Guidefitter Spotlight Episode 11: Dane Williams, Co-Founder of Hardside Hydration

Transcript

Bryan Koontz Hey everyone. The following conversation is with Dane Williams. He's the co-founder of a company on Guidefitter, a Guidefitter partner called Hardside Hydration. And they solved an interesting challenge with backcountry hunting and backpacking and so on with related to hydration, obviously, where Dane had a bladder in his backpack that actually burst while packing. So they invented a cool little company, him and Dustin, his co-founder. Called Hardside Hydration that solves this challenge. so listen to this conversation with a great entrepreneur who has recently moved himself, his family, and his company to Montana. And his co-founder also just moved to Montana. So great Montana company that's a recent Guidefitter partner, Hardside Hydration. Check it out. Hope you enjoy it and learn something. And once again, thank you for joining the Guidefitter Spotlight.

DANE (00:00) You

Bryan Koontz (00:02) No, I think it's cool. You got the deer in the back and the gun safe. No, I think that's pretty cool. And are you in Hamilton right now? that where you're sitting?

DANE (00:02) Alright, a couple of deer. I am in Victor, Montana is where I live. Our will be based on Victor. Yep.

Bryan Koontz (00:22) Wait, where is Victor with respect to Hamilton?

DANE (00:23) Vic actually you know our address is our address for our business is Hamilton so yeah so we'll say Hamilton. I'm south of Victor a little bit so it's like my kids go to Hamilton school so yeah.

Bryan Koontz (00:30) pretty close. Ha ha ha ha. Okay. And you and Dustin both were, are from Michigan though, right? I think. Okay. And how did you, what, what led you to, you know, pick Montana and, then that side of Montana.

DANE (00:41) Correct. Yeah. Moving. Yeah. So we both decided, you know, I moved out a year ago and he just completed his move last week there. So, or last month anyway. So, but we were looking for an area where we, you know, could be a lot near a lot more of the events going on. And I used to live in Wyoming. So always loved. elk hunting and stuff like that. So was trying to find a place where we could be in elk country and if we're going to start our, know, build a shop and get that going, we wanted to do it in a location like that.

Bryan Koontz (01:30) That's awesome. Yeah, there's not many Elk herds in Michigan. I don't think at this point.

DANE (01:33) No, there is an Elk herd, it's, it's, I took, I applied for like, yeah, my dad shot a cow there, but yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (01:42) really? That's cool. know the I mean, the elk foundation and other folks are doing a great job trying to get elk distributed. Pennsylvania has a pretty healthy elk population in the northern part of the state. I think Kentucky, Virginia, I've often wondered and I haven't I haven't done the research like I should have, but I've been thinking about. You know, it's hard, bet the ranchers out west.

DANE (01:56) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (02:09) complain enough about the elk herds decimating alfalfa fields, when you have like a couple thousand acres to play with, know, that's one thing. But when you're back in Pennsylvania, because I'm originally from Maryland, the Pennsylvania area, and I know some farmers back there and all that, I can imagine the farmers saying, absolutely not. Do not reintroduce elk herds. they're going to, you know, the last thing I want to do is wake up in my and see, you know, a hundred head of elk in my 300 acre alfalfa field.

DANE (02:15) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (02:38) you know, every morning and then what am I supposed to do? I've often, you know, I don't know. It's when you, when you see how much ground elk cover out West, you know, I've seen how much ground elk will cover in the morning, you know, in the afternoon, they're, they're on a completely different ridge and it's amazing how much ground they cover. I've just never, I've never really talked to anyone about what does that mean for reintroducing elk herds in the Midwest and Eastern part. But anyway, I digress. We could talk about elk for a while. So you, how, how did you, so

DANE (02:38) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (03:06) You grew up in Michigan. How did you guys meet? And then that's sort of like a beginning of like the startup story for hard side hydration. But yeah, how'd you guys meet? then how did you guys come up with this idea?

DANE (03:21) Yeah, I mean, I guess so we, you know, we met our kids are in the same class and stuff. But we had a group of men that would get together in the morning and play some basketball at like 6 a So I'm like, hey, this guy, you know, you know, so that's how that's the first we're from originally grew up about a half hour apart, Dustin and I. And so we kind of, you know, hit it off, you know, you know, basically hung out with our kids and then, you know, we're playing basketball and got into hunting a little bit.

Bryan Koontz (03:35) That's cool.

