What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Building a $280M Business Without Investors: The FilterBuy Story
What happens when you walk away from a seven-figure Wall Street career to save your family's dying business? For David Heacock, it led to building FilterBuy, a $280 million manufacturing powerhouse that's revolutionizing the air filter industry—all without a single outside investor.
The journey wasn't glamorous. Heacock describes the brutal reality of his first few years, including the pivotal moment in 2015 when humidity in Alabama was destroying his production materials and he was down to his last $150,000 in credit. With bankruptcy looming, he drove to Indiana, rented a truck to bring back a specialized machine, and nearly lost his finger while training his team. That near-catastrophe became the turning point that saved his company.
Unlike the polished success stories dominating social media, Heacock's path reveals what entrepreneurship truly demands. While others contracted during COVID, he made the audacious move to open a new manufacturing facility in May 2020, allowing FilterBuy to double in revenue within a year. His approach to business—manufacturing domestically, creating nearly 1,000 American jobs, and building a sustainable cash-efficient model—stands in stark contrast to the quick-fix solutions marketed by business gurus charging thousands for seminars.
What makes Heacock's perspective particularly valuable is his brutal honesty about entrepreneurship. "People consistently overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade," he shares, emphasizing that clarity of long-term vision combined with patience is what separates successful founders from those who quit too soon. Now expanding beyond direct-to-consumer into retail partnerships with Walmart and launching a nationwide HVAC service business, Heacock is on track to build what he calls "the world's leading indoor air quality company."
Whether you're struggling six months into your business journey or contemplating making a bold career pivot, this conversation offers a rare glimpse into what building a substantial company actually requires. Find David on YouTube where he shares his business knowledge freely through weekly Q&A sessions—no $40,000 mastermind required.
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I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you?
Speaker 2:think you are all right. Everybody. Another day, another dollar. Another one of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast what if it did work? Got with me.
Speaker 2:A founder, a ceo of filter by david hecox, can't wait to hear this story. From wall street to air quality innovator, he walked away from a seven-figure finance career to rebuild his family's dying business. With zero experience in manufacturing, took a bold leap of faith and built filter by a 250 million industry, a disruptor, revolutionizing indoor air quality. What started as a small factory, one of my favorite states in Alabama, is now a nationwide leader, producing millions of high-quality air filters and expanding into HVAC services, air purification and automotive filtration all while creating nearly 1,000 US jobs. While others are exporting jobs, he's creating jobs 1,000 US jobs and serving over 7 million customers.
Speaker 2:Success wasn't easy. Burned down factories, near fatal accidents and relentless setbacks Tested his grit at every turn. Now David is pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to scale a business. You know what. This is what I love no investors, no shortcuts, just raw determination. And you know what man? You are the real deal. You're not like these gurus, all these big time gurus that are like hey, pay me $10,000. I'm going to show you how to scale, and then you know what happens after you pay for the $10,000?.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I've never, I've never paid $10,000 to be shown how to scale, so maybe you should enlighten me, oh okay, Well, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, david, congratulations. You went to my three day seminar on how to. I mean, I I wrote a book on how to scale, but I I didn't do a 250 zero to 250 million. But you go to it. It's like a three or four day seminar and they're like david, you've learned a lot. We've. We've gone to pretty much basic shit that you could have gotten for free off of anywhere.
Speaker 2:But you know where the real answer lies. We have this. It's not for everybody, but it's for people like you that want to scale this business. You can go from zero to hero, but for only the low, low price. The seven-day seminar $40,000. The seven day seminar $40,000. And you're going to laugh. People do it. And you know what happens at the $40,000 seminar. You get a certificate and you go out there and you're like, wow, did I learn anything? No, but I can put it on my social media that I have a selfie with my guru. So congratulations, man. I love when you're. When your publicist mentioned to me it was a no brainer man from $0 to $250 million business.
Speaker 3:Now that we're going to do two or two over 280 million this year. Dude, you have to.
Speaker 2:You have to fit, you have to fix that number, man. $280 sounds better than $250.
Speaker 3:We actually you know I'm crazy. I did no social media until October of last year and I went from being a ghost to now I'm talking about it, and we did all of our planning publicly on YouTube. We published it, david Filtered by, on YouTube and we actually walked you through our whole planning process. I got all my team on camera committing to their target for next year and we're targeting, as a company, $280 million in 2025. And we're on track so far, but we will see how the year ends and we'll share it publicly. That's part of the beauty of what we're doing.
Speaker 2:But, david, in your defense, I think Alabama just got dialed up. Man, I'm going to ask you along, okay, I'll say War eagle, war eagle to you. Um you know, because I hey, I've been to both campuses and it's a no-brainer man, um, not because you're on, but auburn's a very beautiful campus, a very beautiful town, been at tuscaloosa, been the dreamland, which is like rfu, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can tell I'm the real deal when I say I've been the dreamland, and then you know if you went to lsu.
Speaker 3:You're the. You're the real deal. Where do you live now?
Speaker 2:oh, it's south florida, miami.
Speaker 3:I went there yeah I'm in west palm, so we could have done it in person. Oh, dude. Yeah man my my office is in boca so yeah, literally that's funny but the your, your family business, though, isn't this?
