Ep. 7: Derrick Ratliff – Horizon Firearms

Derrick: Now you told me two things and I always tell Kat that one of these days I'm going to write a book I'm gonna put these two things in it is that you said I don't know if you remember this you sat me down and said if you've got a plan B you never had a plan A and I love that and to this day I've used that on so many people I'm like, what's your plan B? No, then you don't have a plan A.

Tarek: Welcome to Y'all Street. Today I speak with Derrick Ratliff the founder of Horizon Firearms and the pioneer of the 22 Creedmoor. Derek you want a cup of coffee?

Derrick: Heck yeah. Hook me up.

Tarek: I saw this coffee cup easily distracted by cows and I immediately thought of you.

Derrick: I appreciate it very much.

Tarek: You couldn't pick two people with more different backgrounds than you and me. I grew up on a in a tenement building the first floor of a tenement building on a street with one tree. And you grew up surrounded by cows.

Derrick: I did and I love this so much. It's perfect time. Cheers, by the way.

Tarek: Coffee cheers. Yeah, very hot.

Derrick: Dude I uh, I love this so much because we just went saw my parents for Easter And I bought a couple cows from them because we're doing some meat stuff And I have with my own cows I've gotten rid of all the angry cows But my dad what's an angry cow dude one that will just put you on the fence We call it bite you my mom says snort in your pocket, you know all those kind of great things And so we're at Easter and I'm thinking man I've gotten rid of all the angry cows my dad comes in So I pin those two cows up for you And I'm thinking my dad has ranched my whole life and if my dad has given me the whoo Yeah, so we loaded them up bloody nose the whole deal. They are mean cows. This is perfect timing.

Tarek: This is this is Boyd, Texas. Have you always lived on the same ranch in Boyd?

Derrick: So my family has been in Boyd forever. So my family came to Texas in 1876. No way. Oh, yeah and settled in Boyd and so that property was you know purchased by my granddad and grandmother and so it's all I've ever known right? And of course like now I live in College not College Station. I live in Bryan, Texas. I gotta be real careful because the College Station and Bryan culture is a little bit different um, but yeah, my parents still live in the same place I grew up and you know run cows and we've had horses and just love the outdoor lifestyle.

Tarek: Yeah. So, what was it like growing up? Like what was a typical day? You know, I I have horses now. My children are doing a lot of the heavy lifting taking care of the animals and the chickens and all that kind of stuff. I know you got two brothers.

Derrick: Yep, I got two younger brothers and one works with us at Horizon and one's an engineer um lives up in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. And so yeah, I mean it was your typical ranch like it was you know, there was hard days and easy days we had 12 horses, you know hundreds of cows and it was just like I just love it. I still love it right.

Tarek: You say typical ranch. I don't know that a lot of people listening. I mean somebody's in New Jersey where you know, what's a typical Texas ranch?

Derrick: But it's it's hard to describe and I think it's but what it's hard to describe and I'm gonna tell you kind of why um It was always variable, right? And I think that's why I've gotten so good at you know moving and juking and you know creating a company and all those kind of things is because no one day was solving problems every single day you were dealing with an issue anything from hey, you know we got a cow that's having a calf and needs to have the calf pulled or you know horse get injured here or like during Easter. We're literally having Easter dinner and dad gets a phone call that we've got a cow out on the neighbors in the course right, and so it's just it's like you said problem solving and I love one story I always tell and it's something I look at when we try and hire employees so my dad would drop us off to go plow, right? And so I mean we got to drive the tractor is big deal, right? Air conditioner tractor and a radio big thing and this is before cell phones And so dad was put us in the tractor drop us off at daylight and he'd hand us a brown paper sack at lunch And a basket or a basket bucket some sort of tool container and here you go you know I'll pick you up at dark and when I learn really quick and what I've tried to do as we interview employees is you learn to be capable, right? Because if the tractor breaks and you finish with lunch you're sitting there till uh, you know till dark so you might as well figure out how to fix it and so it's just like I said being able to be somewhat nimble and be ready for kind of everything and your brothers are both engineers Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So in my middle brother's a civil engineer and he's got a Masters in petroleum. My youngest brother is actually in charge of engineering for Horizon And his background's more in visualization animation like the creative side of engineering, you know for me I always uh give them a hard time and tell them they're engineers because I kind of had to pave the way so I have Austin, Logan, listen I'm gonna throw them that because I was actually the first in our family to go to college and so being in a small town, you know, I graduated with 80 kids and you know, you went to A&M because you wanted to be a vet and so then I got to A&M

Tarek: Texas A&M.

Derrick: Yep, and so I got to Texas A&M and it was almost like wow, you can actually major in those things. That's how somebody does something besides, you know a vet. So and so on the family farm, was that the primary source of income was was cattle? Yep cattle and well, we did we did a lot of uh, we did ranching and um, you know farming so we had you know a lot of hay and soybeans and growing up. We had peanuts and and then we had the you know ranch side on on the side um, no employees or did you have day workers? No, it was pretty much day workers, you know It was my dad and granddad and then my mom worked at the school district, you know in accounting forever um has since retired working with dad on the ranch. But no, and we'd have cowboys come in and do day work and stuff and that was some of my favorite you know favorite things we had um one of my granddad's really good friends. His name is Butch South. So imagine old school dodge pickup, you know beat it all the heck And when he talked he kind of had a whistle and always to tell old cowboy stories and I loved um riding around in the pickup with him and one day I remember he uh, it's kind of a side tangent here, but kind of parallels on the guns I remember one day he was going behind the back of his uh seat of his pickup pulled it forward like an old truck to to get a rope out of the back and I saw an old pistol in there. And he was a Marine and he told the story. He's like I walked from Italy to and Berlin and I picked that up off of a German soldier and I figured I was coming over this far and I was taking it home with me Wow, and those guys just taught me so much and um, I love I mean my my dad and granddad Let me go to sell barns basically during high school So I'd drive the trailer and truck there and buy cows and I got to learn a lot of that culture and love it so much

Tarek: I'm, just really interested in I guess the the annual process of you said there's soybeans. There's peanuts. There's cows.

Derrick: Anything that you could try and make a little money.

Tarek: Yeah, so are you was your dad like penciling out- I need you know, this many cows sold at at such and such price and you know, I need you know this for the crop ...

Derrick: Man, it's like try you know one thing I learned um with dad and then and I think it you see it a lot myself is is sometimes you get an idea and you just have to run full steam at it And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't you know, dad's all dad and mom have always said, you know The cattle market's no different than the stock market, you know right now The market's really good tariffs have been helpful for you know, the cattle market and you know supplies lows prices are good And you know, you you kind of live feast and famine and then the crops almost offset that right? Sometimes they were great and sometimes they weren't and so, you know growing up it was just you just learned to kind of do and exist and take the good times and the bad times it was kind of a fun thing.

Tarek: We talk a lot about product in our company but food is known as produce.

Derrick: Oh, yeah, there you go

Tarek: and and the words are connected to each other and the when you think about farming it really is a complete company, I mean from from You know the the the inventory on the seeds and you know the diesel that you need to buy and and you have equipment that you're depreciating and you have maybe not employees maybe your sons or day workers or Butch or whomever else is is coming in and that's overhead that you have to pay for and you know, there's obviously there's distribution that you need to sort out and there might be there's off take in a variety of different places, but you gotta worry about the numbers and who's paying what and how far do I have to take the cows to well?

Derrick: And I've been a sale bar or whatever and even on a lot of it I saw that you you kind of you have to be really good with people too. And then in terms of you know, I'm growing up. We did cantaloupes and watermelons, right? I remember, you know 5 a.m we'd get in the truck and go pick cantaloupes and watermelons and take them downtown Fort Worth and then selling them directly to your you know, IGAs and your HEB grocery stores and stuff. So you had to kind of do everything uh, but it's it's a great background for an entrepreneur for somebody starting his own company, right?

Tarek: That's kind of what as I'm hearing what you're saying just thinking about how difficult that must be we have all of our own problems I mean in manufacturing exactly, you know distribution and warehousing and all that kind of stuff, but gosh being a farmer and it's it's year-round I mean, it's not you're not taking PTO for two weeks in the summer and you know, the you know nights and weekends are totally consumed. I mean it's I have a deep appreciation for anybody that's a farmer or

Derrick: No, it's just an interesting like you said I love that you parallel it with entrepreneurship because it really is that all the time, you know and you and you learn kind of you take the take the wins and and you know I like to call it and we at Kaspar Outdoors, you know Horizon we say playing offense right and we got a chance to interview Bas Rutten on our on the Horizon podcast I'm talking to Bas and it's like how do you how do you beat a guy who's bigger than you? And he was like man you step in and you you take the take the power out of the punch and you you're going to take more punches but you can deliver more punches and I think that's just like the the grit you kind of have to grow up with and it said yeah as entrepreneur, I mean that was that's been a slug fest. It's the best way. We had somebody at church this last week asked me he said man, would you be ever considered starting another before they said business? I was like no never again I was talking to uh, Tom Power and we were just you know focusing on the word perseverance how important it is to anybody that has a company you have to persevere through difficult times I mean 100 and the word I like probably even better than perseverance. It's just grit. It feels more cowboy, right? It feels more country. Sure, you know, it's like put some dirt in and keep going but no, yeah 100 it's just um I mean, I think that's what I think I have gotten to where I enjoy problem solving which is a different kind of mindset, right? It's like um You know not like trying to rush in as hero and solve this or that but like I genuinely enjoy the process of being visionary looking far enough and forward and then bobbing and weaving to figure out how to get down the road and and I don't I don't know that I could have cultivated that without that kind of background and I think it's Also hard because I think that that background is going away for a lot of people And so I often wonder like how do people you know, is it genetic? Is it you know? How do you cultivate that in today's day and age? But you I mean you obviously did in a big kind of way, right?

Tarek: So, yeah, I mean, I think the the world has changed so much even in just our lifetime let alone, you know your father and your grandfather. I mean, I think we have it so much easier we we work long hours. We have a lot of stress but so much of what we do is now, you know on the computer and um, you know the the blue collar jobs the you know, the plumbers the electricians the farmers the you know the the shipmen, you know the all of these jobs seem to be going away and um, and I think unfortunately, a lot of the the grit that is associated with those jobs is is also going by the wayside Yep, 100 and I think about that even when in raising my children on our property is you know, a big part of their life is doing chores.