DANE (03:50) together, started talking about his passions for hunting. Myself, I was already doing a lot of backpack elk hunting in Colorado. I guided out of Wyoming for like four years, so I've always loved elk hunting and stuff. That's kind of how. Well, I worked with the outfit. was originally Dave Hanna Outfitting. It was out of Jackson Hole.

Bryan Koontz (04:11) That's good. Who did you guide for in Wyoming?

DANE (04:20) And I worked with a guy, Paul Gilroy. was there from like early on. I think he probably started his outfit in like the 70s. So I worked with Dave Hanna and he worked with Gilroy's outfit in there for a while. But yeah, so I worked with them and then my friend Josh Roth, he purchased the Hanna outfit. I worked with him for two years with Dave and two years with Josh. And they had a guide school and all kinds of neat things there.

Bryan Koontz (04:51) super cool.

DANE (04:52) So yeah, that's kind of how, really, Dustin and I started talking and I was like, man, you should really come on an elk hunt. know, and he had done some, I think he did an odd head hunt in Western Texas. So kind of had a feel for some kind of hunting some more mountainous terrain, know, it's, you know, Texas, but still some remote area. But yeah, I was like, man, we should do a hunt. I think it was 2000, probably around, yeah, 2020 is when I took him on a first elk hunt out West.

with me and one of my other friends, we took them on a hunt. that's kind of... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess when I was guiding, heck, it was 2006 to 2002 to 2006, so a while back. So, but I kind of took a got back into elk hunting, not horseback, but got into more backpack hunting in like 2018. So...

Bryan Koontz (05:40) Okay.

DANE (05:48) That's kind of when some of my ideas from hard sites started coming up.

Bryan Koontz (05:53) Started to percolate. OK. So you take him hunting in 2020, that was his first time, you said, getting out, doing any sort of hunting like that?

DANE (06:02) Yeah, it was his first time Western elk hunting, archery hunting for elk. And, know, back in, so kind of precursor to that, I was elk hunting with three other friends in 2018 and I leaned back on my pack and pop one of those hydration bladders, which I had never run one, but yeah. So, you know, I got, I got analoging and I got this.

Bryan Koontz (06:07) OK.

lovely.

DANE (06:25) bladder in my bag and a couple other bags and stuff, you know, but between four of us, we, you know, we were kind of, we were doing like a pack in for, or, you know, we had went in about six miles. So we were deep in a country, but I packed, popped that bladder, you know, just like, even then, you know, I would just, we were just kind of thinking, why can't we just run this hose to a Nalgene bottle? You know, that's what some of the guys on the group, we were trying to come up with, like, this is not a durable option, you know, and stuff like that. But

Fast forward to 2020, Dustin and I were elk hunting hunting and with another friend, he's a, Dustin is an engineer and so kind of knows how to do all that, just all the manufacturing stuff. just, this is passion, you know? So it was just fun because you're killing time in the back country we're talking about, you hey, what's this product and trying to come up with, you know.

Bryan Koontz (07:11) That's cool.

DANE (07:20) different ways we can solve solutions for things. But he happened to pop a bladder. He popped the bag. It was a cell, water cell. But he was just kind of, because I had warned him, take the bladder. But you still need to have that ability to carry lots of water. So he had a hydration bag and was kind of dipping it in a creek and popped it. And I was like, these bladders and these bags are just not, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (07:46) This is what I'm talking about.

DANE (07:49) And he's like, Hey, that's something we can do right there. So, you know, I was like, really? yeah. He's like, dude, we could, he's like, could, I could have this, I could solve this no problem. So I just kind of, you know, we talked about a little more and you know, my other friend did too, you know, just kind of coming up with little ideas, but went back to Michigan. And then like a month later, he's like, Hey, check this out. And he has a 3d printer along with the CNC machine and all kinds of other stuff for his other, but you know, he said, but he had made a mold for a while, you know,

Bryan Koontz (08:16) Nice.

DANE (08:19) And we talked about it like, hey, if we're going to do this, everybody has an Nalgene you know, so all we got to do is make a cap. So that's what we did, you know, but he, started making prototypes and within a month we had something that would work, you know, so it was neat, you know, and yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of how our, our hunting friend. Yeah. Keep going.

Bryan Koontz (08:34) That's super cool.

Bryan Koontz (08:47) And then how long after that? How long after that did you kind of formalize it, come up with the name and agree, hey, let's, like, it's cool we have these for ourselves now, but let's make a run at this. Let's call it, let's start a little business.

