Nicholai Allen Fled a Wildfire Then Became a Firefighter and Invented This

Nicholai Allen shares his journey from suburban dad to certified wildland firefighter and entrepreneur. After experiencing the 2018 Woolsey Fire firsthand, he developed Safe Soss—an affordable wildfire prevention system now available at Lowe's. This conversation explores the science behind fire-resistant coatings, the reality of fighting wildfires, and how homeowners can protect their property without massive renovation costs.

Key Topics

The 2018 Woolsey Fire evacuation experience that sparked Safe Soss's creation. Why existing wildfire protection products didn't exist for homeowners. Becoming a certified wildland firefighter to understand the problem firsthand. The chemistry challenge: removing toxic fluorine and creating non-toxic fire retardant formulas. Windborne embers as the leading cause of home loss during wildfires. 

The Safe Soss product suite: spray coating, ember screens, and radiant heat shields. Making wildfire protection accessible for under $500 instead of $80,000+ in home renovations. Getting into Lowe's and scaling distribution nationwide. Lessons on entrepreneurship, perseverance, and creating opportunity for others.

About Safe Soss

Safe Soss (S.O.S.S. - Scientifically achieved fire elimination by science of safety systems) offers affordable wildfire protection tools for homeowners in fire-prone areas. The products create a base layer of defense through fire-resistant coatings, ember protection, and radiant heat shields.

Where to Find

Website: https://safesoss.com
Available at Lowe's nationwide

Guest Background

Nicholai Allen is a certified wildland firefighter and entrepreneur focused on innovative fire safety technology. He also represents Maus, a Swedish fire suppression technology for lithium-ion battery fires, also available at Lowe's.

Transcript

Rob Pene (00:01.61)
Alrighty, welcome everybody. This is Rob Pene here with Nikolai Allen from SafeSauce. We're going to ask about SafeSauce because it's pretty interesting tech innovation. But before we get started, I do have a question that we usually tee up our conversations with. Now, if you were to reflect back on the last six to 12 months of business or life and you were to turn that into a Netflix special,

What would the special be about and what would you call it?

Nicholai Allen (00:38.478)
Nicholai Allen (00:42.606)
Such a good question. I'm a little bit stumped. I would love a Netflix special, by the way. No, I'm actually the opposite. I don't normally talk about myself. But the last six to 12 months have been a success story. I went through, you know, it's been a really challenging three to five years since 2021, been really challenging.

Rob Pene (00:46.274)
Ha

Rob Pene (00:50.974)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (01:10.53)
shortly after COVID, but the last six to 12 months, it's just really hard work, but also success. And it's paying off and it paid off to stick with it and to act, to keep going, to persevere.

Rob Pene (01:28.33)
Okay, this is good. Now, SafeSofts is the business, is the success and the of the up and down part of SafeSofts' story or is it part of your entrepreneurial story?

Nicholai Allen (01:41.454)
Safe sauce is, I like it to be its own story because I'm not even really worthy of owning the technology or owning, let's say the category of safety. It's really for other people. so I don't normally like to talk about myself. I normally like to talk about the products and how they can help people. But I do have...

Rob Pene (02:01.578)
Hmm.

Nicholai Allen (02:11.96)
multiple things going on. I have other fire innovation stuff that I'm working on too that works on lithium ion batteries and everything. It's called Maus, M-A-U-S, also available in Lowe's and it's from Sweden. It's actually this.

Rob Pene (02:28.904)
Ooh.

Nicholai Allen (02:30.272)
Yeah, it looks like an Iron Man suit, this, you pull this trigger and press this button. And for eight seconds, it'll launch a potassium based aerosol that will interrupt the chemical reaction necessary for combustion to occur. it's, my whole focus is innovative fire safety products, because I feel like the technology and science exists that nobody should be dying from fire. We should have zero loss of

Rob Pene (02:32.682)
Yeah!

Rob Pene (02:56.362)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (02:58.142)
of life due to fires with products, education, and preparation. So that's kind of how Safe Sauce also started is just trying to protect people.

Rob Pene (03:12.318)
Yeah, was there a particular moment that you're like, thing happened and it kind of married with your experience or the curiosity to create safe sauce? Or was it like a slow build and kind of pivot, know, iterate, iterate, iterate and then now.

Nicholai Allen (03:26.668)
No, good question. it was the Woolsey fire. was actually experiencing wildfire firsthand that did it for me. was a late 2018 was a major wake up call. I was just a, you know, a dad businessman living in suburbia and all of a sudden faced with this apocalyptic scene of, of smoke and, and glowing skies and,

Rob Pene (03:33.258)
you

Nicholai Allen (03:52.632)
traffic that you couldn't get through and basically just panic. And as a father, that was so scary to me being in the car with the kids and not knowing where we were going exactly to evacuate, not knowing if we could even get there or if there were cars broken down in front of us. It was extremely scary. And that did...

Rob Pene (03:58.164)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (04:20.945)
wake me up to the fact, but I actually, at the time, I just felt hopeless. I knew it was a problem. That's what woke me up to the problem. But I didn't feel like I could do anything about it. Until later, I came into contact with a group that was from Japan that was making these throwable fire extinguishers and they were liquid. And you would throw it and it would pop open and the liquid go out and extinguish the fire.

Rob Pene (04:25.674)
Anyhow

Nicholai Allen (04:51.615)
I got to thinking, there's, you know, liquid that can extinguish fires. Is there a liquid that you could apply that would actually prevent fires from spreading or at least reduce the, the ignition risk or combustion? And that got me started on a whole thing. But, then once I got started in, in development, like how come this product doesn't exist? I quickly learned why, you know, there was,

the formula had to be reformulated so that it was not toxic. know, there used to be fluorine in a lot of things and that was found to be a carcinogen. So I couldn't even use, you know, what they were using in Japan or even a variation of it because it needed to be reformulated to be non-toxic. This was like 2019. I'm talking a long time ago. Then once we reformulated it to get fluorine out and, you know, make it as organic as possible.

the nozzle needed to suck up enough concentrate in order to make it an effective dose or as effective as possible using water as a dispersion mechanism. So we had to create a new nozzle from scratch. so it was just constantly one thing after the other. then during this time, I actually got wildfire trained and certified. And I basically just, started fighting fires, federal fires.

Rob Pene (06:03.459)
Wow.