Derrick: Yep

Tarek: I say you don't eat until the horses eat, you know and um getting up early and it doesn't matter if it's cold doesn't matter if it's rainy it's just got to get done and and hopefully, you know instill some some values that way

Derrick: But with that you know, I think one word we pick for so our oldest boy Rhyder our youngest boy Rhett We had Rhyder, you know, we had that like hey, I really want this kid to be and like how are we going to foster that? And you know our big takeaway word was always just capable And I think what you're doing, you know in terms of creating those processes and understanding, you know value and other things outside of self is is a really unique characteristic those life skills of being able to fix equipment

Tarek: Fix a truck ride a horse, uh put up fence be a plumber be an electrician do like basic things uh that that's something as I said in my own interview is like I I knew none of that stuff

Derrick: Yeah, I'll laugh because that trick I gotta tell the story so, um, you talk about that so so one thing, you know, we got a chance and my mom and dad always like we didn't have a lot of money, but we didn't never didn't know it, right? And so we just did and they let us do an experiment and make mistakes and so I had a had a um a friend in high school. He had a Mustang GT loved it flipped the Mustang GT wrecked it. So I like bought it from him for like 600 bucks my brother and I we took it all apart and um, you know got it running in and whatever and sold all the parts, right? And so the chance to make a little extra money well in that I learned that on these 90 model mustangs you peel back the trunk and there's a push button that cuts the fuel off if you hit a bump too much or you you flip the vehicle and then all of a sudden it starts working so fast forward you're talking about being capable. I'm on A&M's, Texas A&M's campus and I'm walking to class and there's this college girl, attractive college girl and she's trying to get her vehicle started, right? And there's two boys two college guys really trying to help her right one's trying to jump her off and this and that and I walked by and we had to work on so much stuff you know growing up that I could tell by hearing it I'm like no it's getting electricity. It's not getting fuel, you know. So I walked by I'm not gonna say nothing then I walked by and I'll pull one of the kids to the side and I tell he was crushing on her hard look open the trunk on the left hand side. There's a red button underneath the carpet trust me push the red button jump back in start the car. I kind of walk off and he's looking at me like this guy knows there's no button in the trunk pulls it off starts the car here and I'm like, dude, I just wingman that guy he owes me but anyways it's stuff like that that uh, you know I enjoy it. It's fun.

Tarek: So you're at A&M. You're the first in your family to go to college. You you realize that there are all these opportunities there for you what where was your focus? What was your mind at that time?

Derrick: Man, that was an interesting deal because it was like so much was coming at me so quick, right? And I you know started out in Ag and biomedical sciences and you know was was working towards the vet deal and I realized like I didn't want to be a vet I really wanted to be in marketing and specifically I wanted to be in products, you know at at fifth grade My dad was always really busy So my mom actually took me on my first deer hunt and harvested my first deer and I got really big into watching cassette tapes a Big Buck Hunter, right? And so I taught myself how to do archery and you know kind of funny. I you know wanted to get in marketing didn't really have the grades move into the business school So I moved into wildlife and fisheries and got a minor in business But really I like to joke that I I majored in archery we were doing a kinesiology archery class and you know, and it was just their normal for grade whatever And guy walks in and he's got a bow or a nice setup bow and you know, he's shooting like competitively That's really interesting. I didn't know A&M had archery team. So I walked over to the coach. I remember and and I said, hey, what was that guy doing? So he's on the archery team so I can shoot better than him. I know I can't what do I gotta do? And like well you gotta have you gotta own all the equipment and then you know contact come back and how did how did you know that had you been shooting on your property? I mean I had been since like fifth grade my grandmother and my mom helped me buy a bow And I mean we'd shot on hay bale and I taught myself how to deer hunt one I'm like, you know put a lot of hours in archery just by myself, you know and kind of self-taught and so I spent that next summer, you know work on the farm and we hauled hay and whatever and I bought a bunch of used bow parts off ebay when ebay this is you know, this is 2000 it's been 04-ish time frame. So I just bought a bunch of used parts off ebay got this bow together went to a local archery shop and I remember the first time I used one of like the specialty releases like shot an arrow through the ceiling oh, this is not gonna work, right? So I got it all going and went out the team and ended up basically majoring in archery is what I like to say and I finished like 13th in the country in Outdoor Archery, uh at the college level. Was this like a D1 sport? Yeah. So, you were 13th in the country. Yeah, on the men in the men's compound. Yeah. D1 archery. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't small. It wasn't scholarship on the men's side, but it was on the female side at A&M at the time and yeah that ended up landing me basically a job at The Archery Shop, which ended up put me at Bowtech in Oregon.

Tarek: So so you get a job at the local archery shop?

Derrick: I get a job That's kind of a funny one too and so they're bringing Gander Mountain to town So anybody listen to this and likes like sporting stuff Cabela's, you know, Bass Pro, Academy like those kind of things There was a company called Gander Mountain There's since closed down but they're they're a big one big catalog company one of the first to do catalog sporting good stuff And they were coming to the College Station and they were interviewing for new, you know new employees And I don't forget one of the questions was like tell us what your favorite reloading load is, you know Last year I've been reloading too. I knew all these answers and so I ended up getting a job as the Archery Lead for the new opening Gander Mountain and uh, you know my my wife and I um had just gotten engaged and she was an overachiever finished school a little early and I was finishing I didn't take a victory lap, but I was just finishing my normal lab, right? And I started working there and really like it wasn't what I wanted to do long term I just love products and I wanted to do something in that space that like really set a mark and that was like my singular focus and I can track that back to fifth grade like I want to do something In the outdoor space that changes the game, right? And anyway, so, um I'm at The Archery Shop and this old man walks in and he's got a crossbow. I didn't care two rats about crossbows they were dangerous. I didn't want anything to do with them But I gave the guy attention, you know, and and like was genuine customer service with him And at the end he was telling me he needed to go see this, you know other archery shop in Texas Shoot We didn't have like mapquest and all that kind of stuff wouldn't even think at that time So I went to my truck and my mom had always made me carry a physical map, right? Yeah, so I had the physical map. I marked where the old man was going I hand it to him didn't think nothing of it and he pulled he said you might help me carry this bow to the car. Yeah, sure, you know and so he said well, I couldn't ask you inside there. But what do you think about Oregon? I don't know anything about Oregon. What do you mean? I hardly ever been out of Texas, you know and he's like well, I own this small little company in Oregon called Bowtech. What do you think about coming and working for me? And i'm like small company at the time is a world's largest archery company and so I just accidentally met the owner of Bowtech and its one of those sliding doors moments and it was it was like the week before our wedding. So they flew us up big christian company flew me and my fiancee at the time up there he put us up separate rooms did the whole deal and interviewed us both, basically. Um, and uh we came back the Wednesday it was Wednesday before we got married came back on that Thursday um, you know, we had a rehearsal dinner on, you know, Friday night at a house that we thought was going to be our like forever home and your wife is totally fine two days before three days. Sure, let's go to Oregon. She's great. I mean, you know, like I said, you know, she's she's like loves living in them she doesn't herself like chase the moment, but she loves the fact that like I kind of like, you know make sporadic decisions and go and anyway, so we come back and say we're gonna take that job in Oregon and my father-in-law and you know, you've met my father-in-law. So my father-in-law during the prayer at our wedding just and protect them as they go to Oregon. Mic drop, right? It's like everybody in the wedding is like what you're moving to Oregon. And so we went on our honeymoon you had so you hadn't told anybody. No, you told your parents well, my parents knew, you know knew a little bit because we've been in Oregon and stuff, but it just happened so fast you know, it was just like everything was coming at us and it was really interesting because we we left went to our honeymoon in Hawaii. My wife's a real-estate agent at the time and basically while we're on our honeymoon, she sells this house we just bought while we're in Hawaii. So we come back we've sold the house and this is the same like this next week, right? We pack it up and my mom and dad great people they bring an enclosed trailer and we pack all of our stuff and drive to Oregon with nowhere to live. Wild this is literally like the day after your honeymoon. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we get back we still to this day and I have one of the towels still it's I mean it's ratty and now it's like a towel for our dogs and animals but we put we packed every young dumb stupid, right? We packed everything in the trailer. So like we didn't have a bed or nothing to sleep in that night So we're like what are we gonna do?

Tarek: So we had two beach towels in our in our pack luggage from Hawaii. We're like, well, I guess we're sleeping on the beach towel. So they slept on beach towels the night before we drove to Oregon. So we uh my wife and I when we the first night that we were in Paraguay and in Paraguay they build the all of the homes out of concrete and you know every single day. There's like cinder block or like cinder block and uh so every single day is you know, super hot and so I wasn't thinking anything about the nighttime being cool in a cinder block house in the refrigerator, right? Yeah, it's absolutely freezing. But uh, so we get these these inflatable mattresses and my only experience in life with an inflatable mattress is you have like the electrical pump, right that pumps them up and my wife is like we didn't have that but we just had the inflatable mattresses. And my wife's like, oh, let's just blow them up I'm, like I'm like I'm not blowing up an inflatable mattress. We'll be here for half an hour and so we end up sleeping on these uninflated. Oh, yeah inflatable mattresses on the ground. And I say to this day I grew up in in New England that was the coldest night of my entire life, I mean, I think I had every single coat on, I mean It was just absolutely freezing.

Derrick: But at least you had like a dedicated spot on the floor, it's better than the floor.

Tarek: We had a roof over our head. So that was something.

Derrick: I love it. That's awesome, man. Those kind of stories though that like I mean they make it you look back on like those a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.

Tarek: And there was yeah one of many times my my wife ended up being right because she blew up that thing in my 10 minutes. Should have just listen to her. I love it. So you're at Bowtech and what is your job there now?

Derrick: So that was I'm gonna call it. Um I mean, I learned so much. I learned so much there it's interesting because we showed up didn't have a place to live found out like in that part of the world like month-to-month rentals didn't exist and stuff. So we like lived in basically Section 8 Housing, which was crazy and we took that job and tell people now it felt stupid I wanted so bad to be in the industry. They could have wrote down on the paper hey, your job offer is this big goose egg and I'd be like, yeah, let's go, you know and so I mean, I think my first job there paid like 20 grand a year. I mean, it's nothing

Tarek: My wife didn't have a job like McDonald's money.

Derrick: I mean, we just took it right because I knew The the outdoor industry is so small like I always laugh I'll say that I work with the same 35 people They just shuffle the deck around as to who they're working for and so we did that and the the owner His name was Dewayne Tiller and so they had um You know, he called it as like Tiller Gauntlet and I appreciated it He basically there's me and like three other guys kind of started at the same time And he put us in all the different departments and we worked like 4 a.m string shift to like close on the Pro Shop and you just rotated through the departments. Yeah, and it was long days and then basically he would pull you into his office and with like whoever the lead was in that deal and asked you like questions about that department and specifically And he cared a lot about the people that were in that department and um, you know When you could answer all the questions, you didn't have to go back to that department So I learned really quickly how to answer all the questions, you know The 4 a.m shift and the production shift and then ultimately I ended up in as a bridge basically between engineering and new product development and marketing and so You know anybody who's seen some you know, your materials of Kat That's where I met her and um, so she kind of worked on the marketing side I kind of had the engineering team and what I did is I would More or less hear what sales and marketing wanted to do with the project formulated into kind of a you know Gantt chart kind of world go to the engineering understand what they needed to do and then I would Order the parts source the parts get the best deal And help test the parts and then when we finished I basically hand off to marketing like here's the next thing coming here purchasing Here's all the parts order and the people you need.

Tarek: What was the most valuable part of that experience? That you took away from working at Bowtech?

Derrick: Learning how to talk to people on the phone and I think that was an interesting skill. Um, you know, we here here and negotiate this for us. We can only pay this much, right? I didn't know man It was like go to Thomas Net get the you know phone book and then find people and blind call them and say hey, you know, I'm such and such a Bowtech I got this project. You know, we need to do it this is and learning how to kind of negotiate and at the same time I learned power of brand I think they're so like, you know when I called and said hey I'm a Bowtech. I immediately got attention And so I started really learning like oh man, so there's more to this company thing then you got to have great products but you you the more brand value, clout, you know for cachet that your brand had just the more leverage that you had in general to do anything

Tarek: It's so hard to build that brand equity And So important to keep it once you have it.