DANE (08:47) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was September 2020. So like I said, two months later in November, he had something a month later that was awesome. We started testing it and figuring out things. And by February, we formed an LLC and some of our friends had some, you know, thought it was a cool idea too. And we're like, Hey, we kind of made a pitch to see who would be interested, you know, if we should want to do it. And him and I were the ones that decided, Hey, let's just go for it. And so we formed that. 2022 and we launched a product in July of 22. So that was our first year. So, you know.

Bryan Koontz (09:29) Very cool. that's the whole idea. The name hardside hydration is just your experience with the bladders and the softshell stuff. Because if you're out for, you're doing some pretty aggressive backcountry hunting, or it doesn't even have to be that aggressive really. If you go out hiking and you lean against a tree, you're all sweaty and you got all kinds of other crap in your backpack that's going to be poking in, you lean against the tree and then what? So the idea is do away with all that. You've got this hard Nalgene type bottle, or

DANE (09:44) Yeah. yeah.

Bryan Koontz (09:59) Is it only Nalgene, or does it work with other bottles now, too?

DANE (10:01) So, you know, our first product was a wide mouth option that worked. We knew with Nalgene Yeti happened to come out with an awesome bottle called the Yeti Yonder. It works on that. That same cap with the pitch of the threads will work on Hydroflask, Arctic, you know, all these Camelback. Most of the wide mouth bottles are 63 millimeters. So that's what our Swig 63 cap is designed for all those wide mouth. So like on our website now, we'll carry Yeti, Anders and Nalgene because we found them to be probably the best, most durable options. So yeah, it'll work on all those bottles.

Bryan Koontz (10:29) Okay. Got it, right. And then it comes with the cap and then the drink tube and the mouthpiece. So you can do the same kind of thing you could do with a regular hydration system in a pack. Yep.

DANE (10:49) Yeah, yep. Yeah, you can see you could run that hose to there. you know, the things that we really, you know, we when we made it, it was like, hey, we're just going to make something really durable that that we can depend on when we're in the backcountry that's not going to fail. we really then as you start using it, you realize the different things that, really, really stand out are, you know, it's super easy to clean. So, you know, you can take an Nalgene and put it in the dishwasher. But, you know, Being able to put powdered drinks in there is pretty, you know, adding electrolytes or a little caffeine in the backcountry, whatever a guy needs or whatever the hunter needs, they can do it, you know? And then on the outside, you actually know how much water is left in your pack. So that's something, you know, when you're with a bladder, it's kind of like a mystery. You you're hiking and you're like, I think I need to fill up because of this pressure. You just don't know how much water you have.

Bryan Koontz (11:34) That's right. Look. Plus, I know from personal experience and I know plenty of other people where it's, know, archery season is coming up obviously here and everyone's about to go down to their basement or their garage or wherever their gear room is and they're going to grab their pack from last year that they kind of were exhausted at the end of the season. You know, they put some stuff away, they threw their pack in the corner. That bladder is still going to be in that pack with a bunch of gnarly water growing who knows what in that. So to your point, you can't just pull the bladder out, throw it in the... dishwasher, now you're going to have to scrub it with what the brush isn't. And then, Nalgene, the bottles are... Right, right, I've seen that, yeah. Right, right.

DANE (12:14) Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna, know, they make like a boot dryer that you, they make all kinds of things, all these little things. So, so it's that bladder funk, you know, we don't, we're, we, and everybody's different, right? There's somebody that's meticulous, that's going to take every little piece of part of that bladder and clean that thing. I am not that guy. My stuff will throw, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

Bryan Koontz (12:28) bladderfunk Sure, of course. Most people aren't. I'm a Batman, most 90 % of the people are not, and they're like a little, I like the term bladder funk, never, that's gross, super gross, but yeah. And then you get.

DANE (12:43) Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, is. is. mean, people put it in the freezer, you know, we run, you know, I get to talk with all kinds of people, which is neat. We love all the events and stuff. And, know, sometimes you can tell that they are they take care of their stuff and, you know, they manage it and don't don't but, you know, but I've had people Yeah, I put it in the freezer. I'm like, it's still when that thaws out, you're gonna have that. But yeah, interesting.

Bryan Koontz (13:12) Yeah, right, right. Well, then you can use the bottles during the off season or whatever. Just grab the bottle, take it to work, whatever, you know. So if it breaks, you go get another one. I mean, so yeah, that makes a ton of sense. That's super cool.