Speaker 2:it's still in alabama, correct?
Speaker 3:yeah, so, um, you know the. The long story short of it is I grew up in a family business that was largely the textile um industry. Um, you know, my my grandfather came back from world war ii and was looking for what to do with his life, and his dad worked in a textile mill in Sylacauga, alabama, called Avondale Mills, and he was the purchasing manager there. So my grandfather decided he was going to start selling supplies to the textile industry and so, anyways, I kind of grew up seeing that family business as I was growing up and then I saw it get decimated in the 90s by NAFTA. Basically, all the textiles got taken out of the Southeast and I decided to get as far away from Alabama as possible and actually moved to New York where I went to work for Goldman Sachs and ran the emerging market options trading business there.
Speaker 3:Then, in 2012, my family was going through the sale of the family business and at that time they had basically pivoted to the wood products industry where they were selling supplies to sawmills in the Southeast. And my grandfather was still alive, didn't want to see it sold and I said to this private equity firm and I said well, I'll quit my job and go buy this thing and see what I can do with it. And basically I bought this dying industrial supply business where the average salesperson was in their 60s. We were relying off of legacy relationships. It was not.
Speaker 3:I saw the writing on the wall it's not going to stand the test of time and I thought, well, I'm gonna have to do something with this. And I looked around for a product that I could manufacture in alabama competitively and not have to compete with imports and sell direct to the end user and therefore hopefully have a competitive advantage and ultimately set everyone pleaded air filter because they have a lot of dynamics that they're very bulky to keep you um, makes it not cost competitive to import from asia, for instance. Um, and there's so many different sizes and there's lots of variation and um, you know, there are other kind of factors that made it interesting and um. So that's how I started my journey of building FilterBuy. You know and learn how to manufacture the product and you know we've been scaling it ever since.
Speaker 2:And FilterBuy. You went from Goldman Sachs. I mean I was a financial advisor but nowhere near going working in the city and being in fixed investments for Goldman Sachs. Now I understand now why. Because I was like I maybe didn't want nepotism, like why wouldn't you have just stuck with the family business? But the family business was in textiles and then it went to commodities, helping out the sawdust mills and whatnot, and it was the good old boy network. It was based on relationships. Once Joe Bob died or once old man Ridley died, from across the way. There would have been that contract is what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's effectively what happened. I bought it it was a company called Tally Machinery Supply Company and it basically, you know, died a slow death and I could took about five or six years as kind of a traditional kind of cigar, but if you follow the Warren Buffett philosophy, but you know, basically lasted five or six years until I had to shut down that that business more or less. But I had started filter by it kind of used the infrastructure to, to build it on on top of it, which is how we survived.
Speaker 2:But what, ultimately? What got you back home to take that risk, because a lot of people would have been in comfort? Man, you were. You were in the city, you were in the nyc. You had a high paying job. You were established there. What was it? You were concerned about the family legacy. You just didn't want it.
Speaker 3:You wanted the yeah well, it was a combination of two things and for, for the record, I lived in New York City until 2021 when we, when I was a COVID, transplant to South Florida, so is my wife and everything is. It was in New York and we didn't and she didn't want to leave, to go to move to Alabama.
Speaker 3:So I built all this while, while, like, living in New York, although I traveled every week, um, but it was really two things, um, the you know, I was 29 years old and I, um, you know, I had a good career to that point, had seen a lot with the financial crisis, and you know a lot, lots of other things, um, but I kind of looked around and I was like, well, what does what does this look like 10 years from now? And I? Um realized I was effectively a bookie for hedge funds. That was basically my job, like, if you wanted, if a hedge fund wanted action, then they would call it, they, they called me, and that was basically my, instead of my, client base.
Speaker 3:And you know, I thought that, and I think that this has largely happened, but a lot of that's going to get automated, which has been happening, happened slower than I expected, but I thought, um, I didn't see that job existing 10 years, 10 years out, um, and also just didn't get any fulfillment from it.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's like, um, to me, when you're in business or doing anything in life, don't have to be in business. You have to say like, okay, well, what is the purpose or what value am I bringing in this activity that I'm taking Right, and I could not articulate what value I was bringing to society from my role as a bookie for hedge funds, even if it was highly paid. And on top of that, you know, I didn't really see how that business was going to evolve. And if you look at it like you know, the finance world in general has been shrinking as a percentage of GDP over the last decade and generally you don't want to be in industries or in businesses that are contracting because the opportunities that of the people that were there in the 90s are not, have not been there for the, for those people that have been there from 2010 to 2020 and beyond.
Speaker 3:Um, so I kind of saw the writing on the wall with that wanted to find something with more purpose. And then my family was going through the sale of the family business and my grandfather, who I was really close to, was in his early 90s. Um, he did not want to see it sold and so I said um, you know, know, later on in my life am I going to regret, you know, quitting at 29 and going and taking some risk and figuring it outweighed the risk of taking that action. So that was really the genesis of it.
Speaker 2:Well, you have always had that. What if you would have had such a regret? Because, believe it or not, you could have gone back. Let's say things would have gone sideways. You could have gone back to the industry, you could have back to finances there's a dime, a dozen still.