Derrick: And it's extremely difficult to describe it to people and and and even how to like Yeah, I mean we you know, you know our camera has some different topics about that. It's like what is what is marketing? What is brand value? Like I mean, what is the number metrics you can put on that you can't and it's like almost something you can taste but

Tarek: I always say marketing is the science of influence. It's you know the the brand equity. It's kind of like trying to answer the question. When did you become cool in high school? Can you pinpoint it it's just like no there's just kind of a turning point there

Derrick: That is so cool and and really and it'd be funny like kind of you know rolling forward a little bit like that That's what we learned with Horizon is is like there was a point where I can look back and say oh now I know When it was but during it it was like man, we just wanted to be cool Can we just like be near cool people

Tarek: And you don't know how cool you are at at any, you know given time, you know until you like you're saying until you look back and Say, oh that was a big that was a pretty big milestone. I guess you know that we crossed and uh, yeah there's always that that sense of insecurity a sense of paranoia with your brand as you know, it's going to market if you if you're a founder, you know, you started this thing from scratch It's like it's like one of your children you wrap your arms around it and you just don't want you don't want a bad review. You don't want somebody to have a terrible experience. You're constantly shepherding the brand along that way and you're not always perfect with it, but you know, it takes 20 years to build a reputation. That's saying 20 years to build a reputation in one minute to lose it. Exactly Um, that's I I think that's always a challenge and you see it actually even with uh recent experiences like with Bud Light or Target. You know, you can alienate your client base, you know

Derrick: And like now it's so much easier, right? Like and it's hard because I think too you know us as consumers and and just in general the consumer feels so much more power now it's like oh, well, if I don't like this or that about you then I just put it on social and ruin your brand right?

Tarek: That's right.

Derrick: And so it creates this interesting dynamic of you know, um making sure that your customer focused, you know. And and I think I think people in our space I think underestimate like the value of that I mean good customer service and I'm not saying we have the best customer service. I mean, I know that we have spent a lot of time and effort to be better customer service Uh, and I and I can say with confidence outsized than our competition has and just the the rewards of that are major.

Tarek: I want to come back to that but um, so you're at Bowtech what? You end up leaving what happened there?

Derrick: Yeah, so, um, you know, they got acquired by Savage so I got actually got some time on the gun space there too and and it was interesting because you know when you're young married and you're far away from family like you're using all your PTO to go home and see family. You're not like actually like doing any were you doing any hunting in Oregon? A little bit of, man you want to talk about hard and and I finally went back. um last year of the year before and got a blacktail deer. I I learned so much. Uh, yeah, I'll tell you a couple different hunting stories on that. I learned so much about the people and how they hunted in in the West and like it shaped a lot of like what we do product wise But yeah, I mean we got there and I wanted to go elk hunting yeah, I'd never really been elk hunting didn't know much about it and um, one of the guys from warranty was like, yeah, man They got an elk hunt and shoot when I thought elk hunt like I had been on one hunt That was kind of like private land, you know, and there was elk and it wasn't that far It was pretty flat country or whatever, man We were like back pack miles in and we're going through and all of a sudden see this elk and he the guy was with um, name was John Nelson, he was a 3d State Champion in Oregon and he's like, oh man, there's elk. Yeah, I can see him. He's like how far are they? 90 yards, okay Drills this thing and I immediately remember thinking We're in a different game because in Texas it was very much like tree stand 20 yard, you know bow blind you use a different style product and I immediately understood The value proposition that Bowtech was doing in their product and who their customer was, you know And and people would brag about close shots at Bowtech versus like far shots far different from how I grew up and so, you know that that was a really unique experience, which really like You know made me want to black tail hunt and

Tarek: So this is an interesting, I guess exploration for me when it comes to product development in the sense of you know you look at Bowtech were they creating their customer base based on the products that they were producing or were they producing products based on what their customers were looking for?

Derrick: That's a great question and I think it I'm going to answer it a little bit different. It they were and this is some of the things that I pulled from from Horizon and it's worked for us, too they just wanted to be cool for the sake of being cool, right? And so when they they want they did edgy things on purpose and that was more of the focus. It's like If we're really edgy and we're and we're front of the line. We're cutting edge of a time our customers will be forgiving when we miss right? So if we hit like grand slam, grand slam, home run oh, dang, we hit a little single here. Our customers are going to be forgiving about that so we called it the campfire mentality. So, you know the time we were competing against a company called Matthews, um, you know If you're in the archery space or a big dog, still a big dog, and if you were a new archer you could go buy a Matthews bow and go to deer camp and people like ah got a Matthews. Good job, bud And you were cool immediately if we gave they bought a Bowtech We had to give them a real good reason to buy it and then we had to be so cool that they were excited about explaining to their friends why they didn't buy Matthews and I learned that um, you know when you come up with products like you need to know who you're doing it for but more it becomes about who that person is not about like what they're doing and so like with Horizon, you know we do edgy flutes and different color things and then you talk I'm sure we'll talk 22 Creedmoor. But like we looked at saying oh, what are the things that people say you can't do? Oh, well fluting affects accuracy. Well, let's prove it right and that was sort of the Bowtech it was almost a chip on your shoulder like oh, well bows can't be fast. We'll show you they can be fast oh, they can't be comfortable and fast. Oh, we'll do that too. And so it's just a mindset of proving people wrong and I think growing up, you know from the farm and all that and I just loved like ate and breathed like that part of it

Tarek: It's it's funny that you say that and talk about the campfire in the sense of like for me whenever we have family friends that come over and they bring their their kids over. If I if I really think about sort of what the the sequences of the conversation when the husband comes over it's always did you get another gun? Like what's what what new piece of equipment did you get? You know, the first four hours are always like, oh check out this new gun. Have you shot this? No, well, we gotta go it's it's it is boys like their toys exactly.

Derrick: Well, and like them at the core, right? It's like who who people end up being and so like yeah that's what that was really you can see that from the time that your boys are like two years. Oh, yeah, right.

Tarek: I mean they are playing with guns. They are playing with trucks. They're playing with swords. They're like so into anything that is mechanical or moves or can shoot or whatever. Oh, yeah, my five-year-old right now he's a he's a handful and what he wants to do is saddle the horse with his cap guns and ride around like a Lone Ranger, right?

Derrick: And he just reckless about it and I love it. So, but yeah, so we're you know at Bowtech doing that deal. Um, and you learned you said learned a lot Got a chance to shoot some archery and back to why we left Um, we're in the engineering room big management this big room picture us windows There's one big giant bullpen and the engineers and myself And it rained all the time and people always talk about how it rains all the time in that part of the world And it's like, oh, yeah, it's not that big of a deal and but I remember consciously going to the window when the rain stopped and like everybody was absorbing sunlight like a plant and I remember calling my wife and said we gotta go to Texas. Like I've hit my spot I cannot see the sunlight, you know, just a little spurts and I'm done with the rain and so, you know, um at that time it was neat because um you know, I'm sure we're talking about a little bit her her family company was involved in a large corporation and such and um.

Tarek: Kaspar Companies, which is the the parent company of Texas Precious Metals and also ultimately Horizon Firearms.

Derrick: We'll roll all that back in but yeah, and so, um, you know great. I mean i'm sure you know I don't know maybe you had me should interview but Uncle Doug you know who's on yeah on the the TPM in the new video, right? So Uncle Doug flew up to Oregon and Kaspar's were in the process of acquiring a truck accessory distribution company that was defunct and you know owed Kaspar Companies a good sum of money. And I was doing buying activities and basically so they gave us the opportunity to come back um and interview with the company to become a buyer for Croft Distribution.

Tarek: Yeah, and and the the company that Kaspar's owned was Ranch Hand.

Derrick: Yep.

Tarek: So tell tell the listeners a little bit about Ranch Hand. Everybody in Texas knows Ranch Hand.

Derrick: Yeah, I mean so uh Ranch Hand more or less is the Kleenex of all grill guards, right? So if you're driving down the road and you see one of those big black uh bumper replacements on the front of a truck and you see the silver square tag. It's a Ranch Hand. Yeah, and they more or less created the market around protecting your truck

Tarek: from hitting deer or if you fall asleep on on the highway or whatever? These are not the little poodle catchers on mama's, you know minivan exactly.

Derrick: Yeah. No, I mean it's it was the real meal deal and that's a fun and super fun company You know, and so yeah, so we came back and we did uh truck accessory distribution. Learned a lot about distribution and again use that kind of relationship deal to learn a lot about buying stuff and selling stuff and margin and you know and and.

Tarek: So you're getting much more into the weeds on the financial side of you know As you're kind of rounding out your skill set, you know, you you are an engineer you're a tinkerer you go to school you now have marketing and you know engineering experience and now you're getting into the weeds on on the financial side

Derrick: and it's more and it was like uh use the relationships to buy the right things make sure we don't get over it and so then that's my like first exposure to inventory and like turns and oh man. We got to negotiate this particular co-op deal because we need an extra point margin here and there.

Tarek: And there's always the challenge too with inventory where you know, if you buy, you know x amount of inventory it can reduce your inventory cost by 10. Yeah, but if it takes you a year to turn it capital associated with that inventory. So it's just always this delicate kind of balancing act. You got to know what your cost of capital is. You got to be really tight on what your turns are to know whether or not this is a good deal or a bad deal and or whether or not you know the deployment of capital is what I use there.

Derrick: And and I think what was interesting about distribution and acquiring, I'm gonna call it a defunct distribution company. You could physically see that and what I mean by that so I remember, you know we walked in first day and everything was on MS-Dos green screen like they weren't even using excel, so like you would print off on this big roll printer a stack about yay big for lift kits, right? So, lift kit takes a this part that part in this tire and you would go pages and pages and highlight them and then you spend hours 10 key in them into goodness stops, right? And I remember we were talking about, you know making good buys or what the buyer not and I remember the first time I walked out into the warehouse and there was a rack of fiberglass 1997 uh S10 like runner sidestep things. And I'm like, oh my God, and this is this is thinking about this is 2009 So we got 97 S10 parts like we will never ever get rid of these and so uh, it it it freaked me out a little bit. I'm like, I won't be the guy that I'm not I can't be the guy that buys. Yeah, no old old stale parts and so it was uh, it was interesting to be able to like see that concept.

Tarek: It would be really interesting to just go around to every say manufacturing company or or even You know just general distributor in Texas and find out how much inventory is lost due to obsolescence every single year and see what what that variability looks like because the guys who are doing it. Great. Maybe it's one percent and they're probably guys that the shrinkage or or the uh, the losses are 15 20. I mean, it's got to be terrible, right? If it's not managed, well, it can have a huge impact on financial performance

Derrick: And it stopped and it's been interesting like learning down the road is it stops you from being able to do other stuff So it's like we're making these decisions and inventory stops you from doing cool stuff down the road and that was a switch for me. I was like, oh well if we get too heavy in these things what maybe it's a short-term win like the buy you were talking about but then when I saw it as well that prevents me from spending time effort money and creating new things. I don't want to do that um, and so yeah, so did that for a while. Um, we had a cool opportunity we got it. I'm gonna say got it right It wasn't it wasn't perfect, but that business was running right and with Ranch Hand and Ranch Hand was such a big, you know, uh chip I would say in you know in in terms of card to have in the distribution game And so we were our own distributor and everybody wanted to distribute Ranch Hand And so Croft got approached by one of their big competitors to acquire them. Um, you know, we sold Croft and then that kind of launched me into um doing wholesale marketing for Ranch Hand So that's when I like really got a taste of ad buys and influencers web development That's where I met Amin who did you know, I think one of the first versions of TPM Central Command, right? Like and so it it was a whole nother world of like rebrand and brand colors and you know those kind of things and so we did that for a while and and that's where we ultimately the path kind of Y's here and when we started Horizon was at that same time frame.