DANE (13:25) Yeah, same in the back country. Like if it freezes or, you know, if there is a problem with the hose, like, you know, you still have a water bottle, you know, so that's a difference too with a bladder. But, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (13:34) That's That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a really good point. So what's...

DANE (13:39) And that kind of, yeah, go ahead.

Bryan Koontz (13:42) No, you go ahead.

DANE (13:44) Just saying, know, so that's kind of those are some of the things we run into, know Out there that you know, the questions we get of you know, how we can you know, why is it different? know or stuff like that.

Bryan Koontz (13:56) Yeah, yeah, that's right. Now that makes a ton of sense. So do you guys have in mind like a product roadmap? know, is there other than fitting other types of I'm sure you're I'm sure you're really dialed in on like what is the outdoor industry coming up with with the next set of bottles and who's got the coolest thing and all that so that you can stay on top of things. It's kind of like, you know, I run a camper on my truck called a Go Fast Camper. And I've always thought, man, those guys have to be like.

DANE (14:06) The food. Yeah. of other kids.

Bryan Koontz (14:24) What's that? You know about Go Fast.

DANE (14:25) I love the Go Fast Camper. I'm kind of in the middle range of like I'm going to get a new truck I hope soon. So I'm kind of waiting, definitely I got to check those out and Big Sky there at the TAC event. man, I got to see it in person and the new version. I got to get one of those. I'm a camper guy.

Bryan Koontz (14:38) nice. Yeah, there you go. They're not a partner of Guidefitter yet, but we've been talking to them. But I've often thought, like every new vehicle model season year, those guys have to see what's new with Fords and Chevys and Tundras and the full size and them so that they can make sure their thing is fitting. Same thing with you guys, I'm assuming. You got to make sure that as these other guys come out with stuff. But beyond that, is there like what's the?

DANE (15:04) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (15:10) master plan, do you guys want to take hard side? I know, you know, I think hard side is is a passion project for both you and Dustin, but you guys have other things going on, like, you full time day jobs. I wanted to talk about that a little bit, because I think with yours is pretty interesting. But yeah, what's the future of hard side? Like what what what do you guys want to do with this company now that it's got some momentum?

DANE (15:23) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a lot of growth there. Our product is used in many, many other things besides hunting. We just happen to naturally be hunters. So as we can get to expand to get it out to the other markets and as we're growing, we're bootstrapping it. So we don't put a ton into marketing. We're basically just, as we've been able to grow organically, we've been doing it. We have a lot of, we have some other products like coming out here. We've been testing a filter. that'll run inside the bottle. So it'll kind of give you that ability to dip a bottle in the water, you know, and then have a filtration system built right into the bottom of the straw on the bottom of our bottle. You could always run an inline filter with our stuff too. You know, we've always kind of shied away a little bit because as it gets dirty, or if, you know, if that filter starts to slow the flow down, you know, it's a little worry. If you're waiting for water, that's not, we're trying to make a container that.

Bryan Koontz (16:13) Mm

DANE (16:31) High-flow, know, so we've shied away from a little bit, but we're testing this filter and it's been working really good So that's something that'll be coming out. Yeah, and you know really for us that yeah.

Bryan Koontz (16:33) Yeah. That's cool. You could also have you talked to, have you thought about or talked to the guys at Grayl? Because it might be kind of neat to put like a cap on the Grayl system, like have your own filter for sure. But then, but then similarly to your bot, you know, they just become another bottle, albeit a very specialized, you know, bottle with the with their filtration system, which is pretty cool. So it's a purifier and a filter. Anyway, so I didn't sounds like you guys have already thought about that. Of course you have.

DANE (16:46) Yes. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. We've talked with Grayl and we have a prototype that works well. It's just trying to decide if we're going to bring it to market or not. Yeah, it fits right on there. It's little silicone cap that allows you to connect to that. And that Grayl filtration system is awesome. I picked up a couple of them and then we were doing some, we hiked up to a mountain lake with my.

Bryan Koontz (17:15) That's cool. It is.

DANE (17:33) My kids and we were fishing and it's just so easy to give it to a kid. My kid, they were able to get water. So it's a great setup. And I'm thinking this fall, might, I have a pack that I'll be running our setup and I may run a grill also to just to drink out of and just having, yeah, it's a good setup. We're working towards getting the more of the stuff we can do in-house, the better.

