KHC 109 - Josh Smith

Join us for a discussion with Josh Smith, master bladesmith and owner of Montana Knife Company. In this episode Cam and Josh talk about the NEW Packout Skinner Knife, designed by a vision Cam had for a knife that performs better for skinning and meat processing in the field. Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Montana Knife Company: https://www.instagram.com/montanaknifecompany/ Thank you to our sponsors: Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Timestamps: 0:00:00 Making Knives at a Young Age 0:06:42 Why Josh Started the MKC Company So Early 0:09:30 Scaling the Company & the Heritage Behind Knives 0:14:56 Josh’s First Handmade Knives 0:19:40 Learning from the Masters 0:24:26 Making a Durable Blade 0:31:03 Ad Break 0:33:27 The Struggles of a Full Time Knife Maker 0:37:49 The Packout Skinner Knife 0:50:55 Connections That Helped Build the MKC Brand 0:57:17 Success from Hard Work 01:03:05 American Made & Advertising 01:13:03 Building a Brand in America 01:20:43 Hate Comments & Critics 01:31:37 Studying Successful People - Evan Hafer 01:37:14 Communication & Leadership 01:45:36 Passing Down Credit Within the Company 01:49:12 Culture & A Good Attitude Always Win 01:55:26 Employee Happiness & Being Undeniable 02:00:56 Being Consistently Passionate About Something 02:10:59 Outro

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Cameron Hanes?

  All right. This is the Keep Hammer Collective. I'm with Josh Smith of Montana Knife Company.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, man.

• 0:21Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man. This is, uh, yeah, it seems like, I don't want to say a long time coming because I don't know how long we've talked about it, but I know I've wanted you on here for a long time. And so it feels like it's a long time coming for me.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's surreal for me because I've, you know, watched you and listened to you for so long and, you know, we see each other here and there, different things we're at. And, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, you know, I've been doing this for a few years, the, the knife, you know, stuff in the outdoor industry, but, uh, these moments like this coming on here with you and some of the other things I get to do, I still think of myself just as a lineman and a regular guy. So it's, it's, it's an honor to be on here. Appreciate it.

• 1:02Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man. Well, yeah, that means a lot. Um, one thing I've noticed is like, because I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, like, I don't know, I, I guess I lost track. Sometimes you like start listening to this podcast and then you're like all, you know, balls deep on it. And then for some reason, something else comes up. I was listening to a lot of yours and I don't know what happened, but I haven't been lately. But then I listened to, uh, you on, was it Born Primitive?

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28Cameron Hanes?

  Was that with Aaron?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29Cameron Hanes?

  But anyway, point is, is like, you are, uh, I don't, you're so good at doing stuff like this.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:38Cameron Hanes?

  Have you always been like, you know, sometimes when you're in the labor workforce, you know, like a lineman or maybe in construction, you're just good at working and not really talk, you know? I mean, talking is a whole nother art form, right?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54Cameron Hanes?

  But you are good at it. Have you always been good?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I, I don't know, man. I appreciate that. Um, I, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I, I only started doing this when I started the company as far as doing some interviews and stuff, but it's not like I ever did anything like this before.

• 2:08Cameron Hanes?

  Professionally.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I guess I'm. I guess I'm kind of a bullshitter, but to be honest, I think what it is is I, my favorite part of owning Montana Knife Company and doing what we do is the, is the people. So when I get to sit down with Aaron or yourself or whoever else, uh, like I love it. I truly appreciate it, you know? And even making, making knives as a young kid and all the way through, my favorite part was always traveling and, and meeting, it was really cool with knife collectors or other knife makers from other parts of the country or the world. You know, and so that, that maybe that's just it. I just enjoy talking to cool people.

• 2:49Cameron Hanes?

  So when you were young, cause a lot of times young, uh, kids, boys, whatever, they're pretty quiet normally, but were you like a talker?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, probably so. Yeah, I was definitely, I think, uh, told to shut up in class more, more times than I can count.

• 3:06Cameron Hanes?

  And then like when you were a lineman, so you were a lineman for 10 years, were, were you like, uh, could you get the guys, were you in a leadership position or did the guys just listen to you or did you just talk?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Not necessarily, just, just BSing. I mean, you know, I, I got a little bit more into leadership stuff as I got later on, right before I quit, um, you know, and, and went after this, but those first number of years, you know, between apprenticeship and then when you're a young journeyman, it's kind of like when you get through BUDs and you think you're a Navy SEAL and then you show up and the actual Navy SEALs are like, yeah, you just got pinned shut up, you know? So, um, you know, I definitely probably talked too much or, uh, would, would offer my opinion to the safety guy that I thought was a douchebag, but, uh,

• 3:53Speaker 01

  but, uh, no, I was, you know, it was fun because a lot of times we were up in the bucket truck and like my buddy, Dave Kennedy, uh, who was my foreman, a lot of the times, we would be up there working on power lines and actually dreaming and talking about Montana Knife Company and like. You know, God, we gotta get out of here and do something and I, you know, I, I told him about my dream of building this and for years when we were working on power lines, a lot of times you're up in that bucket and you're in a tiny little space. And you're just bullshitting about life.