Nicholai Allen (06:17.669)
and doing prescribed fires. No, I actually became a, I'm still a wildland firefighter. And I always work like that as I like really put myself into the, into the shit, if I'm allowed to say that. I wanted to really experience it. Like, why doesn't this exist? What are they using? Et cetera.

Rob Pene (06:31.882)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (06:40.189)
After all of that, I did actually learn that they are using similar products in the forestry service, like that they drop out of the plains. They're phosphate-based, same with the chemistry in Japan. They've also since reformulated, I presume to be non-toxic. It's kind of like, as we go on, we find out things that aren't good and we try to eliminate them. So I'm sure that they've probably done that.

Rob Pene (06:48.658)
Hmm.

Nicholai Allen (07:09.439)
I actually work with the, found the chemist that worked with one of the leading companies that was doing that, that actually had a letter of recommendation personally signed from the guy that invented this stuff that they drop out of planes, the Foss check. And, yeah. And so we're, we're still, working together and have some stuff in motion, but it took a lot to get there. But, after like year two of actually fighting fire and

Rob Pene (07:23.851)
wow.

Nicholai Allen (07:39.918)
Um, being in fire, realized that if I just sold the spray, it's not truly enough to protect homes from the leading cause of loss during wildfire, which is actually windborne embers. Oh, then I started looking at other solutions of how could I offer a well-rounded solution to where I could tell a homeowner, okay, for, you know, if you have a small house, maybe less than $500, you can.

Rob Pene (07:51.21)
sure.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (08:08.023)
create a base layer of protection, even if you can't afford or don't have time to do permanent construction upgrades, which of course is always recommended. But if somebody can't do that, which by the way, is most of the market. Yeah. And everybody's just being told like, basically your house sucks and it's not wildfire protected, but, and here's what you can do about it by the way. And it'll cost, you know, 80 grand or 250 grand or a new roof. Who knows, you know, so

There's a huge group of homeowners, myself included, that can't afford to do all these upgrades to your house right away. But if I was a wildland firefighter and I showed up to protect your house and you'd created a basic defensible space, so there's not a bunch of trees and dead vegetation right up against your house, there's not a bunch of plants that are right up against your house with a bunch of dead foliage underneath it that could connect.

Rob Pene (08:58.761)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (09:06.669)
you know, fired and act as a ladder fuel to catch your structure on fire. Um, what could you do? And that's how I arrived at the safe sauce suite of products. It's really like three basic tools that you can use to give your home a fighting chance before you evacuate. And I do encourage evacuation. There's a lot of people that are selling trash pumps that you can, you know, put in your pool and stay behind. And honestly,

Rob Pene (09:17.413)
L.M.

Nicholai Allen (09:34.602)
It's scary being outside in 80 mile an hour winds without fire on the ground. With fire on the ground, it's just apocalyptic. I mean, I was in the Palisades fire. I was working with a group that does private fire protection and they're using safe sauce and all the homes that they were protecting from Malibu to Beverly Hills made it. It doesn't mean that that safe sauce saved every home. had firefighters with engines standing by.

It just means that they're using it and all those homes were okay. And some people can afford to hire engines to just stand by because they know they have a line of eucalyptus trees there and they shouldn't because it's not a proper defensible space. But instead of cutting it down, they can afford to have engines standing by. So if a fire does start, you know, it's put out, but these people are trained. The guys that trained me in wildfire, they've been doing it for

36 years plus, 22 years plus, they're former fire captains or hotshot superintendents. And so I was able to learn a lot very fast in the years of doing it. And I'm still going because every fire you go to, you learn more. You know, it's an opportunity to see different fire behavior activity or to learn from somebody that's been doing it for 30 years or more.

Rob Pene (10:49.802)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (11:00.831)
And I don't feel like there's any one person that just knows everything there is to know about fire. And like, this is how you can protect your house. It's an evolving. I feel like the people that are really good at it, acknowledge that they're students of fire always. And they're just always trying to learn more and do better and learn more and do better. So with, safe sauce, the real.

rounded approach came when we got the carbon guard ember filter because there are no solutions for helping prevent smoke from an ash from getting into your attic. So I know some celebrities homes that were saved in the Palisades fire by SoCal fire supply. I have to give them a shout out because they do.

rain cannon systems, they're not sprinklers. If you just try to use regular sprinklers and 80 mile an hour winds, the water is going to blow wherever the wind wants it to blow. So this is the only guy that I know of that does high end estates that creates, it has enough water and the pressure is high enough that it'll actually pierce through those winds and try to get it.

Even that system, you know, the attic was full of ash and smoke and just destroyed and everything in the attic was destroyed. So now we literally have a $40 Amber guard that you can buy at Lowe's, cut it to size and fit it in your attic or gable vents to block that out. And the more smoke and ash that's coming, the more it's going to fill up and block it and keep it out. And then the activated carbon also helps filter smoke even from neighboring wildfires.

Rob Pene (12:39.102)
Well, what

Nicholai Allen (12:44.673)
So this you would put on the inside of your vent behind, you know, metal mesh or whatever, any approved vents that are already there. And it's a, it'll supplement it. And it's a, after a fire, you can then just go and replace it. It's like the, it's like a heavy duty, exterior filter that, that, that you can replace. So it just hasn't really existed before that I know of. it's such a simple solution.

Rob Pene (13:06.505)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (13:14.841)
and then the other one is the, this tape, it's a fiberglass tape, like four inches. So doggy doors, garage door gaps. I met one gentleman that was escorted back into the Palisades after the fire and his home, he lost it because there were gaps in the garage door. They got in through the garage, caught the garage roof on fire. And then, so once the structure catches, it's really hard to put out and there's just not enough resources to go or.

Rob Pene (13:34.783)
Cool.

Nicholai Allen (13:44.044)
you know, water to always go around to put like the amount of water that it takes to put out a home once it's already fully involved in fire is incredible. I mean, it just takes so much water. I was on the Palisades fire and I drove by like three times and there was these huge fire engines that hold one to 2000 gallons of water and it was just still there.

and never moved trying to put out one structure. So my whole goal, especially coming from wildland fire training is don't even don't ever let it get into your structure. Manage a wildfire and the vegetation, keep it out of the structures, and we'll save a lot more homes and a lot more lives and try to prevent that urban conflagration, of course.