Tarek: So yeah, and so the name Horizon uh comes from a reality show that you and your wife did right? When does the reality show come in? So this did you skip over?

Derrick: No. No, this is this is about the time frame. So, um, you know we were working at Ranch Hand. So my wife at that time had been an accountant had Got a job working in accounting and then she was doing uh retail marketing so we were like joint partners in the marketing side and And we were here in Shiner and we went home for lunch one day at the Homestead House Which we both had some time in the Homestead House I turned on the Sportsman's Channel and there's this North American Hunting for the dream, right? And so it's this little kind of cheesy show, um where you filmed your own hunt and edited your own hunt you got like a six minute episode and then popular vote got you the opportunity to win your own tv show. So I remember thinking I'm gonna do that do that and so I holler my wife my wife's name's Cherise. . We're gonna do this and she's like, oh, yeah yeah, sure. And so on the way back to the office, man I call the deal the deal I said we got one more spot. We'll interview you next week. So at the same time I turned I called Bowtech and I called Stiller who's now a company that we own and I call Leupold. I say look guys, you know had connections with you in the past. I think I'm going to do this tv show I do you sponsor me. I have money to do the show, you know per se and this I'm assuming this is how the world works. I saw it a little bit at Bowtech, like you you get the money from your sponsors and you try to spend as least as possible to produce a tv show and whatever's left in the bucket if any's left in the bucket, is kind of what you get to do. So, um, dude, we got the last spot on the show. It's crazy and so what it finds us doing is um doing Ranch Hand marketing by day and then traveling on the weekends all over the country filming a hunt. Filming my wife shooting stuff, her filming me shooting stuff, and then burning that midnight oil, I learned how to video edit and ultimately, um, man I became a moderate expert at final cut and dude, we won the show? Crazy and so now i'm sitting here going. Okay, cool. We working so- when you say win the show it was based on just popular vote. Yeah and so they said they called us and said congratulations. You had enough popular votes to win Hunting with a Dream. Here is a 32 week contract for the Sportsman's Channel. Congratulations 32 weeks or 32 episodes. So which means yeah, so it was like 30 yeah, 32 weeks was 15 episodes basically how they kind of split it up with a replay Okay, and and they said you have this many assets of commercials to sell and if you sell those commercials You can pocket the money and then you get your own sponsorships and edit it and so they didn't pay you

Tarek: So you don't get any money for winning, but you don't get any money on the show

Derrick: You just get the airtime correct, which people don't realize in that world because we did it two years in a row So we did it for you in one year And then the next time we did it I had to pay for a discount on the airtime and it's super expensive This was like 2009 and you know, it probably cost 15 grand for baseline airtime and that time for us That was a lot of money and streaming really wasn't a big thing back

Tarek: I mean, we were just starting to get off the ground a little bit with with like Netflix but you know, you still had major broadcast media running running pretty much everything.

Derrick: Oh, yeah. I mean absolutely. So we would basically edit these shows and then you know mail in the little hard drive and they would put it on tv show.

Tarek: And and this is just very on brand for you because if you don't know how to do something, you just figure it out video editing. Sure. We'll just figure it out.

Derrick: How hard can this be right? So it's like get a Mac computer and learn the Mac sure and so yeah, I mean it was it was interesting. Um, And so in kind of the flip side, so we did that finish the first and the name of the show was On the Horizon and so why it was On the Horizon So about that time there was kind of a patriarch in the the Kaspar, you know family heritage Not not Daddy Don but it was kind of related to his wife and whatever um Carl was his name and so we went to his funeral and on the back of his like the pamphlet at the funeral there was a poem and it's famous. I don't know who did it I probably should know at this point, but it basically said um A horizon is nothing but the limit of your sight don't be limited And I went home and I circled that and I said that's that's it That's the name of the company because you know We're going to do long-range rifles and we're going to do cool stuff because it's going to be cool And and it stuck and so the the name of our show we called it, uh, you know It was basically Ranch Hand Horizon because we did a joint sponsorship deal with Horizon So and that's kind of we're On the Horizon and the Horizon brand and we actually used if you look at our logo It's basically a circle with three prongs in it and then Horizons written underneath it And so our family brand when our family came from Tennessee to Texas after the Civil War Um, it was basically three brothers that had nothing So the zero in the middle was they had nothing but each other three brothers nothing And then my brand personally gets because I'm the first son gets one bar underneath it So when you see Horizon written, it's our brand with Horizon written. We're far enough away. It is my personal cow brand. Right. Um, and so yeah, and so when people talk about branding, I mean, it's literally a brand college kids and around the country who hear this word brand, they're always thinking of a company but in Texas it's a brand, is literally you're sticking hot steel and coals and you're sticking it on. Oh, yeah I mean, we're registered cattle registered with the county and and you know my family's had it registered forever and you can go back and see like in the county records are so cool I love and I hope it always stays like that but you go down the county courthouse and they pull out this big leather bound book, right? Flip to the next open page and you draw an initial basically the brand that you want with a pencil and then you sign it right and then insurers and so we my my aunt has done some family history stuff and we have like you go back and look at the pages in my great granddad, great great granddad. Here's his drawing of our brand right, you know, and so yeah, it was literally It and I think with that it was it was cool about that when we started the company as it was me Right, like it was like fundamentally it drew from pieces of my you know, wife's history, you know, and then drew from like the actual physical brand of our history and um yeah, and then so we that's kind of how we started it

Tarek: So you have this idea at this point that you want to start a gun company? Is that where you're at mentally?

Derrick: I mean to be to be honest. It was interesting I wanted to start a company and so actually the the the team name that we use on the show was Team Eclipse, right? And we'll talk a little bit about that and it was kind of parallel with the Horizon piece a a I was big in a waterfowl at the time. And a duck a male duck at a certain time. You're big into shooting water shooting waterfowl? Yeah hunting waterfowl. Yeah, and so when a male Mallard duck once a year he loses all of his feathers all this color And the and loses the ability to fly for a small period of time And when he's uncolored and coming out of that it's called the eclipse phase and so we were like Team Eclipse and whatever and so I actually drew and tried to get a patent for what I called the Duck Puck, which is basically a decoy thing And it didn't work and so Horizons going about the same time We're doing the Ranch Hand in a tv show deal and I get a phone call from a guy Um, we had started a website to create one of those dude. I learned how to do Dream Weaver and created my own website. It's better than me. My first one was GoDaddy. Doing code on the side, you know and anyway. The guy calls me and says hey these guns you're using I mean, where do you get them at? And I had a buddy in Wyoming. His name is Hazer Brockley and he had a Powder River, you know Gun company basically and he had made us a couple custom guns, you know custom at the time Which basically meant they were super accurate on a Remington 700 action with a new barrel on them and a painted stock Right like custom at that time meant they were accurate didn't mean it was actually custom And I was like, oh people are actually watching what i'm using and they want to use what I use I bet I could sell once I call him real fast. Hey, can you make me a gun that I can sell and he's like Well, yeah, he said but I don't I don't really want to do this much and whatever and and I will do the barrels and I'll teach you how to do the rest and you can handle all the rest of the stuff. I can shoot you, so I got a FFL in the Homestead House that I was in and called the guy back and said yeah, so was that the address? Yeah Oh, yeah Horizon Firearms was started on the same property as Kaspar Companies just you know, 100 years later uh, and we had an FFL at the Homestead House. That's crazy

Tarek: Yeah, and for those listening I after Derrick left the Homestead House I moved into the Homestead House with my family when I moved to Shiner with that well that was like yeah dug by by Cherise's ancestors.

Derrick: Exactly man. They said it was and that was you know, cool part of the history as well I was like, man, we're starting the company in the same place that like all the other stuff it started Yeah, and so uh told the guy what I would sell it to him for it's like yeah I'll take one and got it to him and then quickly after that another person started asking so then I called Hazer back look, dude, we're gonna like do this thing. I'm gonna buy a lathe and all this stuff and and so at the time my day job had also changed so Ranch Hand was going through some transformations and you know, we thought at the time the company was going to get acquired I'm, like man, we can't both be working for the same company and get acquired And so I actually took a job with Casulco which you remember that's a Casulco Coagulation I sold electro electrocoagulation wastewater units to mines and municipalities to clean up chromium. And we basically

Tarek: Another Kaspar business by Doug Kaspar and they had a bunch of patents on that technology and

Derrick: So I sold wastewater by day and helped them like get that company positioned right to sell and as soon as Casulco sold that was my marker. So Casulco sold. Horizon. I'd sold a couple guns. We wanted to move back to College Station. We started building a house, uh, and we were like I don't know maybe a week away from my first son being born. So I said, hey look they're selling that company a lot happening. Here's our time so we moved quit my job my wife was working remote and I moved the lathe and moved a lathe into the garage and started building custom guns. So yesterday we got a chance to do mountain hunting today we're going to do something a little bit different we're on the plains here and uh with John X here and we're going to be looking for Lechwe.

Tarek: You know I've heard about all these companies that start in their garage and your company is actually the only company that I know personally that literally started in a garage and I've been in that garage It was a nice garage.

Derrick: Hey, it was a pretty nice garage, you know, the equipment wasn't the greatest, you know I bought a bunch of cheap, you know Grizzly equipment and then my favorite is um you know, I had kind of budget where I was gonna buy machines and didn't have enough budget to buy a real cerakote oven So cerakote oven cerakote is the kind of paint you put on it and then you it's a name brand kind of Kleenex and then you bake this paint on there So you have to have an oven that goes 350 degrees for an hour.

Tarek: So so let's pause for a second and talk about what is involved in the process of making a gun because people are are thinking okay I mean, this sounds like it's a big undertaking. Yeah, and they're what four five pieces to a gun.

Derrick: Yeah

Tarek: You got the barrel, you got the trigger, the action

Derrick: You got the action, the stock, the stock and then bottom metal if you include that not with the stock piece Bottom metal is basically what holds the magazine

Tarek: So when when you're starting this process of hey, I want to I want to make these custom rifles You are having to go and source these five components correct and then you are assembling them, correct? You're putting your magic touch on them.

Derrick: Yep.

Tarek: And what is that magic touch?

Derrick: At that point man, it was interesting because it mostly is it's a symbol So like what was happening in the market at that time and again things just line up So there was a company in the market that was really leading in the long range space And so when I say long range I want to define that so Most of the time it was it was all about being accurate 200 yards with a long shot Well, these guys went out and said well, we're going to shoot everything 500, you know a thousand and they were like purposely taking long shot and it was lighting the opinion of people on fire and polarizing the market and I saw an opportunity I'm like man. They're going to polarize the market, but they're doing it at such a high price I can build these custom guns with more and all their guns look the same, right? You bought one. I bought one. There's no personalities. I can build that gun a little bit cheaper and I can do individual flare on it so that your gun and my gun are not the same and then when you go to hunting camp you can explain it.

Tarek: You know, I did so the value proposition at the time was less expensive, much cooler. Much cooler.

Derrick: Okay. Yep.

Tarek: Same and same accuracy.