Speaker 3:you can always go find a job I can't, no matter what you know and I just remembered the name of your podcast, which I, which I left what, what if it? What if it worked right? I mean, and um, and to me like the biggest driver in life and I think everybody needs to really think about this is on your deathbed, what are you going to regret? And if you talk to anybody, well, that's been the situation. It's like the things that you didn't do, that you didn't get the chance to do, or that you didn't do because you were too scared, those are the things that you remember. It's never the things that you did that didn't work. It's the things that you wanted to do, that you did not take that action against.
Speaker 3:And so when I think about any decision I'm making and how I want to live my life, I want to minimize those regrets of things that I didn't do, that I wanted to do at the end, and I've kind of lived my life that way and this, you know, the taking the journey of becoming an entrepreneur was a big step for that, towards that.
Speaker 2:Well, think about it. You saved your family's company. Ultimately, you know, in the grand scheme of things, years from now can in your deathbed 60, 70, 80, 90 years, whenever that day, you, you'd be like man. I did that. Not only that man, but just a simple fact. There's more to it. When you're helping people, you were, you're completely in service. You created jobs. You've helped out over a thousand families.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that actually need and they want it at a fair price, and we're able to employ a lot of people with good jobs, you know, in service of that, in pursuit of that, and to me that's a meaningful life. I absolutely love that and, you know, all the business activity that I do as I continue to grow is centered around that. Like the reason why I don't retire or sell my company to a private equity firm which I will never do, or taking that kind of route is because I get so much value in the, in the creating of the opportunities and the world around me creating of the opportunities and the world around me and I'm fueled by that and that's what excites me. You know about the next stage of my journey, which I hope to be much bigger.
Speaker 2:Well, also, man, I mean the United States has become a service industry when it comes to creating things we outsource. We outsource for cheaper labor, man, and just to say, hey, made in the USA. All these air filters are made here, made at home, man, and you've helped 7 million people buy American products.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we're up to over 9 million actually. Now I need to update that number. But yeah, it's interesting, like now a number of our competitors, some of the big, really the big brand that you would see in box stores, you know, are this tariff talk, how, how that ultimately shakes out. I, I have no no idea and I don't know what's good and what's bad and all of that. But, um, you know, when you're manufacturing here, you don't have to worry about those types of things, which is kind of nice well so so it's also nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the the market's taken it in the chin past few days because of terrorists, but man talk about helping out, leveling the playing field for you yeah, I mean I I don't know if I'm pro or against them as a country, if I'm honest, I just don't know.
Speaker 3:I I I think it's such a complicated subject that anybody that is, like you know, pontificating on like, oh this is the best thing in the world or this is going to crush everything, I don't think any, I don't think anybody knows is the reality, um, and so I think I just think it's a very complicated subject for a lot of reasons and um, so I don't really know where I land on it, but but but one thing I will say is that I do think that we have made, as a country, made a huge strategic mistake by outsourcing all of our labor and all of the you know production of our goods to other people, Because when you do that, you basically give other people power over you, Because ultimately, we're in a position where you know a lot of these industries. I know semiconductors are a big one, but I mean there's lots of, lots of things that you know. If, all of a sudden, we't buy them somewhere else, um, as a country, we would be in trouble because, um, we, we just kind of lost all of that um, all of that um mental ability, all that um, intellectual capacity to be able to, to, to do these things, and I think that's really tough and I do hope that more and more people decide to insure more and more products. I mean, we're actually doing it in other products now I haven't talked about it much, although you said some on the intro but, like auto cabin filters for cars and air purifier filters, for instance, are largely made in Asia now and we started this about a year and a half ago the kind of investment process, because it takes time, unfortunately, which is why short-term tariffs are kind of tough, I think, because it does take. There is an investment cycle. It takes time, but we were already working on it and I think more companies should be figuring out ways to manufacture in the US because it's definitely possible.
Speaker 3:I think that we oftentimes you hear a lot of excuses why people don't do it, and most of those excuses, I think, are pretty flawed. I think it ultimately comes down to laziness more than anything and lack of willingness to invest. But the laziness is actually the biggest factor in my opinion, because it's more work to manufacture versus just cut a PO to some overseas factory. It'd be much easier, like for us in the air purifier filter market or the carbon cabin filter market for cars say, oh, we're just going to cut a PO and have some other factory do all the other stuff. Um, that would be easier, but it's just not a business model. That's to me, and you know that's. That's why we we make all of our own products here.
Speaker 2:Well it, yes, bottom line. It can make you more money, but there there's something to it. Being an entrepreneur and giving jobs and just creating all that compared to yeah, believe it or not just creating a purchase order or calling your purchasing guy overseas, that would be really just moving what you're doing with Goldman Sachs. Same thing, same thing, man, just different avenue, but pretty much the same thing. And then, ultimately, you know, would you be helping out other people? Would you be helping out the community? Would you be helping out people in your state?
Speaker 3:No, and would you be building a sustainable, competitive business right?
Speaker 3:I mean, it's like you know, I did it in an industry where I know I can, you know, always be competitive and you know I picked my products in ways that I knew that I was not going to be have to worry about the overseas labor undercutting me.