• 4:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  And we talked a lot about, you know, what, what Montana Knife Company could be because I registered the name for this company when I was 19 years old.

• 4:33Cameron Hanes?

  Oh.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  But I didn't start it till I was 39.

• 4:36Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, 20 years.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yep. So I honestly, I think a lot of my friends thought I was probably full of shit because I talked about it for a long time.

• 4:43Cameron Hanes?

  Well, most guys are full of shit. I mean, you, you've talked to people who like you talk about the election and you think like, well, could you be fucking president? Cause you act like you could. Most guys or they're watching the NFL game. So it's like, well, did you even play football? Cause it sure sounds like you got all the answers. So guys, that's just kind of what guys do.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there was, there was a lot of talk about different things, but that was something I, you know, I had another friend of mine, Nick Salter, you know, him and I talked about this for years and he was always encouraging me to start it, but. You know, one thing I knew when I was younger is I didn't, one, I didn't have any money to start it. Number two, I, I knew I didn't have any expertise in like production manufacturing or any of that kind of stuff. And I, I, I think actually waiting that long, I, I got enough seasoning through life that I, I think if I would have started this when I was young, I probably would have made some decisions more based off of ego. When you're younger and full of piss and vigor and like, oh, I can do everything by myself, right?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  But when I was older and I started it, I realized like, well, I can't do everything. So I'm going to need help, right? And so like, when I met my business partner, at first I just hired him to, take some photos and, and then he's like, well, I can build you a website. So he did that and I started realizing.

• 6:00Cameron Hanes?

  Brandon.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Brandon.

• 6:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  And when I started to realize in his abilities, his expertise and like, you know, this guy's really good and. You know, half of the equation is making a really good product, but the other half, you have to sell it. Right. And I think when I was younger, I probably would have tried to do it all by myself.

• 6:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  And when I realized his value, I couldn't afford to pay him anymore. So I'm like, hey, do you want to partner up? And I offered him partnership in it. And that was the best thing I ever did because. And, and I got lucky. I got lucky because I found a guy that actually would match my work ethic. And so we both just like full on, you know, uh, worked, worked our butts off.

• 6:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's a, I mean, cause it's pretty impressive. It starts with an idea, but when I, when you think about, well, you register the, the name when you're 19. What was, uh, why? I mean, was it the passion was knife making? And so you're just like, well, I just love to do this.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Cameron Hanes?

  And just based on the love of it, or why did you do it when you were so young?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Well, one, I had a smart mom. So she, she, uh, you know, we'd come up with that name Montana Knife Company, but I was still making knives. And it was just Josh Smith knives, right? And those were my customs, but the idea of like a, of a knife company later in life was something we kind of talked about. And I talked about that with my mom and we came up with a name Montana Knife Company. And, and she actually was like, I'm going to register that for you. So, cause she knew, I think she had the wisdom to know like, that's a good name. Like that's when you, you're going to want to save, even though you're not ready to do it today. But I was, it was also important to me that, uh, you know, to have a different name than the Josh Smith knives. Cause

• 7:43Speaker 01

  for people that don't know, I was a custom knife maker from the time I was 11. Yeah. I started making knives on. If I, if you buy a Josh Smith knife, every single thing on that, like I do, hand make that handmade from start to finish. No CNC machines, no one else working on it. That's me, right? That's a, that's like a, maybe an original painting. And then, you know, Montana Knife Company is almost kind of like the version of Prince. Where obviously I'm taking all my expertise and the things I've learned and a lot of the things from that custom knife making, but I'm hiring people to help me do that. I have employees, right? And.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  That the Josh Smith knives thing was it was it was a struggle like any knife maker out there and I have so much respect for custom knife makers because you're making one knife at a time and you what what people don't understand is is if you're not working you're not making money and so it was difficult when I had four young kids if I went out and tried to sit in my tree stand or go hunt on a Saturday or even just sitting in the house at six o'clock at night it's like I should be out in my shop making knives right if you try and take a family vacation there goes a weak income and so it's not easy making you know something one knife at a time and I knew down the road like I got to figure out a way to do this where I don't have to be the one doing every single thing.

• 9:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I mean it's not business like to say like to say scalable.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:11Cameron Hanes?

  So it's not scalable what's like but then also when you think about it you know how people are they they love you when you're the guy the one guy grinding out a knife.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:22Cameron Hanes?

  You know and every you do everything every stroke is yours every whatever is yours and this is a Josh Smith knife and yeah he he does it right and then you start well this isn't scalable and I want to I want to take what I know and I want to you know make great knives American made knives and and share this then all of a sudden oh it's a sellout all you care about is money now.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right so how do you what's that balance for you and neither one of them are really accurate or fair.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I see some of the hate on the internet now it's interesting when you have some success even though I'm still grinding every freaking day working my ass off harder than I ever worked you you see some of the hate I know you get it people jealousy and but I would say largely knife makers are really proud of what I've been able to do and show that there's a there's a path to turn knife making into a real career and a business and. Um, the, the, the struggle I was having when I was making custom knives, they're very expensive. You know, my customs back then were two to $5,000 a piece. You know, anything I make now is five, 10, $20,000 a piece.