If your estate is so big that you can't spray it all down with the safe sauce, then you need to look at other solutions like, you know, sprinkler systems and things like that. But if you don't have a lot of vegetation and it's manageable, one gallon of safe sauce, can treat 400 square feet twice over before you evacuate. So it'll, it'll add moisture and also create this, you know, ignition resistance layer. That's the phosphate based and,

And then you evacuate knowing, you know, and evacuate early if you can before there's gridlocks or chaos or anything like that. So, I was an advocate for leaving my home, but it sucks leaving your home completely powerless. Like there's nothing that you can do. The red stuff may or may not get dropped on it. and you're not in control. Now there's like a weekend project thing that you can do to.

try and get ready, you know, and, I always recommend, people use the watch duty app and sign up for pre-evacuation notices so that you have that bit of extra time that you need to spray 400 square feet or 800 square feet. and you don't need to spray your entire home, you know, your roof, most roofs these days are class a roofs. You don't need to spray the whole roof. They're pretty, ignition resistant as long as you don't have a bunch of dead vegetation.

Nicholai Allen (16:04.129)
debris built up on it. if you do that as a weekend project, it forces you to just have the stuff in your garage, put the filters in year round, because that'll help filter toxins and other stuff. So there's added benefit to having that in there. the other two steps, the tape and the spray, it's something you can really do in case of an event before you leave. Tape up your garage.

tape up your exterior door thresholds, you know, or if you have big windows with gaps, you know, on the side or in the framing, yeah, you can tape them up and it really could save your home and it doesn't have to cost that much money. And obviously permanent construction is better because that gap that you'd have to tape up before you evacuate, of course it'd be better if there was a permanent solution for it. But if there's not,

Rob Pene (16:47.166)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (16:58.057)
and this $30 roll of tape and five minutes can literally prevent the embers from getting into your garage and save your home. It's just, you know, I really feel like there's a lot of people that could benefit from that and that wouldn't have lost their homes if they had access to tools like that.

Rob Pene (17:05.897)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (17:14.11)
Right. Right. So the spray, how often do you recommend people to spray?

Nicholai Allen (17:22.241)
well, there's a lot of people out there saying like every season, you know, spray retardant down, but if you're home, you know, frequently and you're not right up against where a wildfire can start and you think you have time, I recommend just it's got a five year shelf life. I'd recommend keeping it in your garage and not, you know, wasting it if you don't need to.

It's a five year shelf life. So I would have it on hand. And then if you're getting a pre-evacuation notice where it might get, you know, close to you or near you and you're far enough away from, you know, where it could start. I would recommend that if you're going to be traveling or if you're concerned that you're so close to where a fire might start, then yes, you could pre-treat it, you know, when weather's warming up and it'll last up to three months or until two inches of rain. So.

Rob Pene (17:52.436)
Great.

Nicholai Allen (18:16.449)
basically with every layer that you spray on, there are some, phosphates, you know, some active ingredients that are being absorbed by that porous or cellulose material. in the case of vegetation, you're going to start to get regrowth in three months. So you should retreat it because you're going to have new growth. But if you're talking about like a wooden fence, which of course, if everyone could afford aluminum, that'd be fantastic. But if you

If you can't afford to completely retrofit your whole home with permanent construction in the month leading up to wildfire season, definitely do your defensible space creation. Create that buffer of five feet of space around your property with no combustibles. And then if you do have combustibles, wood storage sheds or wooden fences or

Rob Pene (18:58.762)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (19:11.085)
some wood siding, anything that's combustible in that five to 30 foot zone going outward of your house, then you can pre-treat it, vegetation included, and that can help reduce the ignition risk there.

Rob Pene (19:25.64)
Are you the only one with this innovation here in California or in the States, or are there different?

Nicholai Allen (19:33.418)
You know, I'm the only so I I've, since this podcast is for entrepreneurs, I've, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars, almost six figures on patents and intellectual property. I've had to, I've had to borrow, you know, from, friends, family, whoever I could borrow from. And, it, takes, it takes that, you know, to launch a business and, and it's a lot of debt and it's a

And it's not comfortable, but it can help a lot of people. So it's like, what am I doing, you know, with my life? If I'm not, it gives me a sense of purpose and it's, it is fulfilling. And, there's a lot of really expensive solutions out there that still wouldn't guarantee a zero loss in a wildfire. So if you're, if you're. Gonna do something right away, this is something that you should do. This is like the bare minimum that you should do is create that defensible space.

Rob Pene (20:21.182)
No.

Nicholai Allen (20:31.915)
and then supplement that with tools that can keep the embers and smoke out of your house.

Rob Pene (20:36.328)
Yeah. Now that that meeting with the the Japanese company was that random or were you like doing research at the time about why

Nicholai Allen (20:46.473)
It was random. I mean, at that time I was hopeless. I knew there was an issue, but I didn't think that I could fix it. I didn't think that I would love to, but I didn't know what I could do to solve the problem. And then that one meeting was happenstance. And of course, I wish it was easier, but that did set me on a path to, you know, going, okay, I have to...

Rob Pene (21:08.724)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (21:14.891)
I have to do something about it. Let me, let me work on a solution. And then there was so many times in four or five years where I could have given up or stopped or, you know, reached an impasse and gone, okay, this is too tough or that's why nobody's done this before. you know, but then, getting the prototype product and taking it out to a prescribed burn and having all that.

Rob Pene (21:24.938)
you

Nicholai Allen (21:39.49)
really experienced and really qualified firefighters there with me, some of them from Cal Fire with really strong credentials, only like six people in California have those credentials. They were telling me like, don't be surprised if this goes black, it means it burns. know, after vegetation is consumed, it goes black. So in firefighting, we call the burnt part the black. So a lot of

Not a lot of people, mean, all the experienced guys there thought it was gonna go black. And when we showed back up after we sent all the fire to it, they were very impressed because it had had hours to dry. It was applied in the afternoon, the fire came through later, late afternoon and it was hot outside. So it had had time to dry and it's still...

Rob Pene (22:25.066)
You

Nicholai Allen (22:37.427)
stopped the fire, even though some of the flame lengths were eight to 20 feet long. So it's not magic. It's got its limitations, but it definitely, like with zero question, will reduce the ignition risk. So even if you got pergolas and vegetation that took, we have homes in Malibu that have outlying structures and it took 40 years for the vines to grow over the stonework.