Speaker 3:And I think that the reality is that that people don't understand is, if you actually looked at the product cost of a lot of the things that are made sorry, the labor costs that are as part of the cost of a lot of the products that are made the labor cost is actually very small. It's like that's the excuse that's given to say, hey, I'm going to outsource this for cheaper labor, I'm going to outsource this for cheaper labor. But there are a lot of products where I think you actually can make them cheaper here in the US if you put in the investment and put in the work. But people just end up taking the easy way out. But I think if you're willing to put in the work, you can be rewarded for it, and I think that I'm an example of that.
Speaker 2:Now David, how long did it take you to go from zero to the $280 million corporation?
Speaker 3:So it took me eight years, from 2012 to 2020, to go from zero to $70 million, and that was, I mean, obviously, $ million. It's not a small business, but that was a real, that was a real slog, um, as a real like fist fight to to get there. Um, and you know, I chose a business and when you're in manufacturing, you really need scale to be able to make money. Unfortunately, and, um, I I kind of realized that early on, so I was pushing, pushing, pushing for scale, um, and so that first 70 million was a real fight. I mean, it took me probably five years to get to 35 million and then, you know, three years go from 35 to 70.
Speaker 3:Then COVID happened, and COVID was a real decision point for us because we were only in Alabama at the time and I realized, for various reasons, that I needed to be geographically diversified if I wanted to be competitive and do what I was doing. And in May 2020, I took the leap of faith and opened a manufacturing facility in Ogden, utah, in the middle of the, in the height of the pandemic, and you know, that really changed the trajectory of our business and we were able to basically double in a year to go from 70 to almost 150 million, you know, in 2021. And then we were able to kind of keep growing past that to get to 250 or so last year. But COVID was a huge tailwind for us.
Speaker 3:But the thing that I remind people on that is, you know, I use COVID to, as I could have just raised my prices and kind of hunkered down and made a lot of money during COVID, which is what most businesses that were in this situation did not take any risk, not go out and build anything new. But rather than doing that, I saw the opportunity and I basically went all in on my business and all in on expanding it to be able to harness that kind of one-time demand. And a lot of people told me I was crazy because, like, who is out there opening a manufacturing facility in May of 2020? I'm probably one of the only people that actually did that. But that was the decision ultimately. That led us to where we are today. I mean, it certainly got us a five-year head start versus where we would have been otherwise.
Speaker 2:Now you talked about scaling. Now this is something that you're rare man. Usually people take on investors. Usually people dilute their ownership, looking for growth. You went the other way and to this day, even at the beginning, you haven't said you wanted to find anybody, any money, to help you fuel your growth. Why is that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm an independent person and I I.
Speaker 3:I enjoy I would not enjoy doing this if I had to answer um to somebody else on every decision I made. I mean that that would take the fun out of it for me and I don't actually recommend that for most people. I don't think that that's. That's not actually advice, Um, it's just. It's just what works for me, um, and that's the honest truth.
Speaker 3:Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't enjoy it if I was, if I was doing it for somebody else, um, I think that people really need to understand their business and their business model, um, before they really think about scaling. And, like you know, I one of the secrets to how I've been able to do it is, you know, I'm in a like most e-commerce businesses are very inventory heavy, which means that they're very cash heavy. So if you're doing like the traditional import from China type business model for your products you've got 45 days on the water overseas Then you've got to have enough in inventory that you don't run out of stock. You got to have it through all your distribution centers, all this kind of stuff, so you end up and then as you grow, you have to grow your inventory. So you're constantly putting cash into that business and that's why a lot of these e-commerce entrepreneurs that maybe follow your course for 40 grand or whatever. They say oh, I'm going to go and make, make money as doing this e-commerce thing and it looks good on paper, Um, but then when you have to pay for your inventory and you have to pay the tax man, you, you realize that you don't have any cash.
Speaker 3:Um, and that happens to so many of these businesses. Um, and you know, I, my, my model is such that, um, you know, we make all of our own products. We keep in our whole system. We keep less than two weeks of finished goods inventory because we're able to, but we keep a lot of raw material because we're able to convert that very quickly to finished goods inventory that's sellable. So we basically never run out and we have a model that's very cash efficient and that is how I've been able to scale an e-commerce business as big as I have without outside capital, whereas most traditional e-commerce businesses that follow the traditional model, that are inventory heavy, have overseas manufacturers and this kind of stuff, are just cash sucks and a lot of people enter into these businesses and are surprised by that. But early on I had that kind of recognition and it's why I took the path that I did.
Speaker 2:Well, also taking the path that you did, you don't have to answer to anybody, man, everybody has to usually answer to someone. Me, I own franchises. I had these illusions, or maybe illusions that I worked for myself. No, I had to answer to a corporate, no different than if I was working back at Edward Jones, being a financial advisor or any other job in corporate America. And ultimately, yeah, I would have to praise you for that, in the sense that you created your own course. You didn't have to answer to anybody People, always. I also believe that people love hearing the word investors and bringing on capital. They think it's sexy.
Speaker 3:they they don't understand that there's a price to pay that like what you, you have to answer and to me it sounds miserable because it's like like, hey, if you want to go out, maybe you make a mistake or or maybe you have a big decision, like the covid decision, right? Um, like everybody around me was telling me you oh, you should calm down, you should see what's going to happen with all this. Let it play out. You don't want to take too much risk, like everybody. You know everybody well-meaning says that kind of stuff, but I knew in my heart what the right decision was and I went for it. And if you had investors and they're telling you that- then you're really in a position.