• 10:32Cameron Hanes?

  Really? Wow.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I was building like, I built a sword for a shake in the Middle East. He flew mid Abu Dhabi, flew middle London. Like I did some really amazing. I just had some adventures and some stuff that like, uh, just because I started making knives as a kid, these really cool things came along, these opportunities. But what really was bothering me was, uh, you know, a guy in my town in Montana would come and say, I want to buy a hunting knife for my, my son. He's going to be 13. He's going to go elk hunt this year. It's like, God, I, I need 600 or 800 or a thousand dollars to make that knife to really be able to build my business and to be able to pay my bills. And I felt bad that guy couldn't really afford

• 11:14Speaker 01

  that knife. And so I wanted to start a company where I could provide that kind of quality, that custom quality, but in a production price and knife. And, uh, the other thing I was seeing happening was replaceable blades started to come along and people were now just throwing away something that we for generations have passed down. Men generally have passed down knives and guns.

• 11:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, you know, those knives were being thrown away. And I, I've had hundreds or thousands of people come through my shop and be like, hey Josh, this was my, uh, grandfather's knife in Vietnam, or he, he carried this knife every day and he was a welder. And it's the only thing I have, but the tips broke off or it's dull or can you clean it up? And so I'd sharpen it and fix it up for them. Some people would still carry them or they'd put them up in their safe. And I'm like, man, we're, we're now throwing that stuff away. You know, your clothing that you wear, a lot of your packs and a lot of the things that you associate with hunting are somewhat consumable.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  But your knife and your gun are are things that I really do think you you generally end up passing down. And you know, when you're forty years old and you're Cam Haynes and you're doing your things, you're not thinking about like, I'm gonna pass this down to my grandson someday. You're just doing your thing. Yeah. But when you're dead and gone, there's gonna be some great grandkid or great great grandkid that never met you that reads the stories or hears and it doesn't matter. You don't have to be Cam Haynes. You can just be Bill in Ohio.

• 12:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  And it's like, God, I had this grandpa and, you know, I never met him, but he went to Alaska on a moose hunt back in two thousand and twenty. Yeah, you know, and this is the knife he carried. How cool is that? You know, and it's now twenty one fifty, you know?

• 12:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Um, so that that to me, I when I started Montana Knife Company, I wanted to start something where I could provide knives to people they could afford. Now, they're not cheap, you know, three hundred bucks isn't nothing, but it's attainable for anybody if you if you place some value in like an American made product and something that you know you're gonna use and pass down.

• 13:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, it's a that's a good point. I mean, when I first started hunting, it was like, when you got a present for whatever birthday, you're getting close to like hunting age, your sharp knife, you know, you got your own knife. That was a big deal.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:34Cameron Hanes?

  Or even like before that, I remember having a pocket knife, like a folding pocket knife, just a little, and it had a little, like, maybe antler thing on the side. Yeah. And it's like, okay, this might, if you had a knife, hey, anybody got a knife? Every every boy had a knife.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:50Cameron Hanes?

  Right? And so I totally get that. But I love the I love to romanticize the hunt, the culture of hunting and our tradition and a good knife.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:01Cameron Hanes?

  Like speaks to that, you know, I don't rifle hunt, but the a rifle is like one of those heirlooms that you grandpa passes down and.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  And even bows, it's like. Um, you know, bow technology comes so far that, you know, you know, the one thing about a rifle is you can pass that down. So you might be able to still shoot something with it in 40 years, 50 years, like with most of these bows. It's like, I'm just gonna hang that thing up on the wall. I'm not pulling that back and I have a blow up my face. But it's still cool to know, like, you know, oh, my uncle or my dad shot six deer with that bow, you know?

• 14:38Cameron Hanes?

  No, that, that, the tradition and the history of hunting is what makes it special.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:43Cameron Hanes?

  And so if you have, uh, little things, uh, special mementos that, you know, hearken back to whatever. Your grandpa or your dad or your great grandpa, that's, I mean, it's incredible.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Well, and I, there's something about a knife, you know, you talk about being a kid and getting your first knife. My little league baseball coach, Rick Dunkerly, he was an outfitter in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. And he was coaching little league baseball and he'd bring his knives to practice and show us. And I'm an 11 year old boy. I think knives and hunting and all that stuff are cool. And for some reason, he, you know, I don't know if he thought I was responsible and I was, I was a hard working little kid in my parents excavation business and stuff. But he, I kept asking him questions when he invited me up to his shop to make one that winter. And I made one or two there and, uh, I think it was his way of probably getting rid of me.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  He's like, well, if you want to be a knife maker, you gotta have your own knife shop, which was pretty much like, beat it, kid.