Bryan Koontz (17:42) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

DANE (18:03) as far as manufacturing, we piece gets parts from all over the world, you know, together, the more we can do here in Montana and start to not, you know, basically do it in-house, plastic injection molding, doing all that and being able to make our own, we're hoping to make a unique bite valve. We're working on that. Something that, you know, because all these bite valves, you know, there's limitations on what you can get, you know, so every hydration company, you know. is dealing with the same thing, you whether, you know, I don't need to name brands, but it's just trying to find the bite valve that we like. And, you know, we think we can make one better. So we're kind of working on trying to do that. Dustin's got some great designs. we're hopefully get those tested here soon. And, you know, like you said, there's so many different caps, you know, we're kind of for as far as Yeti being a Yeti dealer, we're working on an internal adapter that'll turn the Yeti Rambler into a hydration kit too because that's normally a Nalgene's external thread so that's something we're working on here is getting that Yeti Rambler adapter out here so that people can just add it on to work under their current kit so but yeah we're hoping.

Bryan Koontz (19:04) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right, right. Have you done anything with Stanley at all?

DANE (19:21) no, we haven't. haven't. But that would be similar. I have to check those threads. But yeah, that'd be a, that'd a, a popular bottle. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (19:23) No? Not yet. Okay. Yeah, well, I'm not it's but it's gotten popular. It's Stanley's very interesting with how they've blown up with like the Stanley's a partner of ours and I brought home a Stanley one time. I brought home a Stanley and I have two daughters, you know, ones in. Well, they're both they're both going to be in college now. But then they're when I brought it home, they were in there like 17 and 20. And I brought home the Stanley and one of them. My youngest was like, dad, you're like you're part of the cool crowd now. And like, say again.

DANE (19:39) Yeah, I saw them.

Bryan Koontz (19:59) Like, yeah, that's like every, you know, every girl in college has the Stanley thing. Anyway, I had no idea that I went and looked it up and I saw how it had blown up and all that. But I was like, OK, wow, that's I got like two dented green Stanleys in my garage back in Pennsylvania. You know, I'm like, yeah, right. But anyway. So so it sounds like really the focus is there's a lot of things that you have in mind for both building out the company.

DANE (20:00) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those things are, yeah, same here, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (20:28) more product expansions and it all seems to be generally around backcountry hydration. I mean, is that that's kind of the idea? Like what else can we do to really perfect backcountry hydration? Whether it's maybe the bladder hard side thing is one thing, but there's, you know, a better bite valve and then there's probably 10 things after that. Is that kind of the general idea where you guys are headed?

DANE (20:40) Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of sticking in with that with this first company. We got some other ideas for some different stuff to bring the market to. you know, but as far as the hydration, you know, sticking with that and proven that, you know, we made a change to our mold last year. You know, just kind of it's been nice because we haven't, you you know, we were able to kind of, I guess, learn.

Bryan Koontz (20:56) Yeah, sure.

DANE (21:13) from, you know, if there's ways we can improve our current product, which we have done a little bit with changing a bite valve. Originally, we would give folks the quick disconnect. We would ask them to put it in, you know, if they wanted to use it, but a lot of people are really hesitant to cut the hose. we've now, we've added that to part of our assembly processes, placing that next to the bite valve. So it's really handy because you don't have to take the whole.

Bryan Koontz (21:29) right.

DANE (21:38) system off your pack, can just undo that quick disconnect and now you can filter right back into that. Like Katadyn, Sawyer, they all come with a quick disconnect. So you just take and plug that back in and now you can backfill into it if you open the lid on our stuff. So that's the thing. We've been able to, we're at that point now, it's like we got some possible retail, getting into some retail stores, bigger retail stores. We have a dealer in Australia, New Zealand that supplies it over there. just getting the product out there. that was probably some of our, I guess you would say if it's growing or struggles or however you want to say it, it'd be in a new business. Obviously for one, our dads didn't even have social media or anything like that. So learning to do that kind of stuff ourselves was a little bit of a...

Bryan Koontz (22:11) sweet.

DANE (22:36) a growing thing and then, you know, learning, you know, how to how to best market with the amount with our budget that we had. So and yeah, so that's kind of some some things we've learned. But.

Bryan Koontz (22:47) Super cool. Hey, speaking of looking for, as you guys get more into distribution and even looking at distribution overseas, we can talk offline, but I can introduce you to some folks from the Montana Economic Development Office. And we did a thing where we went with them over to Germany in March. They have the IWA. It's like the big chacho of Europe.