Speaker 3:You don't have a choice but to listen to them because it's their money, right, and it keeps you from being able to actually make those decisions as an entrepreneur and you know, I'd rather be smaller and control my own destiny than you know, go bigger and have to answer to somebody else. I mean, that's just how I look at it amen to that man.
Speaker 2:But also when you spoke about covid corona, whatever we want to call it, the chinese flu, like what our president would call it, dude you. You didn't use emotions. A lot of people had that knee jerk you went business should never be, decisions should never be based on emotions, and you did that. Most people the ones that contracted were just folded up was a lot of emotional, a lot of irrational, a lot of hysteria. You don't remember back then? I mean, I remember I was knee deep in being an entrepreneur. This is the new world. It'll never be back to what it ever was. Remember that Everybody was saying that.
Speaker 3:I bought into it for a couple of days, you know, and I felt sorry for myself and I thought, um, I thought, wow, you know, I was walking around new york city. It was a ghost town. I've never seen anything like it. It was like it was the the you know, craziest experience of my life, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same. But I started, I started asking myself the question. I was like, um, you know, like, is it realistic that we're just going to be shut down forever, or realistic that we're going to, like society is just going to completely realign and all of this and how, how we do everything is just overnight, going to completely change.
Speaker 3:And I just said to myself, it just seems incredibly unrealistic that, like people are going to, we're going to one way or another, we're going to gonna have to get through this, and I want to be standing on the other side of it and so I started I started taking the actions and I was like um, you know, it's ultimately, when I bought my private plane, to be honest with you, like I, I, um, this is out of necessity, because I couldn't travel around in the way I needed to, and I was like, well, I, well, I'm going to, I'm going to go out here and and make it happen. Um and um, you know, I started taking action and I think, having a strong bias to action, um has served me well and if you're an entrepreneur, um, you have to be fueled by that.
Speaker 2:Well, when it came to traveling the one thing on Corona, I loved it because I was lifetime gold or, at the time, platinum, so they would always upgrade me since the planes were empty. So you know, you could all. You were always drinking or eating something so you didn't have to wear a mask in first class. But you know, whenever you're in steerage, whenever I didn't get it upgraded, man, it was the only time of my life I loved eating jelly beans, one at a time, because just everything was just no logic behind it, man. But you're right, when I saw those videos of like the LA, the Vegas Strip being like a ghost town, and New York city, and everybody's like this is the new norm.
Speaker 2:And this is the new norm? Yeah, for a split second I'm like I hope these people aren't right, man. But just to see, you know, overnight we, we got our heads out of our butts and realize you know everything. You know a lot of illogical decisions that everybody was making, and it wasn't one party, it was literally everybody was making. So, man, was there a time. I know there was a time, but what was that time? At the very beginning, any startup that you're like, man, did I make the right decision? What am I doing here, new York? Why did I leave? What's going on here and how did you pivot from that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it was a rough go of it for me in the beginning and you know I most people would not have made it and you know I, I most people would not have made it, um, but the real kind of turning point for me came about two and a half years in. Actually, I've been, I've been at it for two and a half years and struggling, um, because manufacturing air filters at scale was way more difficult than I realized when I got into the process. I really was naive and didn't know what I was doing. And about two and a half years in, it was May of 2015. I remember it like it was yesterday. But, like in Alabama we talked about Alabama in May it starts to get very humid. It's a very humid time of year.
Speaker 2:Everywhere in the shop. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Anyways, the first part of the manufacturing process for an air filter is what they call the laminating process and basically you use glue, you put it on some wire that goes on the media that ultimately gives the filter rigidity. Anyways, I had bought what's called a cold glue laminator, so basically using like equivalent of elmer's glue um, that then has to dry before it gets on the other side of the roll, whatever and um, we that may. Basically, um, two-thirds of our media was useless, which is like that's like the core raw material that goes into your pure filter. Two-thirds of our media was being wasted because it was not drying and it was all getting stuck together and we couldn't make any product. And I was hemorrhaging money and I had like $150,000 left on my line of credit at the time. I borrowed money by that time to stay in business and I didn't know what I was going to do because I couldn't really make product. We were wasting all this raw material and by some act of God, I found what's called a hot glue laminator in Indiana, which would dry way quicker because we used hot glue rather than cold glue and I rented a pinsky truck from in anderson, alabama, on a thursday afternoon. 20 foot pinsky truck, drove it to indiana, got trained on this new machine. On friday morning um drove it back to to alabama and on saturday had us up laminating um and it and it was working perfectly and we were able to to kind of keep, keep going through it all and and and um. But that training you probably can't see it, but I have a scar on my finger, almost cut off my finger, training my guys that saturday because I made a stupid mistake, put my finger in where the wire with the wire, um.