Rob Pene (22:48.401)
and

Rob Pene (23:06.206)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (23:06.647)
They don't want it to burn. They can have their landscapers simply hook this up to their garden hose before they evacuate and douse it. And you show back up and it looks like nothing happened. It dries clear. So it's, yeah, it can help a lot of people.

Rob Pene (23:15.306)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (23:20.969)
Wow.

Rob Pene (23:25.184)
yeah, massive. Now it's a matter of distribution and getting it out there.

Nicholai Allen (23:29.005)
This is a matter of distribution. so I'm super fortunate that, uh, that Lowe's has taken it on and believes in the product and as a working with me to help get it out. Um, we've got it in, uh, 50 stores and it's going to expand into 311 stores already, uh, towards the end of the year. So it's, it's, uh, rapidly growing. There's only about,

Rob Pene (23:51.242)
Wow.

Nicholai Allen (23:58.03)
90 units of each SKU or so, 90 to 100 units of each SKU per store. So we had to figure out how to keep up with the demand as it grows. But I'm just looking to try to make it more accessible to homeowners that are in their home now and can't completely remodel their home or do everything. So.

it doesn't mean like that you could spray the bottom of, you know, the, lower six feet of a tree and the top of the tree won't, you know, catch some embers and catch fire, but it, does greatly increase the odds of being able to protect your home from embers and smoke getting inside and igniting.

Rob Pene (24:25.002)
Rob Pene (24:33.962)
EEEE

Rob Pene (24:46.236)
Yeah. man. Do a lot of people visit your site or they usually get it from Lowe's?

Nicholai Allen (24:55.429)
it's only available at Lowe's. mean, I literally have no inventory. the beta product that I had with me during the Palisades fire is all sold out in like three days. and I don't, I don't have any inventory. It's, it's exclusively at Lowe's, but it's, such an affordable, you know, price point. and, hopefully in time we can make it even more affordable with, with volume, you know, as we expand, but.

it's available there and they're gonna, they're gonna distribute it better than I ever could. You know, it's, now a lot more accessible to people. It's in a bunch of, high, high risk, fire zones and select stores or, online. But, but as an example, like they're, they're shipping rates are going to be better than I could ever obtain, you know? So there, there is a trade off, but,

I'm extremely humbled and honored to be working with Lowe's and they've been really helpful in making it possible.

Rob Pene (26:02.334)
Yeah, did they find you or you approached them?

Nicholai Allen (26:06.601)
I approached them. Yeah. Yeah. I actually had a, I had a, some relationship with some previous products, like, the innovative fire products from Sweden. And so I was kind of working on this in parallel. And, it was my mission of zero loss of life or property due to wildfires that led me to the products from Sweden, that the innovation that can,

Rob Pene (26:09.666)
good.

Rob Pene (26:18.057)
Me.

Mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (26:35.679)
help prevent lithium ion batteries, battery fires or suppress those fires in early stages. So it's a, I'm fortunate in that I have a lot of like-minded people just at a very human level that want to help, you know? And so when it's, you know, it might not be the best business decision, you know, or it might not be the most profit.

Rob Pene (26:50.311)
in the

Nicholai Allen (27:02.623)
or a good profit at the end of the day, but is it going to help people? And am I fulfilled? Yes. Is there potential, you know, in the future to have a good, very healthy business? Yes. But for now, I'm just focused on trying to get the word out and trying to help people because I met too many people that lost homes. It could have been prevented. I met people that have been widowed because they evacuated too late.

Rob Pene (27:26.506)
Easy.

Nicholai Allen (27:32.236)
because they were trying to stay and save their home. And I've also been extremely humbled by the power of wildfire itself, out fighting a fire. So the fires that I go to are federal. I go as a federal resource, contracted under different companies. And some of them I'm not allowed to say anything about, I'm under NDA, but I've seen really bad fire.

Rob Pene (27:50.249)
Mmm.

Nicholai Allen (28:02.113)
and most of that time it's you're trying to control it in the forest before it even gets to a community. So the, it is high stakes. It's very dangerous. You're hiking eight to 12 miles on a dozer line in the middle of nowhere with wildlife and snakes and heat and zero facilities, zero normal facilities. And you're functioning, putting out fire without all the normal creature con comforts that you would normally have in the city.

Rob Pene (28:02.364)
yeah.

Nicholai Allen (28:31.795)
And so aside from it being physically demanding, it's gotta be one of the most uncomfortable. There's just no comfort. You know what I mean? You're just, you're putting yourself in a uncomfortable situation and then you're performing in that. But the camaraderie and all the guys there, I've never met a firefighter that wasn't there to just try and help people.

Rob Pene (28:40.798)
Yeah. Harry.

Rob Pene (28:59.22)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (29:01.857)
They're just good guys and they want to help people and they're not afraid to, you know, put themselves in danger to help. And, and probably most of them are, you know, better than me or have more experience than me and deserve the accolades, but it's been an honor to learn from them. And just to observe that human nature of like, they're not there for the money. The pay is not great.

Rob Pene (29:23.774)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (29:31.266)
You I don't, you don't really go for the pay, you go because it's, it's accomplishing something that not a lot of people want to do. And, you know, when I first got into it and let me know if I go too long, but I'm just, know, I, I'm well, you know, when I first went and got trained, you know, some years ago now,

Rob Pene (29:43.732)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (29:50.868)
You're good. This is fascinating to me.

Nicholai Allen (29:59.458)
But after certification and when you're fighting your first fire, it's like you look into a tree line so that the fire burns, right? In the forest and you put in a bulldozer line and fire hose and water lays and you're trying to stop it here. So once you stop it there, you have to make sure that the fire is cold. There's no root structure is still burning and stuff like into the black, you know, all the way in, but.

As a new person or relatively new, I'd studied a bunch of theory, but I hadn't done it. I'm very lucky that I went out with people that had the experience that they did. That was a contacts through Malibu city that I actually got that opportunity, which was huge because I learned so much so fast. And...

Rob Pene (30:33.866)
Hmm.

Nicholai Allen (30:53.887)
And it's also a reason why I didn't just launch the spray without a more complete solution, because I don't want to give people the idea that, you can just spray some magical stuff on and protect your home. But if someone just literally takes 15 minutes to read the packaging and then a couple hours on the weekend to do it, they'll be way better off than most homeowners are today.