• 15:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And, uh, so I had a lawn mowing business as well and I worked with my parents. So I, I went and bought a belt grinder and I put it in my dad's shop and I made a couple knives and I presented them at my science fair. For a heat treat, heat treating steel project. And, uh, my science teacher and my math teacher, uh, each bought one of those two knives for 20 bucks.

• 16:07Cameron Hanes?

  Nice.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  And I was like, damn.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  You mean you can make knives and get paid to do it?

• 16:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Like, what else do you need in life?

• 16:16Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And that was the start. And, you know, I think something resonates also with like making things with your hands.

• 16:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  There's less and less of that these days. And it's why I think it's critical, you know, I was on Mike Rose's podcast and the Dirty Jobs Guy, you know, and we were talking about, you know, he talks a lot about apprenticeships and, you know, blue collar jobs and stuff. But also, like, we need shop programs in school and welding programs. And, you know, my first knife shop, my senior year of college, I knew I'd be leaving home, but I didn't know where I was going to be going or what I'd be doing. And so, our senior year, I bought the materials for it. And our construction class, my whole senior year, our construction project was to build me a knife shop. And we built a 10 by 14 shed out back of the high school, right by the football field.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  We built it all season. And then, later in the winter, when we had it finished, we built it on skids. When it got icy one day in the winter there, my dad hooked onto it with his backhoe and we drug it down the highway to my house.

• 17:23Cameron Hanes?

  That is your first knife?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  That was my first shop, kind of my first shop that wasn't in one of my dad's buildings. And then a couple of years later, got married and moved into Missoula. And we actually picked that up with two backhoes. And I bought an old trailer house frame and I could weld and stuff. So I, I cut the trailer house frame down and moved the axles up on it. And we set that shed on that trailer house frame and I pulled it behind my pickup to Missoula. So sketchy. I can't believe that thing didn't blow off.

• 17:51Cameron Hanes?

  How far was that?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Eighty-five miles.

• 17:53Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And I set that up at my boss's shop in Missoula, Montana, just like a shop in an industrial part of town. And I lived in his shop all summer and I made knives. I plugged that thing into his wall at his shop. And we showered outside, out of a garden hose. I mean, trying to live, I had no money.

• 18:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  And later that fall, we closed on our first house. And I quit my job and I went full time making knives at that point. And I drug that thing to my new house and I parked it next to my brand new house. It looked janky as hell.

• 18:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  And I worked in that 10 by 14 shed until... For two more years about the property than now and actually built and like created a real shop. But I worked in a storage shed, basically. But the point is, we, you know, we built that with our hands and like, I'll never get rid of that shed.

• 18:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Whose plan was that? Like for high school kids? So somebody had to like get you guys lined up.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Our shop, our shop teacher, Mr. Heisler.

• 18:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  But the point of the class was, and there's only like 12 of us in that class. But the point of that class was to teach kids how to build something.

• 19:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  You know, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna build Josh's shop. We're gonna frame some walls. You know, we're gonna wire it, you know, we're gonna insulate it. And it was just to teach us all some skills that, you know, you could maybe fall back on. And later in life, I mean, I've built all kinds of stuff, you know?

• 19:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. So did you guys have a drawing to go by or were you just kind of winging it on building that?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  We, we, he taught us how to draw, like kind of draw up our own little plans.

• 19:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, okay. Schematic. Yeah, gotcha.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  It was all before computers and.

• 19:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I gotcha. So yeah, you get the, well, the, the paper with like the little boxes you could use, right?

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. The grids.

• 19:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. But I was curious about the, the first knives you made, you said, uh, that first knife maker. And I love how you always call out their names too, because you know, people love hearing their names or like it's, to me, it's like, it's in honor of to history.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  I hear you talk about Roy and.

• 19:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Like Rick, he's still making knives. He's one of the best knife makers in the world. And, you know, I alluded to it earlier, but I get a little bit of hate on the internet because you have some success. But I, I think it's always incredibly important to point out the masters that, that taught you how, whether it's to bow hunt, to make a knife, to do anything, um, to give them credit. And especially, you know, a lot of those knife makers are still active. So with some of the success I've had or a platform like this, if it can make someone Google Rick Dunkerly or.

• 20:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  You know, some of those people that helped me, you know, um, you think about it, all those older gentlemen back in the nineties. You know, my first knife show was Eugene, Oregon, right here.

• 20:38Cameron Hanes?

  Really?

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:39Cameron Hanes?

  The fairgrounds.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  At the fairgrounds, stayed at the campus inn.

• 20:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, I rode as a 13 year old. I turned 13 at this show.

• 20:47Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Birthday, April 1st here and, uh, I rode out in a car with Rick Dunkerly and Barry Gallagher, some of these knife makers and, uh, Uh, I mean, you know, they were heathens and I was just this kid in the backseat, you know, along for the ride. Yeah. But, uh, they, you think about the fact that all those older guys took on a 12, 13 year old and hauled me to knife shows and anybody I'd ask, if I'd go ask Harvey Dean or Tim Hancock or any of these guys how they did something, these were the masters. I looked up to them. They were legends. How did you do that? You know, they would teach me, they would show me. And that's the thing about, I think that was cool about when I learned how to make knives. Um, there was no YouTube. There was no internet. I had to go as a kid,

• 21:31Speaker 01

  go up and be like, Cam, how'd you do that? And, and have an actual interaction. So you ask, actually, and I never thought about this, but like, the talking on podcasts and stuff, I had to do that as a kid to learn how to make knives.