Speaker 3:But once I got that up and going, that was like the turning point for the business. Like if that, if they had not, if I could not have found that hot glue eliminator, um and gotten it in place, I would have cried uncle, I would have, I would have been out of business, I wouldn't have, wouldn't have um, survived um. But that was the moment where, um, you know I did what it took and like that was kind of like the turning point. And ever since then, you know, we've been kind of on a positive trajectory. But that was two and a half years of fighting, like you know, fighting to make stuff happen and you know that's why, like when I've been going public about entrepreneurship, I tell people you need at least's why, like when I've been going public about entrepreneurship, I tell people you need at least two years of runway in some form if you're going to get into a new business or entrepreneurship journey.
Speaker 3:But it's always harder than you think it's going to be, or then your guru tells you it's always harder. And so if you go in with like no extra income or no nothing and no one and no investors and all that kind of stuff, then you're in for a rude awakening more often than not. So you got to go in prepared for that, and I get a lot of hate when I talk about that. People are like, oh, how can you do that? But it's like that's just honest advice and it's because I didn't have enough runway when I got into it and I was borrowing money to be able to make it work and that's painful. You don't want to be in that position, and so it's just me trying to let people know you know what you're signing up for if you're going to go down that journey.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody sees the finished product and that's why I had to ask you that question. Everybody sees the X, y and Z and you know, oh, david's so lucky. Or you know what an overnight success. Everybody. No, you know, in the world of social media or in the world, nobody likes to hear man, it took a lot of work and, like what you said, and anything in success, it takes a lot longer. And and it takes, I mean sometimes some soul, some deep down soul searching, and you have to ask yourself am I doing the right thing?
Speaker 3:yeah, more often than not like I think, every entrepreneur has those types of battle scars and those types of stories and it makes you stronger when you get through it. But, um, I think a lot of people are really not made to deal with that, and I think having self-awareness around that is important. I was made for it. I mean, I was made for it, I'm so lucky for that, I'm so fortunate for that. So that's where the luck comes in. But I think a lot of people would be better off being self-aware, saying hey, baby, it's not for me, I need to go be a number two or number three for an entrepreneur and I'm going to be way happier, and that's a perfectly great path for most people, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know, if everybody believes that story, everybody can be an entrepreneur. No, you, you have to have the intestinal fortitude, you have to have the mental fortitude and you have to. There's going to be a lot of hours. There's going to be many holidays, oh hours. There's going to be many holidays, oh my gosh, that you have to work and weekends, and you know, yeah, there's light at the end of the tunnel, but people don't, don't see that it's like, oh my gosh, you worked on. I remember, oh, it's your birthday and you're here. Well, I'm not 10. I think mom was taking me to Chuck E Cheese.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and people also have to learn that it takes time and patience. I mean it is hard, like I'm not I'm the least patient person you'll meet but, like in the macro, I'm very patient because I have the recognition that you know big things take time and people you know want that instant gratification and you know two years is not a long time. So when I say you need two years of runway to stick out, that's not a long time in the grand scheme of things. You've got to be prepared for that.
Speaker 2:Now David Filter Buy. Is it 100% e-commerce or is there stores, retail stores located across the country for your product?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we started out 100% e-commerce. So, like, filterbuycom and Amazon were our two biggest sales channels. They still are our two biggest sales channels today, but we're now in 550 Walmarts across the country and adding some other retailers this year, and one of our highest growth businesses is actually our business-to-business segment. You know where we sell to hospitals, hotels, gyms, you know basically any building that moves air needs air coasters, and so we have a team of about 30 outside salespeople across the country in different regions that basically call on those types of business segments and so, yeah, basically it's direct-to-consumer retail and B2B.
Speaker 3:We also have an HVAC service business here in Pompano that would service you if you need to. I would suggest for you $1 care plan, $1 a month. We're running a special. I think we'll give you like $200 of value over the next year for a dollar a month. Start taking care of your HVAC system. But that's kind of. My next project is to build a nationwide HVAC service business on top of our air filter business, and that's really where I'm spending more and more of my time.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you can always plug that and promote it because, yes, it's global, the podcast, but the number one downloads is in South Florida.
Speaker 3:Filtered by HVAC Solutions. We serve Miami up to Port St Lucie and that's really like you get. If you do like we get great reviews, you can go look at it. But this is our guinea pig location. We're really figuring out how to to perfect this, this service, to take it out nationwide. I actually intend to um either partner or acquire other hvac service businesses to to scale this throughout the country. That's real big reason I'm going so public I'm I'm um looking for other um hv entrepreneurs that believe in this and want to partner to take it nationwide. But in South Florida right now you get great service because we're figuring it out, so we're over delivering on everything that we do down here in South Florida.
Speaker 2:And you're speaking to the owner. I mean directly Look at this, you, you're hearing him, I'm speaking on, but you're, you're listening on. I I mean, what a reputable guy, dude. I, I would, I'm, I'm for sure, I would for sure use the service now. But also you can buy it on amazon or filter filter. Yeah, if you just need air filters, then you know anywhere in the us.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know we definitely have your size Most of the time. You get it next day direct from one of our manufacturing facilities. So you know we're the largest in that game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and always use the right one, because for like the past six months, I've been using the wrong size, so you have like the air gap.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So then the air is getting around it. It's not really filtering it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you sounded like the AC guy and I'm like, well, I thought that was the right size.
Speaker 3:It's kind of my business.
Speaker 2:I know I'm not the only one. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there, man, that have that it fits.