DANE (23:06) Okay.

Bryan Koontz (23:15) in Nuremberg, Germany and so like Stone Glacier was there, some other Montana. So the whole goal is take Montana companies and really do what they can with some funding opportunities and help you find distribution. what can they do to help Montana businesses grow their operations in Europe? So we can talk about it, but it's pretty cool. I think they're doing a great job. Angela, who works in that office, is kicking butt. She's awesome. So we'll talk more about that. Yeah.

DANE (23:42) That'd be great.

Bryan Koontz (23:44) And then when you kind of touch on it fast, but it kind of got a thread started, which is this challenge of having really durable hydration in, let's call it, know, challenging situations. One challenging situation would be backcountry hunting or hiking and all that. I can certainly see other challenging situations like wildland firefighting or military applications or on and on and on where you're going to have, you know, if your bladder breaks, not only.

DANE (24:08) Yes. Yeah. ATV, you motocross, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (24:14) Yeah, true. That's true. And not only are you not going to have water in certain situations, you probably don't want that water in your pack with sensitive equipment or other types of stuff that medical equipment or whatnot, you know. So, yeah, I can kind of seeing where this could go with a bunch of things that you guys are probably working on. Very cool.

DANE (24:29) Yeah. Yeah, lot of wildland, yeah, firefighter, early on, know, and we would try to reach out to, we were reaching out like, hey, you guys try this. And, you know, I sent some to Wyoming to some hotshots down there and stuff, give it a try. it's great. I know a lot of times out on the line, they don't even allow them to use a bladder, you know? So this was a kind of, and that's what we heard from some reviews and, you know, stuff like that. So being able to, you know.

Bryan Koontz (24:54) Yeah.

DANE (25:00) They're always carrying those tall silo Nalgene and a lot of the packs that are made for firefighting are made with that bottle, which is what our straw we cut for that because it's 48 ounces, so half of a bladder. So yeah.

Bryan Koontz (25:17) That's pretty cool. I know we have on Guidefitter, we've got a lot of members that are firefighters, a lot of wildland firefighters, certainly a ton of active duty and former military folks. I think there could be a lot of interest in even if just giving you feedback on where to go if you're going to try to get into those other areas. We also have.

DANE (25:34) yeah. Yeah, so, and you know, before, yeah, I was gonna go, I was gonna go a little bit into, you know, my, before I even had a business, you know, I was, I was always a Guidefitter user and stuff there, a member. So when you guys launched, I was like, this is great, you know, cause I had my, still, I still am employed to work with the USDA too. So yeah, juggling both right now.

Bryan Koontz (25:41) Go ahead. awesome. That's right. so you're with you. What do you do? You're in the wildlife management, I think. That's a pretty broad area. don't know if there, what can you touch on there? Because I think that's...

DANE (26:07) Yeah. Yeah. It's it's with wildlife service. Yeah. Wildlife services. So a lot of animal and human conflicts, you know, so in Montana here, I'm working with a program where we're doing a lot of non-lethal. It's more fencing for, for bear, bear management for livestock and stuff. so that, and, and, and Michigan, we, did a lot of work on airports and kind of reducing the wildlife strikes. things like that, making the airport a safer place there.

Bryan Koontz (26:41) Wow, that's pretty interesting. I know back to the firefighter side of things, when we were researching that category, there is a category of firefighter, which is an airport firefighter. And I think you have to get a certain, is it AARF certification? It's an extra 30 or 40 hours of certification because of, know, lot like very flammable fuels and all that. But in talking to some of those guys, when we were trying to figure out that category, that Guidefitter, like some of those folks, like they're like,

DANE (26:43) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (27:11) We sit around and wait, you know, we're at the airport and we're waiting for, you know, hopefully, hopefully they never need us. But a lot of those guys also do double duty as wildlife management on the airport. were telling me some of the stories. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Okay.

DANE (27:13) Yeah. Yeah. They do. Yeah, yeah. They do. know, I think like our agency, our wildlife services agency is probably on like 900, 800 airports across the United States doing, you know, and it might just be that they show up and help with, you know, like say Falcons or things that, know, and non-lethal stuff where we can catch them, band them and relocate them in a safer location, you know, so that they don't get struck, you know, so basically so that.

Bryan Koontz (27:29) And is it?

DANE (27:51) They don't have to be lethally removed, you know, so. But yeah, a lot of those airports are like those guys out there, you know, are out there all the time doing like you said, the fire guys and a lot of times they'll work to the wildlife management part of it too. and on the military, they're on military bases as well. You know, they and International Guard bases and stuff. Yeah, there was they're doing.