Rob Pene (31:17.45)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (31:18.711)
Cause homeowners aren't dumb, you know, they can, they can, they'll get it. I mean, if they go in and read the packaging, you know, watch, watch this 62nd or the five minute instructional video, it'll be like, okay, this is what we do. Anyways, when I was a newbie as more of like a homeowner showing up to a wildfire, you know, cause I didn't have the practical side of it. just field days and stuff, but you see any fire and you think, fire bad, you know, put it out.

Rob Pene (31:39.326)
Right.

Nicholai Allen (31:48.502)
So I was spotting fire like 150 feet or 200 feet into the part of the forest that had already burned. And my mentor was there saying, no, don't go in there. Cause all those trees, you're at a risk of them falling. And that fire is not going to spread 200 feet because everything around it has already burnt. So just let it burn. It's just a different science. It's a different mentality.

Rob Pene (31:48.67)
Thank you.

Rob Pene (31:57.866)
Thank you.

Rob Pene (32:12.457)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Pene (32:16.51)
Enjoy your...

Nicholai Allen (32:18.113)
So as a homeowner, you're like, fire bad, you know, just put it out. If you see flames, put it out. But when you get trained in fire and how it works and the science of it and everything, you understand fuels and what burns in a certain way and topography and why it burns, you know, faster uphill and everything. It's not hard to understand. It's just a different science. So if you start to look into...

Rob Pene (32:33.512)
No.

Nicholai Allen (32:44.299)
that science is very interesting because as a homeowner, basically what I had in the beginning was just fear. I was just scared of fire. was like, fire's bad, put it out. But once you understand the science and how to control fire, it puts you in a more, you know,

elevated state, a healthier mindset of how to approach it. And you can approach it through knowledge and preparedness instead of fear and panic.

Rob Pene (33:08.03)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (33:17.096)
Yeah, so your product is designed for the homeowner, not necessarily for the firefighters.

Nicholai Allen (33:22.743)
Correct. The firefighters already have products. just, I learned that perimeter solutions, the guys that make FOSCHECK, they just signed like a five year exclusive contract with the United States Forestry Service, I believe. And this is public information. So I'm not, that's not coming from some governmental position or which I don't have or a firefighter position or any position of privilege. That's just public information.

Rob Pene (33:38.446)
wow.

Nicholai Allen (33:51.83)
that I learned, the point is firefighters do have these tools. know, I mean, they will protect a historical structure with like metal foil, you know, and they have the budget to do it or metal foil tape, you know, but this is actually a higher heat resistance than like your typical metal foil tape that you'd put on your dryer. Yeah, it's actually fiberglass and it's a

Rob Pene (33:57.544)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (34:13.394)
Nice.

Nicholai Allen (34:20.445)
Easy to work with. won't destroy the paint. A lot of that metal foil, tape will take your paint off or, you know, is really, it'll cut your hands up, you know, so this is a much just simpler solution, but, and it's better for homeowners. And yes, I'm, basically banking on the fact that there are homeowners that are capable, that will, you know, do their research and read the packaging and do the weekend project. And then.

look into it further based on my recommendations on the packaging and go, you know what, you know, those trees there that are connecting, I'm going to thin them up. So they're no longer connecting. So if one catches fire, the other one's not automatically going to catch fire. the tree that's got branches all the way down to the ground with bushes there and dead vegetation. I'm going to trim all that up. I'm going to trim it up six feet off the ground. It's simple stuff that everyone can do. So.

Rob Pene (34:58.44)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (35:11.839)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (35:18.463)
I'm a little bit like a knowledge first type of a brand. I just want to help people, you know, if, the products can help supplement that, that protection, you know, great. If you can afford to do a permanent construction or a retrofit. So you might need less tape, you know, it's only your garage or your exterior door. Great. but I don't feel like people should be losing.

Rob Pene (35:38.043)
Okay.

Nicholai Allen (35:46.05)
homes and certainly not losing life over it because you know with watch duty now you can set alerts you really have a better chance it's not a failsafe but you have a much better chance of getting notified when there's an event and having more time to prepare so if you could prepare your vents and protect those with mesh and the carbon guard filter first year round

And then you can have the other stuff on standby and know where you need to apply it. You know, when you buy it, check your tape. If you have a two car garage, you know, you might need two rolls of tape. So you can hit the garage and your exterior doors. If you have a doggy door, you might need a bit more tape for that. If there are small vents or we pulls that you can't get behind to put the carbon guard, or you didn't have time to just tape them up temporarily, you know, like the firebats then come back and take it off.

Rob Pene (36:38.814)
Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (36:42.091)
So these are really simple things that homeowners can do that I wish that I knew, you know, as a homeowner before, and that I would use as a firefighter. Like if I'm on a fire up in Washington or Oregon, or Northern California was one, Modoc County, and I get up to a house and I can tell they've done some defensible space.

Rob Pene (36:49.544)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (37:08.333)
And they leave safe sauce connected to a garden hose, 100%. More wildland guys are finding out about it and using it. And a lot of wildland firefighters are getting involved and trying to help, saying homeowners, okay, we'll install the wire mesh and stuff for you. There's wildland guys that are starting to do that. But this is really the only solution that homeowners can just do themselves.

Rob Pene (37:27.86)
No, we're not.

Rob Pene (37:36.318)
Yeah, it's,

Nicholai Allen (37:36.949)
I feel like a lot of them will.

Rob Pene (37:39.422)
Right, because it's the small things and the details that they can pay attention to that often gets overlooked. They can, yeah, if they're aware of it, it'll.

Nicholai Allen (37:48.726)
Yeah, if I had 15 seconds to tell a homeowner, I'd say, wind-borne embers destroy the most homes. Look for gaps or vents, put the Ember Guard or tape it up, and then spray down anything that's combustible. Spray anything that is porous or cellulose that you don't want to burn, and then evacuate.

Rob Pene (38:05.673)
We're

Rob Pene (38:09.928)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. It sounds like you align with the calling of saving people in this space. know, like, you're a firefighter at heart, basically.

Nicholai Allen (38:23.979)
Yeah, I appreciate that. My grandfather was a game warden and I've always been drawn to the outdoors. I love it. I live in Ventura County, California with my family. If you take the entire US where the fires historically have been the worst, it's like Ventura County or California, let's say. then if you, yeah, I don't know, after the Palisades fire,

Rob Pene (38:38.826)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (38:46.394)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm? Mm-hmm. Pretty much.