Speaker 3:But a lot of times people do that because you go to a store and they don't have your size. They only have a few major sizes where you know we manufacture 300 different sizes and then, if we don't have your exact size, you can order a custom and we'll cut and cap it to exact dimensions that you specify and still ship it to you next day. So that's what we do, that's why we have the business, Whereas, like a Walmart, you know has a lot of sizes, but then you have 20 sizes max and we have over 300.
Speaker 2:In reality.
Speaker 3:There are so many sizes in use in people's homes. Yeah, but we'd prefer to buy it off of your website, Filterbuycom.
Speaker 2:And it shows direct to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man the Wall family you know, they and I all Arkansas University you know the Razorbacks.
Speaker 2:They don't need any money. They're doing okay, just a little. They're okay. The family's doing okay. I believe they can survive off. You know, losing market share to you, no-transcript.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, filterbuy is on a mission to build the world's leading indoor air quality company. I mean, that's our stated mission and you know, I think that a big aspect of that is going to be the service that we just talked about. You know, the HVAC service business is, you know, depending on how you look at it, a $30 to $50 billion a year industry. There is no nationwide HVAC service business. There is a very fragment, fragmented um industry. There's been a lot of private equity involvement in it. That, um, you know, I think it's had some negative effects on it.
Speaker 3:And um, you know, to build the world's leading indoor air quality company. Um, you know, I think that a big portion of that is figuring out the service part, part of the business, and that's why that's where we're kind of investing. And so, um, you know, we're going to continue to grow, um, you know, market share in our direct to consumer business and, and, um, probably more meaningfully so, in our business to business segment that we talked about before. Um, but then the HVAC service business, I think it's going to be our biggest growth engine and you know, I'm on, you know, track to build it into a billion dollar or so business in the next. You know, seven to 10 years, if I had to guess, and then we'll see where we go from there.
Speaker 2:Now are you available for one-on-ones or small groups? Because, man, you actually do know how to scale. Scale unlike most people speak and teach on theories on how to scale yeah, that's something I've done, any of, I mean, and I've, I've.
Speaker 3:I promise you, like I don't have a course to sell you and I'm not, I'm never going down that I know you don't, but I'm just saying that.
Speaker 3:That that's not my that's. Could you see yourself doing that? What I'm really interested in is answer is yes, I enjoy teaching and I would encourage you or anybody to go to my YouTube channel. I'm just David Filterby on YouTube and my team and I are spending a lot of energy into that. We just launched in October but we're going to really pivot to more and more teaching and I also actually I think we just launched the website officially today but Filter by Ventures, which is filterbyventurescom is like that's my holding company that are in businesses that I understand that I maybe can impact and help to use, you know, my both distribution and knowledge to really amplify and do it, you know, as partners and so like that is really where I hope to spend more of my time and mentor people through that.
Speaker 3:And you know, in ways that if you're in the HVAC service business or if you're in the logistics business that I understand well, or like more remediation businesses, you know I'm very interested in investing and, you know, buying pieces of these businesses and partnering with other entrepreneurs to really grow them in a meaningful way, and that's really where I want to spend more and more of my time and I think that that will entail more teaching and this kind of stuff that I want to do. I want to do it through that vehicle, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Well, not only that vehicle, but just you speaking about your YouTube channel. I think I would get more value out of that than spending going into debt like $100,000, $200,000.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. And that's where my goal, like really the last few months, we've been about kind of establishing who I am. So you can go and see like I've talked about all this stuff in the story. You can see me going around to all our manufacturing facilities and we've documented a lot of that stuff to kind of introduce who I am and hopefully give some credibility. But what you're going to see over the coming months is we're really moving into teaching mode, where I want to do I really want to teach around each of these things like cash flow management. We kind of talked about it before.
Speaker 3:I've kind of been working on a video about that because I think it's such an important subject that is very misunderstood. I just filmed a video on negotiation that I think is very important. But I'm going to do more and more of that. Like every week I'm going to 11 am, I go live on YouTube and do a Q&A and I answer questions for an hour and basically no question is off limits If you have a business question. We're actually changing the format a little bit. Tomorrow I think we're gonna do productivity as a theme tomorrow. Then every week we're gonna to pick a different theme. But it's something that I actually enjoy and I encourage people to log on at 11 am on Eastern on Fridays and ask questions. And you know I've answered questions all types of business questions and try to use my experience to frame it. So you know I enjoy the teaching aspect of it.
Speaker 2:Well, david, the best part about that is I mean, man, talk about a tool. This is like YouTube, social media. These are all tools. People don't see it as that because you know, they're watching YouTube videos of like squirrels water skiing or two guys hitting each other in the nuts, or watching TikTok videos of women dancing, and I mean you could literally talk about rocket fuel. How to become a better CEO, how to be an entrepreneur, how to be a leader than the boss by watching free content, your content.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what I hope comes of it all. You know, I mean, it's definitely hard to break out in, you know, 2025. It's definitely a more crowded space than it used to be, and so you have a lot of people that are competing for attention and it's hard to know who's the charlatan and who's the real deal. I think, and, you know, I hope to be an example of perhaps a different way of thinking than your traditional social media guru. I mean, like that, that's really how I think about what I'm doing. Um, you know, I've consumed a lot of this content out of curiosity and I see so many um, you know so much. I don't want to say bad advice, but misleading advice. I think out there, um, and you know I really kind of um want to be the antidote to that and and um. So I think, if this works, if this works well, that that, that the the epitaph on it, more or less, but we'll see.