Bryan Koontz (27:56) Right, right, right. Yeah.

DANE (28:20) Yeah, the reduction of risk out there trying to do anything you can to just mowing the grass a different height or all this. There's a lot of other things besides lethally removing a bird. That happens, but there's a lot of things that are behind the scenes that those airports are doing to try to make it a safe place to land in an airport.

Bryan Koontz (28:43) And take off. I had an aborted takeoff once in Texas where, I mean, that guy jammed on the brakes. Of course, we were all wondering what was that? And it was, yeah, at the last minute, a flock of geese just were crossing in front of the runway we were about to take off on. And I know, speaking of non-lethal stuff, remember, I think it was, yeah, Reagan National Airport in DC.

DANE (28:45) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (29:13) I think they have like a propane cannon or something that goes off every two minutes just to scare the birds off the runway. It's just constantly just boom and then two minutes, boom. Maybe it's more frequent than that. I don't know. So with the bear stuff.

DANE (29:17) Mm-hmm. Boom, yeah, yeah. Yeah, a cylinder, yeah, it fills and then it's, you can set the timer on it. The birds will get used to it after a while, but, you know, they'll probably deploy them, they'll deploy them for like a, you know, a small time, you know, before, so the birds don't get used to them. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (29:32) Right. Totally, yeah. Yep. Yep. And so the bear stuff is interesting. There was actually just an article I posted to Guidefitter yesterday. I think it was in the Wall Street Journal of all places about I think the title of the article was something like, OK, the grizzly bears have come back, but now they're invading towns. And so there were some folks being interviewed out of Cody, Wyoming, a woman talking about how like, yeah, going out and picking raspberries isn't as fun anymore. Know, a lot of them talked about they have some.

DANE (30:02) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (30:13) Electric fencing options and a couple ranchers were being interviewed talking about the electric fencing options. That's exactly what you do, albeit in Montana. Yeah, that's super interesting. There is a... I mean, it can get really political really fast and that's unfortunate, but there's a lot of discussion about that. Have the grizzlies recovered beyond the target...

DANE (30:19) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (30:41) Survival rates and all that stuff. Some of the leading scientists here based out of Montana in the West would say yes, but to allow the states to start controlling them through legal hunting methods and all of that. But it's yet another debate around wildlife in the West. It's pretty interesting. And so the work that you're doing is kind of smack dab in the middle of that in some way.

DANE (30:43) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (31:36) Super cool. Well, Dane, this has been great getting to know you. And I think at some point maybe we can have your counterpart back on because it sounds like when it comes to starting a product company, an outdoor industry product company, you guys as co-founders, it's kind of the perfect match where you were more into the Western backpack and backcountry hunting and hiking and all of that. And then he brings along the engineering knowledge and also a love of the outdoors. But you had the early idea and the concept and the experience, and then he brings the engineering. That's a pretty powerful combination that can lead to a whole bunch of new things in the future. So we'll have to keep up with what you guys are up to.

DANE (31:36) Yep. Yeah, it is. know, it's pretty fun to, you know, just to, you know, be around, you know, like, you know, be a have a partner where you can, you know, come up with different ideas. And, you know, we definitely complement each other well. And it's been been great. You know, we get to, we've, we've we started from day one, we said, we're going to stay true to, you know, being hunters and you know, there's not, there's really no hydration companies that are in the hunting industry, you know what I mean? That are tailoring everything to hunting and You know, haven't, you know, we've, yeah, we've, we've noticed that we had a, I won't mention any other retail stores, but we had some stores reach out to us and you know, we're, submitted some videos and, you know, we'll just, we're, we're staying, we'll see how it goes, but you know, we're staying true to being hunters. You know, we, think it's important conservation. We try to do what we can to, to help conservation stuff, but we are, we aren't.

Bryan Koontz (32:19) That's a good point.

DANE (32:48) We want to stay true to being hunters and not really shy away from that. We think it's important to be able to have the rights to hunt and gather food and do whatever. So yeah, we'll see.

Bryan Koontz (33:02) Yeah. It is interesting in the outdoor industry how polarizing it can go quickly red and blue and, you know, is it the hook and bullet or is it the, you know, granolas and cracker or whatever? I forget the term. You know, outdoor generals, we call it. But I really believe that despite all of that, I think most people are right there in the middle and just kind of don't care if it's like, if you love the outdoors, awesome, so do I. We enjoy them in different ways or...