Nicholai Allen (38:53.567)
I don't know what the statistics are, but we're in a very high, I mean, I live personally in a very high fire zone and I use all these tools to protect my own home because every fire that's gotten near my house, I've been out at another fire and not here to protect my own home every time. It's like, I don't know. So, but I'm, I feel so much better if I've, you know, pre-treated it, you know, before I go and that my vents are taken care of.

Rob Pene (39:02.484)
Wow.

Rob Pene (39:10.599)
wow.

Rob Pene (39:18.846)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (39:23.433)
I'm actually not that worried about it. And also I've gone a little bit overboard on the vegetation clearance and everything because I understand it. There's, it's a hard, it's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow because everybody's packed pretty tight and everybody wants their privacy. So you want the big ficus hedge or the Italian cypress trees or the palm trees and you want the privacy, but

Rob Pene (39:29.31)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (39:40.485)
You see?

Nicholai Allen (39:49.13)
It's okay to have vegetation as long as it's properly maintained and defendable. It can't be all so close together or so close to the structures that it just makes it very, like not possible to stop that spread. You know what I mean? But if you can take these basic steps, you really have a good chance at protecting your home because

Rob Pene (39:58.346)
Yeah, right next to the one we touched in, yeah.

Nicholai Allen (40:17.607)
we learn of all the homes that burned down, but there's also a lot of homes that didn't burn down.

Rob Pene (40:20.511)
Good.

Rob Pene (40:24.904)
We don't know about those often.

Nicholai Allen (40:27.243)
Yeah. And so you want to be one of those homes that didn't burn down and you can be proactive and you can be part of that, you know, crowd by doing something about it and taking action. It's like, if you lived in the snow and you had to operate in the snow, you wouldn't just not, you know, plow your driveway or, have a snowblower or

Rob Pene (40:36.18)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (40:49.16)
Yeah?

Nicholai Allen (40:51.317)
you know, take preventative actions to be able to get the snow off your windshield in the morning if you had to function in the snow. Well, we have to function in wildfire prone areas. And the way you do that is with preparation.

Rob Pene (41:05.438)
Yeah. Do your neighbors have safe stops? I'm sure they do. Yeah. Yeah, good, man.

Nicholai Allen (41:08.267)
Yeah, they do. Yeah. And by the way, that's a good question. But your home, if you're tight together, you're almost as safe as your neighbor's home because, and that's why I'm really relying on word of mouth, because if your neighbor's home catches fire and you're five, 10 feet apart, that can burn so hot that no matter what you apply, it's just breaking the windows and then going interior. And, know, that, so

Rob Pene (41:26.794)
Yeah

Rob Pene (41:32.81)
Why?

Nicholai Allen (41:35.413)
you're pretty much as safe as your neighbor's house in tight areas.

Rob Pene (41:40.432)
Yeah, so getting in front of as many homeowners as possible is one thing, right, that can help. But then I think the word of mouth and the door to door, maybe, know, a lot of brands would hire college students just to go door to door. You know, I think this, it's just dropping the flyer and just canvassing every single home in Ventura, know, Malibu.

Boy, it's worth it.

Nicholai Allen (42:11.309)
Yeah, I mean, I'm finding that once people understand, like once people know that the product exists, they're getting it and implementing it. So it is a matter of how do we get the word out? And that's a huge challenge. And I have to be honest, I haven't cracked that. I don't know all the best ways to get the word out. And I'm learning, you know, we're doing ads in movie theaters. you know,

Rob Pene (42:19.539)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (42:27.209)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (42:39.885)
people within 20 miles of the low stores that are carrying it right now in Southern California, probably seeing the ad in movie theaters. They're seeing it maybe on TV, you know, it's on streaming platforms. They're seeing it on Facebook or social media. But as an entrepreneur, when it's your baby and you work so hard and you pour your heart and soul into something, I'm not going to lie.

Rob Pene (42:48.884)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (42:52.49)
good, good,

Rob Pene (43:04.349)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (43:08.787)
Especially when it's a product that can help people, not like some life product. Like, you know, this isn't another purse, like in a sea of purses of, know, that's, could really save a home as a, as a entrepreneur. When you create it, you really expect people to talk about it and to spread it and to kind of the word of mouth to just take off. And that's just not the world that we're living in. You can't assume that that's going to happen.

Rob Pene (43:11.368)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (43:15.475)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (43:29.748)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (43:38.24)
You know, so I am navigating the, do you get the word out thing? then it can be a little bit dehumanizing because it gets into this whole world of like numbers and impressions and conversion rates. And, and for me, I don't like it because it takes the human and neighborly, you know, aspect just out of it, out of the equation and

Rob Pene (43:39.166)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (43:54.771)
Bye.

Nicholai Allen (44:06.613)
and it becomes a numbers game. And that's not really what, that's not why I'm involved in it. You know, I just want, it's not for every homeowner. It's for most homeowners. And you are as safe as your neighbor's house. So you kind of do expect people to talk about it. I've been in meetings, you know, where I was, I was presenting for the mayor here in Ventura County. had the assistant fire chief there at the meeting too.

Rob Pene (44:12.37)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (44:32.254)
with you.

Nicholai Allen (44:36.114)
And I was a little bit.

I was a little bit concerned because a lot of the questions were like, Hey, my neighbor doesn't take care of their stuff and it's a total fire hazard and they're not doing anything about it. And I'm like, that's to me, that's just an education thing, you know, bring over a bottle of wine or a, or a basket and just talk about it. And, know, we, I like that neighborly thing. So it's like funny when you ask, do my neighbors use it? Absolutely. Like I would buy it for them.

you know, if I needed to, but most people it's affordable when they learn what it is and hear about it, they're grabbing it. So it's just a matter of getting the word out in time, you know, before the next.

Rob Pene (45:15.486)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (45:22.526)
Yeah, okay. I think your digital campaign approach is great for the reminders for the retargeting. I think the the human element should be the primary push. So PTAs, their parents, they want to protect their speaking at PTAs, maybe even sponsoring like, you know, cases of water for the next PTA for every school. And then you just give them flyers do a five 10 minute spiel. Right. And then from there,

Nicholai Allen (45:38.39)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (45:51.978)
The moms, they'll spread the word. And then even local trash and treasure groups on Facebook, because you want to get to the moms. You want to get to the mom groups, because they'll protect and they'll promote whatever protects them, the safety, all that stuff. So I think the door to door thing is huge. Just get some kids, let them go out there and put it on the, you know, because they'll then see your stuff elsewhere and be reminded. Right. But

Nicholai Allen (46:00.887)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (46:20.562)
If the first part is the in-person, I think it'll just make it stronger for the conversion rates to hit better.