Derrick: Oh, yeah. Yeah and so what we did is we counter-positioned accuracy. So everybody's when when people said custom up into about 2010 people thought about well if I buy a custom gun i'm gonna go get an old guy in a small shop to hand make me something that's more accurate and it didn't look like anything The whole reason I wanted it because it's more accurate so we went and sourced really really good parts and then let me like the gun here and then we do like um custom colors and like It's custom at the time would be like I would paint it tan and that spray some spooshes of green on it, right? Like that was wild. Like that's really custom.

Tarek: Okay, so here is a Horizon Rifles, this is a 22 Creedmoor? 22 Creedmoor. Okay, which we're going to talk about the 22 Creedmoor in a second but this one is truly custom.

Derrick: So when we when we said custom we said truly custom. So basically, let me talk about this guy a little bit. So 22 Creedmoor and it's themed after our family So on the other side of it, we can show a tight shot later Then the other shot up there's actually that brand on there is our logo And it's the hot is the actual hot iron brand that came over with my family in 1876 on the wagon We heated it up this this is pecan wood From our family tree that my great-grandmother used to host picnics under and it got struck by lightning So we took a piece of the wood Cast it and we made it like look new on the front end and then and then old on the back end on purpose Did a fake break here to show like the formation of it hand-painted rust and then this fluting style So it's like cosmetic machining In the barrel with something that we leaned into hard because people said oh, well, you can't have a custom gun with fluting It won't be accurate. So we like would find those pieces and and do it on purpose. For those listening like on iTunes or Spotify what Derrick is pointing out is that the barrel of the gun has this spiral fluting at the end versus what your traditional just kind of straight looking flat. It almost looks like it's rifled on the outside. Yes. And like a big giant drill bit or an ice bit is you know kind of What we got and what are the advantages of that? Man A lot of it is it's real dang cool, right? Besides the cool factor outside of that you take a lot of weight out So we can get a steel barrel to weigh closer to a carbon fiber barrel. So if you're in a a heavier more stiff barrel will be more accurate. So I can use a heavier contour barrel to keep the accuracy and then drop the weight. And so it creates better rigidity, correct? Yeah, it maintains the rigidity. I feel like if I was going to do a small barrel versus a barrel this size you know as the barrel heated up your point of impact would change. So at least me having rigidity gives a cool factor takes out the weight and then the other thing is depending on the flute style it adds a little bit of surface area because you're adding concaves where you had basically material on the other side and it helps the barrel cool from shot to shot a little faster. Okay. So it's all about gaining that accuracy but again, we counter position accuracy because the way we wanted to do it was every every custom gun if you're spending that kind of money, it better be accurate. That's not why you buy it you buy it because you know you can and you want to express yourself and that's kind of when you can't afford to miss when you can't afford to miss. Man, that was like one of our first slogans. I love it I like how you threw that in there.

Tarek: Yeah, so yeah, so you're in your garage you're you're kind of assembling you're buying some parts you're assembling a few guns and what like how do you get your first customers? And I mean you're showing us I mean an absolutely gorgeous, you know custom rifle, but this is not coming out of the garage day one.

Derrick: Not day one, but we had some honestly, we had some cool for the time some really cool stuff coming out, but yeah first customer. So there's a forum called the Texas Hunting Forum and again, I Rolodex a Bowtech play. Bowtech one time one of the owners told me that uh when they needed to make sure the brand was cool They went around they basically paid these guys across the country to jump on a forum but hey, have you heard this company Bowtech? They're doing this really neat thing. You should check them out. Oh, I saw them. You're giving away trade secrets now. So now I'll stop I'll stop there. But basically they drove up uh talk about the product and so I started getting heavy on the forums and just I tried to give Information that didn't feel exclusive. I was like well if these guys over here are charging from the information If I can be subject matter expert and I can give you information and gain trust um, then you know people will want to work with us and so we started doing the stuff on the forums and I loved it. My wife, she's a sweetheart. She would basically take our brand new son and somebody would come to our house. They'd go in our living room and they'd go to this little office We had and sat down with me and I'm a talker and I've always been a talker and she would basically keep our newborn son in the back room quiet for hours on end while I tried to drum up customers.

Tarek: Were you doing a Texas style invite him over for dinner?

Derrick: Come on. Yeah. We're having beans and chicken and it worked though because we ended up finding um, you know fast forward a little bit like one of the guys that we found on there his handle was Fanatic and Fanatic is one of our rifle series named after him. Fanatic means, you know something that pertains to or obsessed with hunting and he was our customer number one. I never forget. He called me from Waco and he's David Stratt I you know, I've seen you on the forums and I got this weird muzzle break I'm gonna describe it to you, but I'm driving to you and I need you to build one before I get there. Oh, geez, man. So I'm out here like trying to make this muzzle break that I've never made before from some guy that I met on the forum who's driving an hour and a half to buy this.

Tarek: How are you making a muzzle break? What are you using for that?

Derrick: I learned from Bowtech that they had taught me some lathe skills and so I had a had a big chunk of barrel and a lathe and basically dimension a drill press. Yeah. Were you using that? Just an old school Grizzly drill press is like a couple thousand dollar drill press and a lathe and some notes on a napkin that he described to me on the phone. And like I have to do this because this guy's big on the forums, right? And since then we've been to come great friends and he's attributed to so much of our success and actually, you know so paralleling forward to go, you know to roll in 22 Creedmoor, um he was one of the first guys that asked for it. The the 22 Creedmoor is something that you and David Stroud pioneered? Yeah, so me, David Stroud and some help from Hazer. Uh, you know, basically pioneered this cartridge, right?

Tarek: So, the 22 Creedmoor, for those listening and not into hunting is as of today, I would say probably the the fastest growing caliber in the outdoor space. 100 percent. It has become a complete game changer um and what it was known as a Wildcat round for about 10 years a Wildcat round is a non SAAMI approved round that is just made in garages or whatever whatever ammo company you can get to get some brass and and some projectiles and and uh, I want to hear about the the genesis of that that those conversations because you have developed an incredible reputation in the outdoor space, you know today, you know, you've you've created a name for yourself as somebody that is pioneering a lot of new technology. So and it all started with 22 Creedmoor.

Derrick: All started with 22 Creedmoor. Oh, yeah, so, you know in in Texas there are a lot of hunting competitions. I want to describe that for a little bit so basically in a 24 hour period you and I would be on a team and we would basically hunt for 24 hours and harvest, you know predators. And then we take those predators to a weigh-in and whichever team had the most weight essentially wins money right? And it's big money in Texas like they're the biggest one we sponsor it now it's kind of funny to like to start with it and now sponsor it but um, it pays out, you know over fifty thousand dollars for whoever shoots the biggest bobcat three times a year So fifty thousand three times a year, so it's huge money And so what we were doing is we were using a different cartridge at 22 uh 250 which is fast great a lot of people use them don't have any hate for classic cartridge. Classic. Yep, and what was happening is you shoot lightweight projectiles really fast but what happened if in these competitions every minute counted, right? And so there's a competition I remember doing with Hazer in Wyoming we shoot this uh coyote and he runs off and i'm having to trail it and we end up being late to weigh in by like 30 minutes. If you're late doesn't count and we lost out on over four grand For being late and I'm and I left there and I remember thinking we were going to shoot the biggest heaviest fastest thing and just K.O. stuff right there. And so we started messing around with a 22 243 another Wildcat and David Stroud came to me and said what about this Creedmoor deals? We were doing the 65 Creedmoor at the time and took a lot of slack.

Tarek: When you say when he came to you and said what about this creedmoor deal? Yeah, what what does he mean by that? So translate that?

Derrick: Yeah, so the creedmoor case was something that Hornady had done and released I'm going to say in the 2009 10 11 window and basically what they did is the Creedmoor name refers to the shape of the brass and then basically you put the powder and the projectile in that now. I have a 6.5 so the size of a neck of the bullet and then the case Creedmoor and that and they basically pioneered the 6.5 Creedmoor. And it revolutionized the game low recoil had really good ballistic performance and but at the same time it kind of overlaps some old classic offerings and really offended some people.

Tarek: And so 6.5 is the diameter of the projectile.

Derrick: Correct 6.5 millimeters. Yeah Yep, and so it's 0.264 inches, right? And so It was gaining traction, but it's really stepping on the toes of conventional thought so people are like, oh, it'll never last because the 260s better. Well, we just said oh just lean into it and so we were just pumping it on the forums and so David showed up and said what if we just? Neck down the 6.5 to a 22 we shove a 22 projectile in it. Now. We have a 22 Creedmoor. It'll be fast, flat, whatever.

Tarek: So the just about the same amount of powder, correct? Yeah, same amount of gunpowder in the brass smaller projectile goes a lot faster.

Derrick: Really really fast which fast in the in the world of hunting predators, I always like to tell people you are trying to shoot something the size of a two liter bottle at an unknown distance that's moving, right? And so you just need margin of error everything you can do to get your margin of error gives you more hits on target. And so, we made one and it fed like so actually the bullet came up out of the magazine and it fed and cycled and performed better than the 22-243 that we were using right man. This this might actually work and so I built one for me one for David and David went out of course put it on the forums and it just like took off. And so, we sort of build more and build more

Tarek: So were you were you then? So were you buying the components also to make the ammo? Yeah, so you had what like a Dillon Press?

Derrick: Exactly. I had a Dillon Press bought a Dillon 650 Press and you just start buying powder and projectiles getting the brass and loading it and then we're really going after the kind of Wildcatters, right? The people who wanted to load and stuff and and I think what what really sort of flipped the switch is the the I love we had an old flat track racetrack in our hometown right and I don't know if anybody's familiar with that when you win a flat track race the people who competed against you are allowed to buy your motor because you're not allowed to spend more than a certain amount on your motor So that you're not cheating they buy your motor and take it out of your car and run home, right? Well the the predator market started to kind of act like that. So David and them would go to these competitions and they'd win them. What is David's strategy? He's using a 22 Creedmoor. Well, some of the guys that we were working with David that now had 22 Creedmoor, well, they would sell theirs to a competitor they just beat and then call me and want another one And I'm like, oh this is really interesting because there's no other gun manufacturer making a 22 Creedmoor. And so now all of a sudden the teams that were winning money were buying 22 Creedmoors and using Horizon guns and so it just started getting really popular.

Tarek: Were you playing at that point with different loads, different projectile sizes trying to dial in the ballistics?

Derrick: Yes, and trying to draw in the ballistics and at the same time there's some you know really interesting signs between like twist rate of the barrel. So like the inside of a barrel is twisted, right? And it and it spins the bullet so many revolutions per inch, right? And so if you spin a bullet too fast, it's kind of like a top it'll it'll literally explodebefore it gets downrange. If you spin it too slow it wobbles like a duck football and doesn't hit the target appropriately. So there's a fine range and it's too fast too slow to and so we mess around with twist rates and loads to get it just right um partially luck and we'll talk about that later partially luck and and a lot of a lot of tri-storming and yeah, a lot of trystorming, trystorm.

Tarek: What is what is trystorming?

Derrick: We uh, it's kind of like brainstorming but instead of just thinking about it you just didn't do it Never heard that never trystorm fast, you know, so, um, yeah, and so a lot of it was that um And you know, it kind of started to work and so people cut asking us for ammo so doing the doing thing And we load up a bunch of ammunition and it's more than I can make and I know we're probably going too high pressure There's no SAAMI spec on this thing. I don't know. It's working and it's killing coyotes, right? and

Tarek: coming around. You say SAAMI spec define what that is for the listeners because that plays in the story.