• 21:43Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Yeah. Communication. Yeah. Yeah. Got to ask the right questions.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I flew across the country when I was 15 and spent a week with this old legend. He's passed away now, but George Heron. Spent a week in the shop and he just taught me how to, how he makes knives.

• 21:58Cameron Hanes?

  Like what's, so when you say, like, how did you do that? Like, what would you be talking about when you're talking about knife making? Like if you had a question for somebody, you just said, it's kind of like, like in passing, like, how did you do that? Could you show me? Like, what would be something?

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, uh, maybe a guy's really good at finishing. So like, he's got a really nice polish on a blade, right? Or the fit and finish, like the guard fits up super tight. Or maybe there's carving on the handle, like an artistic carving. Like, how do you lay that out? How do you finish the insides of those little things? How do you, um, how did you construct that knife? It's all screwed together from the back and there's all these pieces and, um, there, there's so many different techniques. Uh, heat treatment of steel, you know, when I started Montana Knife Company, I brought things I learned as a young knife maker. And you know, I became the youngest master bladesmith in the world. Well, that that involves a series of testing of the heat treatment of your blades.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  And you know, a knife can be as pretty as you want it to be, but it has to cut. And it has to hold a good edge.

• 23:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  And so I was lucky to be around some guys like Rick and some other guys who were really heavily involved in testing their blades for hunting purposes. So like wear resistance of an edge, how long does it hold an edge? And then can you re-sharpen it or not?

• 23:19Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Edge geometry, grinding. All these things I was asking was because I was trying to become a master bladesmith. And it's like a young bow hunter that's like quizzing you. Like, I want to kill big bulls someday. How, you know, what are the techniques? And, you know, how do you learn the wind? And how do you read the topo map and all these things? So it was the same way in knife making, and I was trying to catch them. But little did I know, I got lucky. I, I started learning from a bunch of guys that at the time weren't very good. But little did I know, they were all going to become some of the best knife makers in the world. So the whole time I was trying to catch them, they were getting better.

• 23:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  God, it got frustrating when I was young because at times I'd want to quit or cry because they also weren't nice to me.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  You know, I would hand them knives and be like, what do you think of this? Like all proud of it. And they'd be like, well, guard's crooked. You know, you got scratches on your blade here. It's too thick, you know, the design sucks like, and they would just rip it apart every single time.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  But that's, but they were doing me a favor. If they were like, hey, that's really great kid, I wouldn't have tried to get better.

• 24:25Cameron Hanes?

  Trial by fire, basically. When, when did you, what was the first like positive feedback you got on a, like you felt like, okay, I, I did a great job on this knife and that was verified.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I was probably 21 or two years old. I was, it was after I was, or just after I'd passed my master bladesmith test. The year after I took a blade to the Atlanta Blade Show and I showed Tim Hancock was a.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Just a legend in the knife community. He passed away from Parkinson's later, but he, he was just an unbelievable guy and uh, he was so dialed in. Um, he was fit. He was an ex bull rider. He was a nuclear power plant welder. Uh, he was meticulous to the nth degree and he was like, no bullshit. And like, he would call me out when he would see stuff like, this just sucks dude. Like you can't like, I don't even know how you sell that. I mean, he was hard. He would be harsh, right? But also he'd be like, here's how you need to do it better. Like, why are you doing it that way? And I took a knife to the Atlanta Blade Show and my other hack for getting information of these guys and we're all broke knife makers is I'd asked a room with them at some of these shows,

• 25:35Speaker 01

  split the cost, right? And so we're in the hotel room. I pull out my knives and I handed a knife to Tim and I'm like, what do you think of that? And he looks it over and he's like, goddamn kid, that's good. Really? I still remember it to this day. Yeah. Like, that's really freaking good. And then he started asking me how I did the steel in it. Like, how did you do this? And it was the Damascus steel and all that forging. Yeah. He's like, holy shit. Tables have turned. Yeah. It was like, damn, I kind of made it. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, what'd you do with that knife? Sold it. I mean, I never kept any of my knives because you're trying to pay the bills. Oh, I understand. But yeah, you finally nailed one. You got the, got the feedback you've been

• 26:16Speaker 01

  waiting for. Exactly. And you know, trust me, the critiques didn't stop from there. I mean, other stuff, you know, it's hit and miss and still young and um, but, but passing those tests, you know, I became a journeyman knife maker at 15. You know, in the testing process, it really does relate to what we're doing today because like, you have to make a performance blade first and that blade has to be 10 inches long or less. And then you have to forge, it has to be hand forged and you finish it. And then it has to chop a one inch rope in half in one chop, which just shows sharpness. That's fine. That's not that hard to do. Then that blade has to chop two two by fours in half, as many chops as you want. And when you get all done with that, it still has to shave hair

• 27:00Speaker 01

  off your arm. And then you have to blend that blade 90 degrees in a vise without breaking it.