DANE (33:10) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (33:32) You know, at some times different ways, you know, look, I think most people are like me. I shop at REI, but I also shop at Cabela's and Shields and, you know, Sportsman's Warehouse and all this stuff and Die Hard Hunter. But that doesn't mean I'm going to like not go to other just outdoor general stores like REI and then some of the smaller outdoor stores. I think they're awesome and they got great products. And I think that, you know, even on the wildlife conservation side.

DANE (33:43) Same here, yeah.

Bryan Koontz (34:02) We had a great guy that I talked to a couple months ago, Jason Corbett, who's a wildlife biologist. But he's got a really interesting background. He's one of the world's leading wildlife biologists for bats, non-game species. So we had a great kind, I learned a lot about bats. And anyway, you can check it out on Guidefitter. And he lives in, I think it's Arizona, he lives out West or New Mexico, and he's a hunter and all that. But his point was, he's like, you know, even with what he does, right, he's on a different, his agency is not in the hunting world, but a lot of the reclamation projects they do for bats where they'll go into an area in the desert that has a spring that's been, you know, clogged up because of cattle grazing and all the years of whatever else. And they'll get funding to go in and do these spring reclamation projects where they'll dig out the spring, get it flowing again, fence it. Put a pipe so that it comes out, you know, beyond the fence as well, or it's going to be maintained so the cattle can't get in there and muck it all up again, which is really helpful for the bat colonies that are in that area. And then his point is, but you know who else that's really helpful for? The elk and the bighorn sheep and the mule deer and the lizard, you know, all the other critters that are around there. And he's like, so he sees it from this issue of the, you know, the.

DANE (35:17) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (35:26) The red and the blue, whatever you want to call it, the two different polarizing sides. He's like, here's a great example of opportunities for agencies, NGOs or government organizations to be working together on these kind of projects because it's all wildlife and it's all wildlife conservation. So anyway, think there's a lot more in common and unfortunately, like every other sort of issue, the polarizing things get all of the headlines, whereas hunters love conservation, the hardcore hunters.

DANE (35:27) Yeah.

Bryan Koontz (35:55) They want to preserve clean water in the trails and get access and take pictures of them as well, just like anybody who doesn't hunt, you know? So it's really interesting.

DANE (36:08) Yeah it is.

Bryan Koontz (36:08) Well, that's cool. Well, hey, look, I wish you guys the best and it's awesome that we're partners with you. And I've learned a lot from this conversation. I hope other people who listen to this do too. And I'm excited to try it out. I haven't tried it yet. I want to try it. And I can't wait to see what other products you guys come up with. And now that you're in Montana, I'll talk to you about the.

DANE (36:31) Yes it is.

Bryan Koontz (36:31) The economic development stuff and hopefully, you know, you're welcome to come over anytime you're in the Bozeman area. Just give us the heads up and pop in and say, hey, we'd love to have you. Yeah, definitely.

DANE (36:38) Yeah, we need to get over there. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks, Bryan. And thanks for the opportunity to be on the podcast here and for, you know, giving us the opportunity to work with Guidefitter. We appreciate being able to get our products in the hands of people that are in the field, guides, outfitters, wildland firefighters. You guys are doing great stuff. Like I said, I was a member before I had this business and that was like, as soon as I could find Mark and I was like, hey, we got to get on Guidefitter. How can we make this happen? So Appreciate you guys.

Bryan Koontz (37:09) Awesome. Well, thanks again, Dane. we'll have to get, maybe at some point get Dustin back on the show and have a chat with him too. So yeah, yeah. Cool.

DANE (37:16) yeah, yeah, yeah, we haven't done too many words, just me on here, so it'd be fun to have him along next time.

Bryan Koontz (37:24) Yeah, yeah. And you said his move is finalized. He's now officially in Montana. Okay.

DANE (37:26) Yeah, it's finalized. Yeah, he's all set up. We're good to go. We're about 10 minutes. Our kids will be back in the same school together, and we're going to get some good stuff going here.

Bryan Koontz (37:35) That's awesome. Very cool. All right, man. Well, thanks again. And we'll talk to you soon. Take care.

DANE (37:42) Thank you.

Bryan Koontz (37:47) Cool. How'd that feel? Let me just hit start.

DANE (37:49) Alright man, that was fun. That was great. Yeah, that was fun.