Derrick: SAAMI is basically, I'm gonna call it our governing body for who gets to christen whether or not this is an official round what the specs are for and if you're going to build it how you have to build it and

Tarek: That way other gun companies as well as other ammo manufacturers are now building to a standard standard spec. Yep, and when it's Wildcat, it's it's free range.

Derrick: And the thing about a while it is rare rare rare that a Wildcat ever ends up being SAAMI approved Because as a Wildcat picks up you may do it a little bit different than me and you may tie a different twist rate And whatever but because we created it I had all these companies calling us. What about the 22 Creedmoor? What reamer are you using? Well, I was strategic with working with like Proof Research and some of the other guys who were competitors But I knew that if they were doing the same thing as us That like the ammo would be somewhat standard and I could sell more ammo and so, you know about that time. You know really you helped a tremendous amount, you know we got you know, Texas Precious Metals killing it over here and we had several conversations about well ammo is basically metal that's also precious. And you know you had the whole COVID thing where ammunition became so valuable and and you were more or less able to work out a deal with me with Spark and Peterson to load in volume. And and create you know you know, you created essentially Texas Ammunition which still exists today and it's man that's some of the best. I'm telling you and then we're doing anybody listen to this and once that ammo we're doing a throwback to Texas Ammo one run 17 000 rounds. Really? Yeah, it's it's a good stuff.

Tarek: So so before we jump ahead to that because I do want to get into the kind of the mass marketing now of 22 Creedmoor, but you're in your garage and there there are a couple things that are really driving a lot of the sales. One is you know the forums and David Stroud. You've you've created this new caliber. That's lights out. And you're making the coolest looking guns in the market and if anybody's just listening and not watching just go to horizonfirearms.com you can see a bunch of the the cool different designs that they have. But you were you were really keen on making sure that these were works of art. Yeah. And you were doing a lot of custom guns, some custom rifles for guys that were high end doing safaris in Africa and all kinds of different things, right?

Derrick: Yeah, we sat down my brother and I so at this time my youngest brother came on and was working with me. You know, he'd be the one he used to be the one in the garage doing the hard work where I was talking to the customer, right? You know and just making this thing work and we sat down early on and said look I don't really care about building a gun for the guy who's buying it. What I care most about is that his grandkid, and I want to build something that he when he passes this grandkid he you know, the grandkid remembers, well this gun, you know granddad took on the you know, mule deer hunt and you know xyz. There's a great Roger Creager song that talks about like this old gun and like that story really resonated with me, like that's what I need to do. That's what makes it different. And so yeah, that's that's what we're gonna do.

Tarek: I remember having a conversation with you around that time and we were talking a lot about what your goals were for the company and you mentioned it earlier you know in this conversation where you really wanted to do something special in the outdoor space. So, some people start company because they want to make a ton of money or they they want um you know to to build, you know some kind of legacy business for their children or what have you. In your mind you wanted to just create. Yeah. And you wanted the freedom to do that now you're self-financing the company. Uh, you're having some great success. I remember seeing you at Dallas Safari Club in 2014. It's like lines of people lining up because you had just built this incredible reputation making the best guns and you know as we started having these conversations, it's like how do you achieve your goals in in a manner that is not you're not going to be handicapped by you know lack of funds or lack of resources and as you're growing you have all kinds of needs from legal to IT to payroll to you know all the different administrative challenges that that come with starting a company. Even more difficult in the firearm space with FFL and all the challenges dealing with the ATF and all that kind of stuff, right so so you know, I remember those early stage conversations and and bringing your company back into the Kaspar Company's fault. Yeah. Which was kind of the the next the next generation.

Derrick: Yeah. Big change. Yeah, so I want to I want to uh, I'm going to go back and tell a little bit of that story, right? So at that trade show booth, Dallas Safari Club, show that year, right? So we had a little bit of booth and it had two little wooden tables on it and we had this backdrop there was basically two big heavy boards that were skinned in skinned in shower board. That had some pop-off graphics and I never will forget I bought the I bought the light um off of Craigslist at the time my brother and I built the tables we built the stuff You know the night before the graphics broke cost me endless money or whatever And then at that show the light that I bought on Craigslist caught on fire. Nobody knowed it It started to smoke and I had to run behind and unplug it because it almost knocked the booth down behind me. So this is like scrapping it and and this is Dallas Safari Club.

Tarek: This is anybody that's been to Dallas Safari Club these booths are crazy expensive. All the biggest names in the firearms industry, all the most expensive hunts in Africa and Alaska. Everybody's there and you got your little start on my little thing Horizon booth

Derrick: I mean we were bootstrapping and I remember you and I had a conversation there uh about just you know Kaspar Companies wanted to be involved in guns, gold, and grill and and really for me like I had big ass for the grill guards for the grill guards. You have the Ranch Hand side and um You know a lot of aspirations for the product side and had some patent stuff that I wanted to work on the rings and bases and stuff. And Kaspar provided the cash and the the structure to be able to do things that we wouldn't have been able to do.

Tarek: To have the creative freedom without the the difficulties

Derrick: Well, and you told me two things and I don't know if you remember this and I and I always joke. I don't remember anything. Yeah, well, you know, you're getting old, right? No, you told me two things and I always tell Kat that one of these days I'm going to write a book I'm going to put these two things in it Is that you I don't know if you remember this you sat me down and said if you've got a Plan B you never had a Plan A. And I love that and to this day I've used that on so many people I'm like, what's your Plan B and no then you don't have a Plan A, you know. And so I live by that quite a bit. And then one time you told me look, you got a certain amount of fuel, and you have a rocket, and so you have the opportunity. You can let the rocket burn the fuel out and then have a dud. Or you send the rocket when you've got the fuel and it's got to have enough fuel to get that rocket off the launch pad. Yep. So don't burn it just sitting there do something and those are two super super impactful moments. So it made sense for me You know to roll it into Kaspar Company and I'm a big like with our family, you know heritage and all that kind of stuff and in the Kaspar family heritage I'm a I'm a sucker for legacy, you know, and that's one reason I love the legacy pieces on the gun And so, you know being able to merge in with Kaspar and tell that long-term story you know 126 year old company combined with you know my family's legacy in Texas and our brand and stuff It just made sense to try and focus on the next generation and at that time, you know when I was back here You know Daddy Don who was kind of a patriarch of Kaspar Companies and we have it you ought to see it in our office plaster huge on the wall I sat down with him one time and I said Daddy Don what what is the secret to all this mess? He's like, how do you how do you have a hundred year old company like what? You know talk to me about that. And he before before you get into that.

Tarek: Let me just frame this a little bit. So Kaspar Company is founded in 1898 One of the longest continuously operating manufacturing companies in the State of Texas Made it through two World Wars, a Great Depression now a fifth generation family business became known for actually making newspaper racks which started lots of them 90 of all newspaper racks in North America were actually manufactured by Kaspar Companies. When that business was on the decline, that's when they they went and bought Ranch Hand. So long legacy in Texas and all started at the Homestead House where Horizon started weaving horse muzzles and corn shark baskets and and anybody that's been down to this part of Texas knows that you're far away from a lot of things and like what Derrick was saying at the outset about you have to learn how to be an inventor uh, a creator a mechanic all all in one and that's really the legacy of Kaspar Companies is just manufacturing and being creative.

Derrick: So this is kind of the background to this conversation. Yeah, so I'm sitting basically with third generation right who had taken the company to next level, right? And and he was probably at that time, oh, I don't know at late 70s early 80s. Came into work every day, always took the bank deposits, and I loved it so much because he had come in my office every day with mail he couldn't throw anything away. So he'd come in my office with mail and he'd say Derrick, we'll set this on your desk because it's way easier for you to throw away than it is for me I just can't do it. He'd cut up calendars and leave them just the whole deal, right?

Tarek: So he comes in he's sorting through his mail I got I actually got a better better one for you is he walked into my office and I don't know how old he is at this time 80 85 years old maybe. And uh, you remember he never had a computer. Yep, and everybody is communicating with email. And so he would have all of the secretaries print out any email that came in and you know most emails are like one sentence or two sentences and he said Tarek, I don't understand this email thing. It's such a waste of paper. I love it.

Derrick: I love it, man. That's a good story but yeah, so he's sitting there and he's across from me on the desk and he's shuffling through his mail and he pulls out the Shiner Gazette, he's he kicks his legs up like he always did in, his coffee cup, you know. Don, what's what's the secret all this stuff rolls down his paper looks at me. He said well It's real simple. We don't make cheap sorry product. Picks up his paper it was that was that that was done. And I mean there was no more to the conversation besides we don't make cheap sorry, you know cheap sorry stuff and and uh cheap sorry product and I was like wow. It's as simple as you can just boom tell me that and go back to reading the newspaper and it was done conversation and so um, anyway, it's just it was good to be uh, to be able to roll back with that kind of heritage.

Tarek: I mean and you can really distill just about any business into two things one is you've got to have a good product. Yep. And two is you got to treat people the right way.

Derrick: Yep.

Tarek: That's it. That's that's business. Yep. It doesn't matter how big or how small it is, you gotta have a good product and you got to treat people the right way 100 and you can't run out of cash. You can't run out.

Derrick: You gotta hit go when you can hit go, right? Exactly can't run again don't have a Plan B. But yeah, I know so, uh, gosh, I don't even know where we're going from there but yeah, that's how we ended up being part of Kaspar Companies. And you know and so at that point it was full steam ahead with you know, go back to 22 Creedmoor there. So at that point we're going full steam ahead. We create Iota so we literally launch a company based on like these rings and bases. So let me let me interject there for a second. So, you know, we talked at the beginning of the founding of Horizon there's like five components that go into this gun and what's the problem?

Tarek: You can't get the components. Yeah, all these guys all these orders coming in and you know, 14 month lead times, etc. So what do you do? What you have always done?

Derrick: Well, we'll just make it ourselves. Yeah, and I love that story too. And and um, unfortunately the the individual I'm going to talk about has since passed away. But there's a company called McMillan and McMillan was making all the stocks, right? And um Kelly McMillan was the guy who owned it and we were buying stocks from them but the lead time was crazy. And like you said you just collect cash and you'd sit here and wait on parts and then you'd turn it fast and you got it there was just no way to scale that and I remember I took an order for a customer for a specific color of stock and told the customer it would be you know three or four months or whatever lead time and they went on the website McMillan McMillan had that photo of that color in stock listed and customer calls me back and chews me a new one tell me basically that I'm the one that's slow and I'm, you know sandbag and all this kind of stuff And they want to cancel the order. So so I said, well, hang on a second. Let me call McMillan. So I call McMillan up, say I'm one of your dealers, ordered a bunch of stuff and you got this color. I just ordered it, just send me that one. So well can but it's full retail. What are you talking about? Well, that's our ecom that's not for our dealers to use so, you know, you can buy it but it's it's full retail. And I remember having a conversation about next DSC and telling Kelly I just want you to be real clear. That I am going to be one of your biggest competitors and it starts like now and we're just letting you know that and by the next year we had Iota going and we're making our own stocks because you just couldn't do it any other way.

Tarek: Yeah um. And so I mean you create Iota from scratch you eventually buy Stiller actions.

Derrick: That's that's the second piece. Yeah, they were our first sponsor of the tv show. So we ended up acquiring them later. Yeah, pretty incredible.

