.

[01:12:07.310] - Dave Schlossberg

So just dropping big bombs on trying to get inventory and just trying to have stuff. So a lot of these 30% of our business at Polys B to B, so a lot of customers buying from Keystone, Premier, Meyer, turn 14, stuff like that. So we're able to get some of those customers buying from us just because we have stuff that some of these other guys don't. Paul, he's always been really good at having some weird exotic stuff, stock and bypass shocks and weird big coil over stuff and just kind of stuff that some of those other places won't stock we're pretty good at having and then pushing our own brand of stuff and just stacking on and doing that sort of thing. So Paul is just cruising doing that stuff. Synergy, we're not all the way done with our JL. Jt. Stuff. We've still got some other suspension stuff that we're working on, but we're probably 80% done on the development on those platforms. Our Ram truck product stuff, it's Synergy is really doing well. A lot of the steering components we make. So we cover all second Gen stuff to current so 94 to today we cover a lot of steering components that's pretty popular for us.

[01:13:44.360] - Dave Schlossberg

And then what are we at about three or four months away now from launching some super duty stuff. So five and up super duty steering stuff we got coming. Some stuff I've never seen anybody else do. Really cool stuff. So what kind of sets our steering components apart, especially on steering tie rods and stuff like that. So we like to heat treat a lot of the bars that we're doing or I don't think any other manufacturers heat treating their steering component so that when you're doing that process on some of this high carbon alloy stuff, you're able to double the tensile strength of the material. So our steering stuff is pretty much bulletproof. You see a lot of guys too. Aluminum products are really hot right now in that space. Aluminum control arms, aluminum steering components, and we've looked at doing that. But aluminum is pretty dangerous in my book. It doesn't have an infinite fatigue life like carbonallies do. So end up having some failures with that material over time. And when it goes, it kind of goes out of the blue. So don't really recommend doing that stuff for that reason. It's pretty dangerous.

[01:15:09.990] - Dave Schlossberg

We try to stick to running those heat treated bars and doing stuff like that. So we have that going right now. Super duty stuff is really close. Doing some more ball joint applications with Synergy and then right at the end of the year there, I picked up a Bronco. So lots of buzz about that new Bronco.

[01:15:35.790] 

Yeah.

[01:15:38.550] - Dave Schlossberg

We got really good at making steering components. So I got a couple of ideas for some steering components on that platform. Lots of guys having issues, guys breaking tie rods and blowing the racks out of them. So after Koh here, we're gearing up to get out to be a part of that event next a couple of weeks after two weeks out of the race right now. So we'll be out there for that. And then once we get back to the lab there, we'll start tearing a brand new Bronco apart and making some Bronco parts and doing that. We're just real busy staying on top of making the existing product line that we're making at Synergy and just not trying to do anything too different. But just, you know, just a couple of things that I think it will do well and just trying to move the ball forward. And again, with a lot of the supply issues that are happening right now are just trying to concentrate on having product. You know, if you have it, you'll sell it kind of thing right now. So it's not a whole lot of competition in regards to that, just because a lot of people are running out of stuff.

[01:16:57.320] - Dave Schlossberg

So if you're able to have it, you're getting first bids on guys wanting if you make up a replacement part for a Jeep jail. And there's three other competitors to that, but they're all sourcing stuff overseas or having supply issues on material. If we're able to beat people to the punch like that, that seems to be really the hot ticket for us. Perfect.

[01:17:30.650] 

Cool.

[01:17:33.310] - Dave Schlossberg

The last thing we got going on is we're getting ready to do like a dealer portal at Poly. So always continuing on our retail game, but we'll be having a wholesale side back end where guys can log in and see live inventory, see what we have, and place orders online that way, similar to how Trans and Meyer and some of these other big wholesalers have. So that should be I'm shooting for the end of the second quarter to get that going. So that'll be cool if we can get that rolling. But other than that, it's just keeping our heads down and keep working. And, you know, we're just trying to take real good care of this business that we have because if we take care of this business and treat it right and don't abuse it. They'll take care of all of us, not just me. My main priority and goal is just to make sure we're taking good care of our guys and our crew. Our employees are everything to me and I love all of them and I work real hard to take care of them Because if we do that, I know that the rest will be taken care of.

[01:18:49.990] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Well, on that note, I'd like to say thank you so much for coming on board and sharing your history and how the business how you were able to grow the businesses and develop those. That's awesome.

[01:19:04.570] - Dave Schlossberg

Yeah. It's been a long road 22 years and I would end it with there's no silver bullet and magic thing that was done. It's just a lot of years of hard work and digging in the ditch and you'll dig and dig and just every once in a while you'll stick your head up and you'll see kind of where you've come from and just be proud of the work that you did and be proud of your guys and be proud of the team and just put your head back down and keep digging. There's no magic ticket. There's no silver bullet. There's just a lot of hard work and a lot of trying to have the right guys and the right help. All right, Dave. All right, rich, thank you. Thank you so much for the time. I appreciate being a part of your do you call it a podcast?

[01:20:03.760] - Big Rich Klein

It's a podcast.

[01:20:05.770] - Dave Schlossberg

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate it very much. And feel free to call me back anytime you want, all right.

[01:20:13.050] - Big Rich Klein

And I'll let you know here when we're going to air it and hopefully you'll share it.

[01:20:17.950] - Dave Schlossberg

Sounds good. We'll share it out and I'll catch you on the Lake bed. Hopefully.

[01:20:22.310] - Big Rich Klein

Alright. Talk to you later.

[01:20:24.260] - Dave Schlossberg

Alright, buddy, take it easy.

[01:20:26.590] - Speaker 3

If you enjoy these podcasts, Please give us a rating, share some feedback with us via Facebook or Instagram And share our link among your friends who might be like minded that brings this episode to an end. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll catch you next week with conversations with big rich.

[01:20:43.230] - Big Rich Klein

Thank you very much.