Nicholai Allen (46:27.731)
And the dads too, know, anyone that's gonna jump up in their attic and confront just cutting that to size and putting it in.

Rob Pene (46:35.24)
Yeah. Little League, basketball leagues. Yeah. So you could really hit the local market and it's not a massive market either. You know, it's just very concentrated pockets. Well, great. We'll go to the Little League and go to the basketball league, you know, sponsor a thing here and there, ask to be a presenter at the award ceremony. Right. And then you're not now you're hitting very specific strategic people. Then you got to get your message down.

Nicholai Allen (46:52.588)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (47:03.658)
But you've got that, yeah, honed in. So I think that boots on the ground approach will suit you well, because you're already boots on the ground anyways, going in fights. So you're the guy in the flesh.

Nicholai Allen (47:06.25)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (47:17.311)
Yeah, and I've actually been going to Lowe's, you know, with one of our fire engines and a little, you know, a tent with some information and samples and just telling homeowners about it. And, you know, once people understand what it is, they're walking out of the store with it. It's just a matter of how do you get that out to the communities that need it most and also to the people that need it the most.

Rob Pene (47:21.343)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (47:35.188)
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (47:42.058)
Oh man, realtors. Yeah, real. Yeah. Do you have any of those guys?

Nicholai Allen (47:44.831)
Yes, definitely a good idea.

Well, we started just locally. Like, yeah, my local realtor put it on the back of all of our flyers, you know, that went out during over Christmas. But I think it's a good idea because a lot of realtors send out a lot of information that you're kind of like, yeah, you know, I know if I were gonna sell my house, I'd call you, but I keep getting these flyers, you know, even if you're not buying or selling anything.

Rob Pene (47:59.838)
Yeah, I see you.

Rob Pene (48:06.601)
Yes.

Nicholai Allen (48:17.621)
I think it's a good way to reach homeowners through the realtors. I think that's a good idea.

Rob Pene (48:22.826)
Yeah, if I were to look at a 12 month calendar and if you had budget, I would definitely do some kind of in-person, like even in the mail, you know, whether it's your direct mail or somebody knocking on the door or a realtor or even a pizza shop, you know, one that sends those things, you know, man.

Nicholai Allen (48:42.891)
Yeah. I try to be not rubbing people the wrong way too, because I'm education first. Like even the beginning of our commercial, it starts out with education. The fact that most home losses occur, you know, due to wind-borne embers that traveling far ahead of the fire front. So we're very education forward. And it's almost like I wish I could just educate more homeowners for free.

and then let them make a decision. That's what I'm trying to do. So I think realtors is a very good idea for that. And of course I've started that. Becomes a little bit difficult to measure conversion rates and stuff while doing that because it's also, I'm in a third party retailer, so I don't have access to any of that first party information, which also means that

Rob Pene (49:13.364)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (49:17.684)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (49:43.086)
You know, there's, there's not some mailing list. And one of the things that drives me crazy about digital marketing is like, I'll get targeted, for example, a pair of wildland firefighting boots. Okay. I buy them. They're not cheap. They're like $500. Normally $700. You know, you're it's your life. You're hiking and in the middle of nowhere, they're really thick leather. They're handmade. They're expensive. And so I finally break down, you know, I buy it.

Rob Pene (49:46.441)
Right.

Rob Pene (50:05.106)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (50:12.651)
Yeah, cause I know I need them, but it's after the third ad, but then the ads pour on even more. I'll start getting emails every day. Once I've already purchased the item that drives me crazy. I wish there was a way in advertising as a consumer or a homeowner to be like, dude, I bought it. Leave me alone. You know, or, or at least like talk to me next year or talk to me next fire season, but

Rob Pene (50:20.788)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (50:32.285)
Yeah

Nicholai Allen (50:38.989)
to buy and then start getting marketed to even more rubs me the wrong way as a consumer. So I'm a little bit, it again goes back to that numbers thing is where like I'd hate to do that to homeowners and I'm trying to ways to, I wish there was a way to do that. Like, okay, thank you, I bought it. Now leave me alone, or only send me the quarterly newsletter type of thing.

Rob Pene (50:45.46)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (50:58.508)
Yeah.

Leigh-

Rob Pene (51:05.128)
Yeah. And that's where you would diversify, right? Because if they see it online, but they won't see it for another six months, but they see a flyer, you know, at least they'll make the connection and they won't feel bombarded. Yeah. But the multi-touch kind of omnipresence is...

Nicholai Allen (51:16.482)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (51:21.973)
Yeah, cause most homeowners, when they see the 30 second video, go, I get it. I need that. But you know, then is, is w when are you going to buy it? Is it cause it's raining outside? So you're to wait for it to warm up. Then you'll grab it, but is it still going to be in the store by then? You don't know. So it's kind of like, it does unfortunately require that repetition to, to bring it full circle, you know,

Rob Pene (51:33.747)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (51:40.009)
Yeah

Rob Pene (51:48.616)
Yeah. And that's where the streaming ads go. And then the blip billboard ads. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (51:53.42)
Yeah. And then I'm like, okay, so that's what it takes. So by the time I'm done with all of this, I'm probably not going to make anything, but I'll at least be helping people. That's kind of where I'm at now.

Rob Pene (52:02.674)
Well, actually, a spin on it is if you have your plan mapped out with the multi-touch, you know, I'll figure it out. You then take that plan to somebody else who wants to hit the right, the same people and let them pay you for the plan and the distribution and access. Right. And then you zero money out of your pocket. Impressions paid by somebody else.

Nicholai Allen (52:26.879)
Yeah, no, for sure. And it is just something you have to confront as an entrepreneur is you have to confront the numbers and what it takes to get those conversions. Because once you do that, get that conversion, then they're probably going to save their home. So you have to realize that too, is they're going to have it there. If you don't push it, they're not going to have it and they're going to evacuate and they're not going to tape anything up and they won't have sprayed or they might not have even done their

Rob Pene (52:42.12)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (52:54.763)
Defensible space creation because they didn't read the packaging and then look into that you know, so Just is what it is. But but it'll be good and If it were easy everyone would be doing it right I'm sure all everyone that listens to your show can relate to that.