Tarek: Yeah, and And all the while 22 Creedmoor is growing it's growing and you go to YouTube and it's all these guys with all of their videos and it's just getting more and more and more popular and uh, as you mentioned earlier, so I start Texas Ammo I start building a lot of relationships in the in the industry with the big guys, not just like the little guys Yeah, the big the big boys when you have capital you kind of work with the big boys and um, and you had had a bit of history with Hornady and and maybe you can share a little bit about how Yeah Hornady and Horizon work finally work together The marriage to bring 22 Creedmoor make it SAAMI certified and now take it to the mass market It's just such an incredible story

Derrick: Well, and I want to start with what's so cool about Hornady is their third generation and they're Nebraska boys and they work very similar. We do it's it's your word your word If you don't need a contract it's handshake but what we say we're going to do we're going to do it and we're going to do it a big way, right? And you know I love the like swagger and image that Hornady has right and so when we started doing the 22 Creedmoor obviously they created the six five, but we wanted Hornady and I remember we would figure out what trade shows that Jason Hornady himself was going to be at and I would just go stand in their booth like a little you know, it's like stalking a girl that yeah It was basically oh 100 100. I would I would sit there like a lost puppy hoping anybody walked by and hey Jason maybe you ever thought about the 22 Creedmoor? And I know to this day we've joked about it because I mean he's like he wouldn't remember me, you know but I can say that there's been at least three conversations in their booth at different shows that I have said Hey, Jason, what about the 22 Creedmoor? He goes on about right, you know and so what I figured is I'm never going to get to Hornady and so we started going to Shot Show and there's a guy named Ryan Damon who has become a great friend of mine. He was a new engineer for them and about my same age and I was like, you know what, I just I want to meet somebody there and he's like you want to be part of the cool kid, right? You're like the band, you know, I don't know if I can say that you're like the band kid that you just want to go to a football party. And so I uh so Ryan, let me take you to lunch. And so Ryan and I started going to lunch every Shot Show just catching up And so I'm gonna send you 22 Creedmoor. So we did a real cool Hornady theme 22 Creedmoor and just shipped it to him and he started working on ammunition and new projectiles. This has been 12 years before we launch it and him and I are testing stuff constantly um, and it it never got off the ground. Well, you got to understand like the dynamics of the industry. So we're working on 22 Creedmoor, Federal releases the 224 Valkyrie and all of a sudden the 22 markets now covered up with this Valkyrie and Hornady needs to make projectiles to cover this Valkyrie . Well, 22 Creedmoor gets put on the side. It'll never work. There's problems with with the it's too much power, it's too fast, you know, nobody will ever want it.

Tarek: It gets parked in like Hornady and Federal they're kind of like frenemies frenemies.

Derrick: They're real strong frenemies. Yeah. And and dude, the the whole space is like that the ammo space is even worth like I'll buy primers from you, you buy brass from me. I'll make your projectiles you load them for me like it's it's frenemies to the nth degree and yeah, so we we do this deal and there's another and I won't mention them here but there's another ammo company that approaches Texas Ammo or we approach them to do a 22 Creedmoor big release. It needs to be SAAMI approved if we don't get it at SAAMI approved now, it may not last right? um, and so we're about to have this meeting. We're like a week. This is some of those God things, right? We're like a week away from having that meeting and I'm at Dallas Safari Club show back to Dallas Safari Club show. We got a real booth here now, you know, and we're and I happen to be in Dallas. You don't have to show but Yeah, yeah and so I go to the bathroom and I'm drying my hands and Neil, uh Davies walks in anybody in the industry Neil Neil for me as somebody as a marketing guy in the industry like, you know if he sees this whatever like really look up like he is the guy like if you want to look at mark, like who is the guy who controls marketing in the industry? He's the guy right and um, and I've always loved what they what they've done there. So like he walks in and he's like washing his hands and he's like hey Derrick. And I don't know that he knows me from jack and so I don't say anything and it was just very unlike me but I'm like, okay, whatever. I just gotta get out here. Oh my gosh. No Davies, you know, he said dude you're the only other dude in this bathroom. I'm talking to you and then like, oh, okay and and he said hey, how's that 22 Creedmoor going? I said it's good let me tell you how good and I need you need to make ammo like these are the numbers we're selling in ammo and what I love about Neil and he's he's you know, I think he grew up in South Africa has that like mentality. He's like, yeah, it's good. We're doing this thing. I'm calling Jason right now, right? And so we end up and we met that night.

Tarek: We met that night.

Derrick: Yeah, we so we end up in a uh, I don't remember what was a really awesome like speakeasy in Dallas somewhere and uh, and literally get the 22 Creedmoor project started. Two or three days before we were about to do it with somebody else and fast forward we end up at Shot Show talking to Jason Hornady about the 22 Creedmoor and you know how we're going to launch it and such and because of what you've done with Texas Ammo they they knew we were serious. They knew we were serious distributor and I think a lot of people don't understand like you know, Texas Ammo is is not just a fly by night distributor. I mean we distribute a lot a lot of ammo from all the big guys and so we had the history we had all the sales and could support it and then put our money where our mouth is and put in a humongous order. I guess you can even say humongous.

Tarek: I mean, this was this was one of those we believe in the product we believe in the company we believe in in Derrick and we're we're going all in on 22 Creedmoor. Now if you remember at the time, I forget how many employees were at Horizon, but there was no way Horizon was going to be able to make enough guns to meet the demand once all the ammo was out there. So we started having conversations with other we won't name them here, but other gun companies and saying hey, this is coming. It's going to be big can you commit to rolling out the rifles and you know for for those listening this is always one of the the challenges with um, you know the firearm space is that you know, if you're a rifle manufacturer and you have a new caliber you are very much beholden to the ammo manufacturers to ensure that there's ammo but if you're an ammo manufacturer and you want to release a new caliber you got to make sure that you got gun companies that can make the guns or you're not going to sell any ammo. So there's this constant collaboration between the two and so here we had Hornady who was excited about the product Horizons making phenomenal guns, but not to the volumes that that we felt like the market was going to need so we started having these conversations with these other gun companies and

Derrick: We thought we had it in a bag. We were like, we're like done.

Tarek: We're in Vegas. We got it and and lo and behold they were all having manufacturing problems. They were supply chain issues. There's backlog. We got this roadmap, there are layers of bureaucracy and it was like well, it's like being back on the farm and Boyd, right?

Derrick: I guess we're gonna have to do it ourselves. Can compare with I don't remember now our our largest distributor in the nation Horizon's biggest customer basically, we had a phone call with them and they literally said I will do a couple hundred and we went the biggest distributor in the country is only going to 200 like what are we going to do? And I remember we had that call afterwards and and and you pitched and I very much appreciate to this day pitch to the c-suite group like we literally have to do that. We have no choice. We have to do this. And I fast forward and the the their initial order was more than 200 22 Creedmoor and you knew that was good. Yeah, exactly And so, um, it was just you know, a really really interesting thing So yeah, we we catapulted in a fast kind of way from being a custom gun company only to what we call our core rifle line So we have our select custom line, which we still only build three a month We draw them on paper or we'll draw them digitally for you to see the gun before we build it And it's three months and that's it and then we have our core line which is we call it custom at the core because it uses custom type components to build really really solid rifles um that you know, you would pay another gunsmith to go buy all the parts that we make anyway and assemble a similar rifle and So um, we started doing that and was wild so for reference 2023 you know, we're still a custom gun company we finish the year at around 250 guns total, right? And so this is the time nothing nothing, you know not to support this amount of ammo. So then you go forward to 2024 we launched 22 Creedmoor in August and by the end of the year. We've now booked manufactured sold 940, right? So massive exponential growth. We go into 2025 and February 2025 we book more than we ship the entire full year so we go from like 200 guns to on pace right now to be right under 10 000 guns and like a two and a half year way incredible, right?

Tarek: And so it was just wild and you know, it's important to talk about that too because so many companies I I always say like companies fail either because they don't sell enough or they sell too much and they can't handle the growth. We went through that period as well Texas Precious Metals in 2023. We just had this explosive growth that you're still having Yeah, especially with gold at 30 3300 at the time of this recording um no, but you know, it's it's so difficult to be able to grow the company at speed to train people up to hire the right people to maintain the culture to you know all of the the tribal knowledge that goes with making these, you know specialty items and having to keep pace with this enormous demand that's coming in on 22 Creedmoor and really being the only game in town for a lot of that stock.

Derrick: Yep, and I think like that. I mean, you know I think we had a lot of people like yourself that believed in us and at the same time we had the system of Kaspar, right? So, you know the financial backing the understanding of how to I mean at the root of it Kaspar We've been building product for 120 years

Tarek: Let's talk about Kaspar just for for a second too because obviously people know that you know, I'm the president of Texas Precious Metals the founder co-founder of that company You're the founder of Horizon Firearms Kaspar operates a lot like a Berkshire Hathaway where you have this parent company with a lot of administrative services and then you have these subsidiary businesses that are underneath that parent and actually as I'm talking to you today, we're here for the annual Kaspar Business Summit and so as we are you know talking about our stories and I'm factoring into your story you're factoring in mine what what might be confusing to people is that you know, we actually cross pollinate a lot of our ideas and we are all of the the presidents of the companies and the founders, you know trying to think of creative ways to um, you know share, you know market schemes or um, you know run ideas by people. What would you do in this situation? How would you go to market with this? How would you brand that and so, you know, I have spent a lot of time on the Horizon side and Texas Ammo and um, and we'll talk about Circle Y a little bit later as well and kind of how that factors into the whole thing. Well, I think that's like the strength of it, right?

Derrick: So you have this company that operates like a big corporation that's still family-owned and operated which gives them like this weird Like nimbleness that doesn't exist in other places that I've seen with like a system that they've created themselves that sort of has these arms that kind of operate autonomously, but sort of the same so it's a really weird soup and you're able to have

Tarek: I mean, obviously Texas Precious Metals is a a mature company but you know, you are able to have these these incubated businesses that allow entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs to be creative to fail To have the backing to have the infrastructure the support the wisdom the the guidance the mentorship the capital um to successfully go to market and you know in in, you know today's world a lot of um businesses that finally get their feet off the ground are acquired by private equity and most private equity firms I don't want to generalize every single private equity firm, but they're in it to fix and flip Or or cut costs and flip it and they don't look at the long term and they're not interested in playing the long game The Kaspars' have always been playing the long game They're gonna outlast everybody right 126 years you and I have known each other gosh for for how long at this point

Derrick: Can't tell that story, please.

Tarek: Yeah, go ahead So yeah, so I I don't even know that had to have been what?

Derrick: 09 2010. Okay. So 2010 I'm working. We're back here in Shiner this is still in the in the soup of Horizons early days and again, my wife's fifth generation and I remember it was like hey, we're gonna have this meeting with this guy and he's got this business idea yeah, it'll be through zoom. He'll be on tv. He lives.

Tarek: It was like Skype and you were in is it Argentina at the time right so I'm like oh this is cool have a chance to talk to some guy through this computer program that's kind of new in Argentina. Let's do this.

Derrick: And so I remember basically you're like, hey, here's what we're gonna do we're gonna we're gonna take some cash we're gonna put it in gold and silver but it's but it's actually still like your cash and we're gonna like do these turns it's okay. It's super safe and and like this whole thing. I'm like, wow, this is this is this is different. This is crazy, but cool idea and um and and I remember like we finished it like okay we should probably try that and then I remember my my father-in-law like I don't know if he hand-delivered you the money or whatever we had like a 45 minute call on Thanksgiving where he was like, who is this guy? Yeah, are we really gonna wire this guy like a million bucks? Is there this company like what is going and uh, I love I love hearing your side of the story from being like you're giving I'm seeing it as a major awesome presentation got dressed up and you're giving the other side of the story where you're like in a cardboard box your wife climbing through the window and I just like when you when I finally heard that story I'm like I resonate with this guy, right?