• 27:06Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so what that shows is that you have control over your heat treatment, your metallurgy. So you selected the right steel. You knew how to forge it at the right temperatures. You heat treated it right. You ground it correctly. You didn't grind it too thin or too thick.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  And then you could actually put a good workable edge on it. That's a durable edge. It's gonna hold and

• 27:31Speaker 01

  it shows that control and a blade can't be too hard and it can't be too soft.

• 27:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  You know, if it's too hard, it's gonna snap. If it's too soft, it's not gonna hold an edge for very long. And then you have to take five knives and present them to a panel of judges at the Atlanta Blade Show. And those, they're master smith judges. So you take five knives down there. So I did this in 1996. I was 15. I flew to Atlanta with my mom, presented those five knives to the judges and they judge them in a room. And, uh, and then, you know, it's a pass fail. And at the juryman level, they're, they're, they're, they might let a little bit of something go, but they're, they're pretty harsh. But at the master smith level, you know, a few years later, I tested for master. And, you know, you just can't have anything wrong.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And, uh, you also have to make a 10 inch quillion dagger for that. Um, and you have to do that same performance test with a Damascus steel blade. But, but those are all the things that you learn that make like what I'm doing today. Like the heat treatment of steel and, and the working, a working knife for a hunter. For someone going out in the field or a blue collar guy who just maybe opens a couple hundred boxes a day at his job.

• 28:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  It all relates back to those tests when I was doing that at 15, 18 years old. I actually, I actually did my performance bladesmith, uh, test here in Eugene at Wayne Goddard's shop before the Oregon show.

• 28:58Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, really?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wayne Goddard was a total legend in the knife industry and he lived here in Eugene.

• 29:04Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, did he have a shop here?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep.

• 29:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. It's like, when you mentioned all those different attributes of the knife, you know, that you need to hit and one knife needs to do it all. It's, uh, I've had, because people love giving knives or sending knives or. To me, it feels like such a competitive market. Everybody, so many knife makers these days and everybody's like grinding, trying to get noticed or trying to get, you know, with social media, they just, they want you to tag them, right?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  They do, yeah.

• 29:35Cameron Hanes?

  And, uh, and I get it, but, um, I've had so many cool knives sent to me that I wanna use. They just will, they just don't work.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:46Cameron Hanes?

  They look really good, but they won't hold an edge and then you can't get the edge back. And I'm not, I'm not, listen, I, I've, you know, broke down animals with a broad head. So it's like, I just want something sharp. But, uh, but yeah, it's, it's some knives, just like you talked about those, you know, being able to bend it, being able to hold an edge, being able to cut a piece of wood. Man, it's hard to find a knife that can do all that.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  It is, and there's, there's so many knife makers out there and it, and it's, it, it, anybody who tells me like, hey, I wanna be a knife maker for a living, I'm like, man,

• 30:23Speaker 01

  I, I, I support that, but like, you should also maybe think about trying to have a real job too. It's, it's so hard because to get the kind of money you need to actually make enough to put a little in your bank account to pay your house payment, plus have a little left to like buy more equipment for your shop and buy more materials like, and there's so many guys doing it as a hobby that are charging nothing.

• 30:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  That, that guy might make that knife for you for a hundred and fifty bucks, but the professional that's raising three kids needs six or eight hundred bucks.

• 30:53Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And the dude that's doing it even as a hobby is like, he's doing a nice job. And it kind of undercuts the professional.

• 31:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  And it's, it's a hard way to go. You know, I had four young kids.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  I, I got divorced and then my house burnt down. And so I was living in a camper 10 years ago this last year. Yeah, I'm living in camper in my driveway and at that point I had kind of stopped doing the knives full time. I was alignment at that point because I had kind of realized like all these heroes that I'm talking about. They're all in their sixties and their seventies and they're still making knives and they're going to shows rooming with me and still like short on money. I'm like, what am I doing? Like this is a, this is going to be hard to ever retire from or to support my family and, and you know, the, the housing crash of two thousand eight, nine, that market.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Really showed me like, oh, this is fickle because like a lot of the higher end clients just went away and uh, so I'm doing the, the, the, you know, deal, living in my camper. I'm, I'm broke as can absolutely be. I had to borrow money from a knife collector to keep my house when I got divorced and um, house is sitting there in ashes and I have four young kids. And uh, you know, a couple of years later I met my new wife Jessica and I started telling her about my dream of starting Montana Knife Company and she, she's real like, well then fucking do it, you know, and she's like, I got the kids. Go to your shop every night after work and build it.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  And so her dad passed away in two thousand eighteen and uh, she inherited like eighteen, twenty grand. That's about all he had, you know, to give her. And she said, take that money and buy steel and start MKC. And so I took that money and I bought steel. And I made two hundred knives and I, and I started making those prototypes in twenty nineteen and then in twenty twenties when, like I launched the website with Brandon and uh, I was still making knives, uh, you know, part time, I was still a lineman and uh, I needed the last day of the year off of twenty twenty. Uh, it was COVID, which is also a bad time to think about starting a business.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  But I'm working for this big corporate company and I, Thomas Rhett reached out and he's like, hey, I'd like to get a knife. I'm going to be up in Montana skiing for New Year's. Can you meet me on December thirty first? And I was like, yeah, no, I'll do that. It's like a four hour drive. So I go to my boss and I'm like, hey, I need December thirty first off. And he goes, well, you're out of vacation. And I'm like, well, yeah, but I get four weeks bank like the the next day.