Rob Pene (53:12.584)
Yeah, yeah, I'm grateful to the people that's poured into you that's helped you because this literally saves lives. at the end of the day, that's the most important thing is, you know, people's lives, Yeah, existence, you know.

Nicholai Allen (53:28.523)
Yeah, I feel like the message of homeowner turned firefighter, know, entrepreneur, hopefully me telling people like, hey, don't play with that. You know, if there's a wildfire coming, please evacuate. It's not worth your life. Hopefully that aspect of it will help save lives. And hopefully the supplemental products will help save the property.

Rob Pene (53:41.386)
Yeah

street.

Nicholai Allen (53:54.926)
And life, if you do something and you feel like it cause over it and you've prepared, then that makes you more willing to evacuate as well. And that's, that's certainly factored into, you know, the, the psychology of it and how I'm trying to help people is, don't, know, you're not powerless, you know, do what you can and then evacuate.

Rob Pene (54:09.545)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (54:15.752)
Yeah, yeah, I think on a business side, you're onto something massive, but on the face value, just helping humanity is huge, right? And I think at the end of the day that it'll, God will bless it, you know, it's just a matter of, yeah, staying persistent. And you have, you've persevered throughout, it sounds like throughout all the ups and downs, you've stuck with it. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (54:38.241)
Yeah. Yeah. And there might be more tomorrow or this afternoon. It's literally like that for an entrepreneur. It's like a, it's a bit like a roller coaster, you know, but be honorable, always keep your word, you know, stay pure intentioned. And, and I've found that that always works out in the end. It always works out. So, you know, when it got really rough for me as an entrepreneur is when I thought,

Rob Pene (54:42.057)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (55:07.437)
And this is before even safe sauce on another project. It's when I thought, you know what, I've made it like I'm good. And I started taking income streams for granted and, you know, um, started, started, uh, you know, buying designer stuff I didn't need and, know, that whole thing. And when I got comfortable and I started taking things for granted, that's when it all came crumbling down. And so, you know,

Rob Pene (55:14.373)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (55:28.265)
Mmm.

Nicholai Allen (55:36.502)
I'm not sure if that's relevant to your audience or other entrepreneurs, but that is one kind of like warning is it doesn't mean don't enjoy success. It just means enjoy success for what it is, you know? And also I don't really attribute my success to me. There's a lot of people and partners and other things that helped me get here that I never could have done on my

So I'm just saying don't take it for granted and just always be, I think one of the most noble things that you can do is provide opportunity for others. I don't agree in giving things away for free, you know, to people that didn't earn it or don't want it or won't appreciate it because I'm self-made as well. You know, I had to start from scratch and it is a choice.

Rob Pene (56:15.24)
Hmm.

Nicholai Allen (56:34.093)
to work your ass off or to not work your ass off. And so I don't believe in giving things away for free, but what I've found to be the most noble is to give people an opportunity where it maybe didn't exist. So as that relates to my products, right, these products, now a homeowner actually has an opportunity to protect their house if they want to.

Rob Pene (56:34.762)
Thank

Rob Pene (56:59.602)
Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (57:00.299)
Now they can choose to be lazy and do nothing about it, but if they want to do something about it, they actually can now. It's a hardware trip away. It's a couple hours on the weekend. It's getting educated. It's maybe bringing in some, you know, arborists or landscapers or doing it yourself on the weekend, just clearing stuff up, keeping your gutters clean. But it's, it's available now.

And I think that's great because all the people that want to be prepared and want to be at cause over their most fundamental asset, well, they can do something about it now. And from a job perspective, I feel like creating jobs or opportunities for third party vendors or creating jobs is noble because I feel like that

Rob Pene (57:52.926)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholai Allen (57:58.914)
would give an opportunity to people that are willing and ready and they want to work their ass off. They just need to be told what to do or, or they need an opportunity. They need to know what to do. I can't tell you how many times in life I've been in that situation where all I wanted is an opportunity. Like tell me what to do. I'll work 16 hours a day. You know, I have young kids, I'll do whatever, but just, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Like no one's done it before. Even if the, you know,

Rob Pene (58:16.063)
Hmm

Right.

Nicholai Allen (58:28.746)
at least you're like surviving. providing good opportunity, I think is really great. And I hope that this helps me do that, provide more opportunity for people, for other people.

Rob Pene (58:39.624)
Yeah, I think you're on your way. I think you're on your way for sure. That Lowe's deal is a big deal. Yeah. And then I think the grassroots growth. Yeah, I think that'll take it over the top. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (58:45.037)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (58:52.841)
Yeah, well, I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate all your listeners and I'm going to listen to more of your episodes on my next road trip. Yeah.

Rob Pene (59:03.88)
Yeah, yeah, cool. Where do people find you?

Nicholai Allen (59:07.617)
just safe sauce.com, safe. It's actually kind of endearingly called safe sauce. It's a safe S O S S.com. Yeah.

Rob Pene (59:17.82)
Mmm, nice. That's clever. Good.

Nicholai Allen (59:21.333)
Yeah, and yeah, it's actually an acronym, scientifically achieved fire elimination by science of safety systems. So there's an R &D aspect of it and a sales aspect of it. yeah.

Rob Pene (59:33.096)
Yeah, yeah. And go to Lowe's. You can pick it up at Lowe's.

Nicholai Allen (59:36.575)
Yeah, just Lowe's. Go to Lowe's, check for the wildfire prevention product called Safe S.O.S.S. and have it have it in your garage if you're in a wildfire zone.

Rob Pene (59:47.978)
and tell people about it. Yeah.

Nicholai Allen (59:50.379)
Yes, please, help keep your neighbors safe. I ask people too, if you don't live in a wildfire area, but you know somebody that does, this could potentially save them or save their property. So, yes.

Rob Pene (59:54.067)
Alrighty.

Rob Pene (01:00:00.074)
Tell them.

Rob Pene (01:00:07.252)
Yeah, tell them that's good, man. You even get in front of churches to go do a nice, you know, because you're saving lives. It's so important. So many so many things coming through my head. I'm like, dude, this this is huge. This could help so many people. Good. Good on you, man. Good on you. Well, I appreciate the time and the story and the breakdown. This is great. Thank you.

Nicholai Allen (01:00:20.087)
Yeah.

Yeah, appreciate it.

Nicholai Allen (01:00:30.006)
Yeah, thank you.