Tarek: Like and so that I haven't told that story when you say my my wife climbing through the window let me let me explain this. We had we had rented a place in Argentina and it was a small place and I had had um uh a newborn baby and we it was our our second child and we had one bedroom and so there was no office for me. So the only office I had was the mudroom Okay, so I converted the mudroom of this little apartment into my office and it was the only door in and out of the apartment So when I'm on a business call My wife couldn't roll through the mudroom like because I didn't want anybody to hear the child or or whatever and so she would climb in and out of the bedroom window to sneak back into our house because I had the mudroom on lockdown

Derrick: So I love it. That's the same kind of thing. I said the Cherise's had Rhyder in our back room Exactly. I love I love the parallels. But yeah, so man we go very patient wives. Yeah, exactly but yeah, so that was and I still remember to uh real early in Texas Precious Metal. I don't remember y'all had me do a delivery to a Horizon customer. Remember that I remember that.

Tarek: Yeah Remind me.

Derrick: Yeah, so I remember y'all calling me up. Hey, okay we we we sell gold and silver to these customers and then we have to kind of deliver it but like their special thing we need you to go to this bank and pick up this bag. Take it take the the gold and silver out of this bag and then deliver it to this guy he's going to come by and meet you. Okay He said whenever you say we'll give you a Texas silver round to do it and I still have that Texas silver round in my gun safe All right, cool, this is neat So I remember I roll up to the bank in College Station and walk in So I talked to the banker and I said hey you got a Brinks truck coming here with some stuff for me And I remember they looked at me like what and I said look I understand it may not be here yet Here's my phone number And I I don't make it a mile back out of the bank and the lady calls me furious and she's like you have to get here now and and never do this again And and then you remember you tell me like take different back ways make sure nobody's following you Like what is going on? So I like walk out of the bank with this bank bag of stuff and I think it was a couple million bucks or something in gold and silver and um, but it was just like that's how I guess how it was.

Tarek: I have so many stories the early days the early days I mean it really was the wild west especially when I moved back to Shiner and we were sitting right in the heart of the Eagleford. Oh, yeah boom and there was just money flowing from everywhere remember the lady I remember one lady came in and um uh so She we call it mailbox money. Basically. Yeah, basically, you know, the oil companies will mail checks for the the oil residuals Yep, right and a lot of these farmers who haven't had any money their entire lives, but they're sitting on 600 acres they were fracking underneath their their land and this old lady. She's maybe you know, 80 years old or whatever. She walks into the bank and she says I want to cash this $1,500 check. The the lady on the other side, do you know this story? The the lady on the other side she's like ma'am that ain't a 1500 check. That's a 1.5 million dollar check. I mean and this was happening all over the place so the people are like, what are we going to do with all this money? And so we ended up being the beneficiary of that like a lot of people buying precious metals and they're like you know, can you deliver it to me over here on county road 350? You know and like all this kind of stuff. It was it was pretty crazy.

Derrick: You figured it out.

Tarek: I figured it out I want to close with uh, just a couple things number one this yeah it's our rabble man. This is the first time I've even seen what I know that's why I brought it. So you like that this reminds me of those those, uh, pistols from like 1789.

Derrick: So what I what I love about this and again, it's very Horizon that's why I wanted to bring it. So we got a couple things going on we've got the Wombat Action, which I love branding so it actually has a little angry wombat and our marketing you know kind of slogan for it. It's the cuddliest little death machine So a skeletonized action is lightest titanium but made out of steel something that we in-house developed something I'm super super proud of But the pistol itself, um, we call it our Rabble Pistol and I run a YouTube channel 22 Creedmoor We have an On the Horizon podcast and we kept getting questions asked around the 22 Creedmoor Well, you know, what speed is it at this barrel link? What speed is it this barrel link? And so I got an idea. So what i'm going to do is I'm going to build a 26 inch long rifle linked pistol I'm gonna go out I'm gonna shoot a YouTube video We'll shoot it and we'll cut it off with a hacksaw shoot it and cut it off with a hacksaw and then we get down to 13 inches and shoot a group So we get down 13 inches and shoot a sub We're right at a half minute angle group at 400 yards with this pistol And people kept asking and never intended to sell it right and people kept saying well, hey, can I buy that pistol? We're gonna buy a pistol and so we started making the Rabble Pistol based on a YouTube series that we did. So cool, I just figured you'd appreciate it's just more innovation with it.

Tarek: You you've actually deer hunter.

Derrick: Oh, yeah I do it with that this year.

Tarek: So cool so before I get into the last topic here Kat Kat's gonna get mad if I don't remind every listener. Oh, okay to hit the like button Subscribe 100 five stars across the board if you're liking this and if you don't like it, please don't do anything

Derrick: well, and I'll say in in not to shame my spog here either but people don't realize how important that is So like, you know, we've we've now gotten maybe 10 000 or whatever on ours For a group that's getting started like and subscribe and like and subscribe early. So if you're a passive, uh listener of this don't be a passive listener of this because it helps you keep going share it. Send it to your friends if you think it's useful if it's interesting and we're trying to figure it out, you know. This is what episode seven.

Tarek: Yeah, so yeah, we're we're trying to bring good content and and great guests like you want to close with Circle Y. Yeah, so kind of come in full circle circle man horse lover guy easily distracted by cows I love it. We um Kaspar Companies. I say we Kaspar Companies, uh last year two years ago bought Circle Y saddles and um So the history of Circle Y I'd like you to get into that just a little bit because it ties back into the Kaspar history as well But Circle Y is the the largest by volume saddle manufacturer in the world at this point, I think right correct and uh, and like we were saying you know the the presidents and the founders of the subsidiaries get involved with with the other businesses and you have a huge passion for um for riding for you know horsemanship for cows and all that good stuff and and I Do a Texas Precious Metals we've become a big sponsor of you know ProRodeo So we've been heavily involved in that and that's been a whole lot of fun and we had Cody Webster on here We're gonna have a bunch of other um You know rodeo guys still jealous.

Derrick: You're working with Riley coming on later.

Tarek: You need to come holler at me Riley. You're coming. You're coming here we're gonna learn about your story Riley Webb two-time NFR champion needs to be riding the Circle Y Circle Y yeah so so what's going on with Circle Y? How are you getting involved with that?

Derrick: Well, so let me let me start by telling you the history like I told you I'm a sucker for legacy, right? and so it's so cool about Circle Y is Circle Y is I'm gonna call it a descendant of Um Textan so Textan for anybody who doesn't know Kaspar Company so Kaspar is one granddad or one great great granddad on one side that basically started picking up wire making wire products the same time basically these other descendants of the other side of the family this well housing side Um came back to Yoakum and started a tannery which later become one of the biggest tanneries and one of the biggest saddle producers as Textan and was later acquired by Tandy Corp and You know essentially, you know Carl Wellhausen who started Textan and ultimately ended up on the board at RadioShack, right?

Tarek: Oh, which is crazy.

Derrick: I mean if you think about it from the leather side Well when when Textan sold to Tandy Corp there were some individuals who basically busted off of that And and Yoakum the land of leather spun off multiple saddle companies and one of those being Circle Y and so Um, you know when and the Y is standing for Yoakum first stands forYoakum Yeah, and so I remember you know, it's kind of an interesting again one of those interesting uh unique moments in life where the the owner the current owner of or the previous owner of Circle Y Um was actually planning a church in College Station, which is where I live, right? And so he's flying back and forth and um, and you know, the plane went down and you know four I believe it's four individuals tragically, you know passed away. One lone survivor on that deal and Yoakum being so close to Shiner 10 10 miles away 10 miles away. Yeah, and we you know basically Jason somehow made some relationship with Circle Y And we were able to kind of tell them our story of how we felt like that was part of our legacy And wanted that to be back into kind of the the Kaspar suite and so the actual formal Formal name of what we call all the the Circle Brands as well housing legacy And so well housing legacy acquired Circle Y Which also includes Reinsman and also includes Tucker and Precision Saddle Tree So basically, you know, they do all these all these various things in the leather world and so they do contract manufacturing also for other There's that

Tarek: the saddle trees for

Derrick: Yeah for some of your big guys, you know, you're you're high in coach bones burns like those kind of guys um We make a lot of parts for those kind of things So it was cool about it, uh from that sense and then I want to talk about back into my world. So um, you know growing up, uh, obviously roping and ranching it was a big deal and one Christmas my dad gave me a saddle that I still own today. It meant a whole lot to me um and that saddle was a Hurfer which is Textan and inside that saddle has these d-rings were made by Kaspar long before I met my wife, right? It meant so much to me at that time and my dad and I his relationship was a little rocky at that point and it was like to me Textan just meant everything right? So when we lived here and yep So I'm gonna bring it all back together when we lived here in Shiner We were up in the attic at the Homestead House and found this picture And it's basically these three horses running down the road road and then kind of the back two other horses and just a beautiful picture and so we kept it when we moved out of Shiner and Uncle Doug saw it said, you know that was in Carl Wellhausen's office at Tandy. No way Textan and so that is in my dining room, right? And so, you know fast forward, um, so you took all the good stuff out of the Homestead House There's nothing left.

Tarek: I got there.

Derrick: I got the goods out of there But yeah, so it was just like that whole legacy piece and leather and like, you know growing up in the ranching family and and just really living that lifestyle The opportunity came here just a few weeks ago almost a month now to be involved as the VP of Marketing for Circle Brands which includes kind of that whole group and so yeah, I mean it's it's I told my wife look I'm founder of Horizon doing VP of Marketing products over there And I know I'm busy. I know I travel a lot but here's this this, you know opportunity and I remember she was like oh gosh, and when you say marketing, I mean marketing can be a broad term it's it's also product development.

Tarek: It falls under marketing, correct?

Derrick: It's a product. Yeah product development and then I um strongly believe in influencer relation building not just like sponsoring people but basically bringing influencers into the family and you know helping ourself you you know working with them to develop new products that people actually want and then understanding how to promote them in the correct Kind of way and that's what I love most about my job is, you know working with people like, you know Lady named Kenda who's like the number one mounted shooter, you know, and then just like and then people like Martha Josey who's one of the most well-known names legacies in the barrel world? And so just a lot of cool stuff So yeah, my wife I told her and she's like, uh, and she came back in the room and said look here's the deal I know you and I know that like you're made up of guns and everything that is cow western right and if it was anything else I'd tell you to run like crazy but I know that I can't tell you now and wow, so here we are, you know

Tarek: I for a company that is what 40 50 years old at this point 60 60 65. Yeah, I just celebrated the 65th um I I mean I've been privy to a lot of the conversations to see where Circle Y is about to go what what's coming down the pike what innovations are very excited. I mean, I can't talk about all of it yet but you know if you're listening and you're in the outdoor you know space ProRodeo. Yep um, you ride horses wait, wait to see what's coming.

Derrick: I can't wait man. We're gonna we're gonna do uh, we're gonna do Horizon things to Circle Brands that's all I have to say. All right, go get it.

Tarek: Go get it brother.

Derrick: Awesome, man. Appreciate it.

Tarek: Thanks for having so good you