• 33:32Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  I have a month. Can we like figure something out? No, no, it's just too hard corporate stuff, whatever. And so I'm like, hey, man, think hard about this.

• 33:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And I come in the morning of the 30th and I'm like, all right, let's work out tomorrow. How do I get tomorrow off? And he's like, yeah, dude, it just doesn't work in the computer system, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, all right, I'll be done at noon. And he's like, what? And I was like, I'll go finish this job with the crew this morning. I was forming on a job. I said, I'll, I'll wrap it up at noon and then I'll come in and turn in my keys. I, you know, I'm gonna have to quit. And he's like, you serious? And I'm like, I told you to think hard about this.

• 34:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I quit and went down, met him, you know, because you don't, you don't, you don't know how, what one thing might lead to or whatever. And as it turns out, that particular meeting didn't lead to anything, but it was cool.

• 34:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  But January 1st of 2021 was like, all right, that's, this is day one.

• 34:30Cameron Hanes?

  Got to get serious now.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yep. And Brandon and I didn't take a paycheck for the first whole, first half of that year. And we just kept reinvesting and, you know, we, I made 200 knives because that's all I could afford to make. And then we sold those. And I made 200 more. And then it was like, shit, we might be able to make 500. You know, well, let's try 600, you know, and we, we would just build them and then we would put them up for sale when they were done. Because I don't want to take anybody's money before I can send you a

• 34:59Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  A product, like the whole, like taking pre-orders and that, I'm not going to do that shit. And chip, it was like, it started to actually work. And later in that year, we started taking a little bit of a paycheck. And then I started hiring some people and now today we have 75 employees.

• 35:17Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Just three years.

• 35:19Cameron Hanes?

  Man, what is, what a story.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  It's wild.

• 35:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, what a story. Yeah, I, well, I guess this is a good time. Let's talk about this knife right now.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:29Cameron Hanes?

  Hey, are we going to film this with the phone or what? So I can put up a reel. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you know, social media thing is uh.

• 35:44Cameron Hanes?

  Instagram doesn't like flashy stuff.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:47Cameron Hanes?

  They like real stuff like shot with a phone.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:50Cameron Hanes?

  If if these guys make awesome videos with graphics and all that.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:54Cameron Hanes?

  It just doesn't do anything.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:55Cameron Hanes?

  If I filmed me running or some stupid video, it goes crazy.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:01Cameron Hanes?

  We're gonna try something different here instead of ripping it off the podcast footage. We'll have Giddy in here.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:07Cameron Hanes?

  See if he can fuck this up with my phone. But let's talk about, so this is my new knife.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:13Cameron Hanes?

  Montana Knife Company collaboration.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:16Cameron Hanes?

  Tell me about this bad boy.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  The pack out.

• 36:18Cameron Hanes?

  Look at this, I mean, look at, first of all, look at this box. So does every knife come with one of these?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, if your name's Cameron Hanes.

• 36:26Cameron Hanes?

  But here's my new knife and uh, this thing, pretty, pretty badass. Tell, tell me about that.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you know, it's interesting because you and I started talking about maybe working together and doing a knife.

• 36:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Shit, oh, at least two years ago, maybe a little bit longer. And I, I still remember when I first met you, uh, and it was the, it was in 2020 when Trump, uh, didn't win.

• 36:50Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  And it was in Montana and uh, I, I said then, I'm like, I want to work with him someday. And uh, so you and I started talking about what to do and uh, you know, you were talking about how you liked a knife that wasn't big, a little bit smaller. And we started talking about skinning, skinny knives and stuff. And I think this little knife is absolutely badass. This is gonna be a little skinny workhorse.

• 37:14Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, money.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Um, and it's interesting because when you see the design, like when we drew it up, I was like, I'm not really sure. And then we, we made a prototype and I put it in my hand and I'm like, oh, it feels so good.

• 37:27Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, it fits per, I mean, it's, it's perfect for what you need to try to get in and, and work on these animals for what I wanted anyway. I love breaking down the animals. I love. And you know, this last video kind of explained it, but I love trying to get every ounce of meat off there more than anybody gets.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:43Cameron Hanes?

  And sometimes you need a little knife to get in there.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:46Cameron Hanes?