Speaker 2:Well, the charlatans are easy to spot, man, and the gurus, because the number one thing people should ask is do you really own a business? Do you know how to operate? Like I would go, I would look at your content. Like I would go, I would look at your content, you know how to scale. A lot of times, though, people just want, they want information, but they get the wrong information. It's like if we wanted to fly, we're, you have a plane, so we're like, we're going to vegas. We don't get somebody with experience. We, we get somebody that, yeah, you know, I've had 20,000 hours in a flight simulator, never really flown, never owned a plane, but, man, I'm really good at it. Is that the person you want flying your plane?
Speaker 3:No, no, I think that's a good analogy and you're right, I mean. That's why I think that the competitive advantage I have in the social space and time will tell is that I built a business to $250 million a year with zero social media presence. You couldn't have Googled me six months ago and found anything. I literally was not on Instagram, not on Facebook, nothing, not a picture on the internet. And I'm not doing this now because I need the channel to make money, but I'm doing it because I have a much bigger purpose now for why I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:No, definitely, definitely, man, and thank you because you are in service, because a lot of people could have just packed it up and said, hey, you know what? I don't need to be teaching people, I don't need to be doing any of this. I made it, man, nobody helped me, but you want to show, you want to teach other people how to fish, which is valuable, man. You're changing people's lives, you're changing their legacies.
Speaker 3:I want people to go out and find a meaningful purpose and really a meaningful vision that they can devote else's dream. And you do that through envy, right? Because you envy, like, oh, what other people have. And really I think people would be better suited to figuring out what their own dream is and chasing that relentlessly. And I think that that's something that I have done very well and I'm very fortunate for, and that is the gift that I would like to give to anyone. And I think that helping people to figure that out for themselves is, you know, something that's worth me devoting my time to.
Speaker 2:Amen, david. Here's probably the final question, but I know you'll have an amazing answer. What would you tell that entrepreneur? He's got that three mile stare. It's been into business six, seven, eight months, doesn't see he's bleeding out or he might be, if he's lucky, breaking even and he just feels like I don't know what to do. I don't know if this is me, I don't know if I'm on the right path. What words of wisdom would you give that person?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really comes back to what I was just saying and I repeat this often, but it's just so true to me is people consistently overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. And you know, six months is not a long time. But the thing that you have to have before you get into anything and if you're six months and you're struggling and you don't have this yet you got to do some soul searching and figure it out is what are you really working towards on that 10-year horizon, like, what is your vision for your life on a 10-year horizon? And then that becomes a forcing mechanism for, like, if you're on the right path or not, because every decision you make is consistent with that longer term vision. But you have to have that longer term vision combined with patience, because it takes time and six months is just not a long time.
Speaker 3:So, you know, reminding yourself that you can, that you are probably overestimating what you can do in a year, but underestimate what you can do in a decade and just have the faith in that. But you have to combine that with a consistent long-term vision. You can't be changing from one thing to another every six months, because that's a path to failure and that's why I encourage young people to really get that experience and that clarity before they embark on something, because once you have a clarity of vision that you're going to, that's worth it to you. Like, when you get into that six month lull that you just described, because you had that clarity, you're going to stick with it, because you have a larger purpose that you're working towards.
Speaker 2:Thank you, David Heacock, founder and CEO of Filter Buy. Buy his products filterbuycom. Where else can we find you?
Speaker 3:David's Filter Buy everywhere, and I would actually I'd love for you know, share it with your friends and show up to my Q and a? Um every Friday at 11 AM. Um, really on all the platforms but YouTube or Instagram. Um, but that, that, that would that. That's really what I'm looking for people to do to expand my reach.
Speaker 2:And central 10 AM. Central we know, personal and business development, that central time, the Louisiana, the Alabama, oh okay, I'll start doing that.
Speaker 3:11 Eastern, 10 am Central.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I'm just saying they need it, man. They're the first ones that I mean. I love our region, but they're like more, they're like so, what's War Eagle going to do? What's auburn gonna do? What's lsu football gonna do? What are you gonna do with your life, man? Let's focus on that first. You know they always have the. They always have it the opposite way around, man. But hey, I love it. Thank you, david, for the opportunity. Man, you, I can speak to you on and on, but I know you're a busy man and we live in a tick tock society where you know and ours like pushing it. But thank you for the time, thank you for the opportunity. I won't be on tomorrow, but I'll definitely be on future. 11 am. Q&a is because I just want to hear your answers, man, because I know you've got plenty.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we leave them up on YouTube so you can go back and you can go and watch hours of them if you like. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:To me that's a real MBA man. That's rocket fuel for your company, way more than going to pay a guru or trying to get an MBA. Thank you for your company way more than you know going to pay a guru or trying to get an mba. Thank you for your time, brother.
Speaker 1:Have an amazing night thank you, you too I was trapped inside that prison all for a long time. To make it happen. You gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work.