  And even like when I'm thinking about, everybody gets the inside tenderloins back here, there's inside tenderloins like right up front too.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:53Cameron Hanes?

  You have to have, do a little intricate work in there to get those.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 37:57Cameron Hanes?

  That's what I was thinking of with a knife like this.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and it's, uh, the, the other thing with this blade, it's cool is, you know, it's only three inches long from the tip to the front of the handle. But if you rock this tip from here on a ruler down that edge, there's three and a half inches of edge.

• 38:11Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  So, you know, the amount of work that you can get actually out of a shorter blade, to me, it's, it's, it's really impressive. And one thing that I try to get across to people is you don't need a big knife when you're hunting. If you have a blade with the right steel and the right edge and edge geometry and the right heat treat, um, you can do an incredible amount of work. I mean, you can do a full moose with this knife right here.

• 38:35Cameron Hanes?

  Definitely. Yeah, it's a, you know, I was just, as you were saying that, I was thinking about it. So if you have, say, I mean, you said this is three inches, but actually three and a half of blade.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:47Cameron Hanes?

  Um, so if you had like a eight or 10 inch knife, how much of that edge are you, are you actually using?

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, about three inches of it. I mean,

• 38:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  If that.

• 38:56Cameron Hanes?

  So yeah, it's, it's there, but mostly it's just in the way.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you're, you're jabbing into the guts, you're jabbing yourself or your buddy.

• 39:04Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  You know, I think about when you reach in and you're trying to get that diaphragm out, right? And you got one hand in there and you're pulling and you got that blade in, you know, I want to be able to choke up on this, index my finger right up here. And in fact, I'll even cover the tip entirely.

• 39:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  And just have my finger right over the tip.

• 39:20Cameron Hanes?

  Feel it.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that way you're not jabbing yourself. You got safety. And then when you do get that thing apart and you're just taking hide off. You choke back on this thing and start doing this, like you can absolutely fly with this blade.

• 39:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. Um, this is, this is perfect too, because I was thinking about that. It's like, yeah, you can have like a long handle, a big blade, but it's, it's just not efficient.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:46Cameron Hanes?

  And it's not, it's not as effective as something like this.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And you know, if you had a little, a little small blade, like a speed goat or something like that. If you want something with more of a tip or something, it's, it's fine if you want to have another little knife or utilitarian type deal. But even if you had to get in and cape with this and stuff, you could, but this knife's really for like breaking down that animal. You know, for breaking down the big parts and, and getting the hide off of it. I think like when my son and I just went on a moose hunt, you know, the amount of, of, you know, stroke that you have to have to just get it done. And you know, it's the middle of the night, it was raining, it's cold, you want to get work done in a hurry.

• 40:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Get that thing opened up, get the hide off of it, and then maybe get back to camp, get dried out and come back the next day.

• 40:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  You can do a ton of work in a hurry with this little blade.

• 40:38Cameron Hanes?

  And then what I like too is like, again, I'm not, I'm not a master knife smith for sure, a master of anything. Maybe, maybe, yeah, but, uh, um, I like how quick I can get an edge on it, you know? So I know that's part of what you explained, you know, that, that testing is, and I don't know if you mentioned how quick an, an edge comes back. But as I said, I've had some cool knives that I just could not sharpen because maybe the blade, it was so thick. And so that the angle to get it sharp, you know, was too much or you have to take off too much steel, whatever the case. But all I do, I have like a little sharpener. It's kind of, you know, like one of those little plastic ones.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:19Cameron Hanes?

  And I can just go over this a couple of times and I'm back in action.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:23Cameron Hanes?

  I'm not wasting time.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  And the reason for that is, is if you actually feel a blade in this, in this direction here, you're feeling for the thickness and the edge geometry. And there's not a bunch of meat behind this edge.

• 41:34Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Like this knife isn't made for chopping rocks. And half, it's made for going through flesh and hair and meat. So you don't need all that weight behind this edge. And so when you do start to lose that edge and you go to touch it on a stone with a big, thick blade, you have to remove all that steel behind that leading edge. That steel behind there also adds added pressure to the edge when you're actually cutting, where this blade is going to go through hide and meat and all that, like, like a laser. There's no resistance behind that edge, which is going to also allow that edge to stand up longer. And we do, we have a little for in your pack sharpening stone that we did with Work Sharp and weighs next to nothing.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  And again, it's intended for that middle of the ilk, you know, you stand up, you know, stretch your back.

• 42:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Hit a couple of strokes on it and you're right back to work and you know, and but again, it's lightweight. You're carrying it around in the woods. You don't want to carry extra weight.

• 42:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  No, I'm stoked. And the other cool thing about this is this looks so much different than all of our other knives. Like this is so purpose built.

• 42:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  And intended to do one thing. The other cool thing is this is the first time we've really done red and black as a standard. A standard color, which is just your color. The Keep Hammering Edition.

• 42:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I love it.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  And for a knife maker, I've always thought, I'm always like, God dang freaking Cam stole such a good tagline. Cause like for a, for a forging guy, for a knife maker, like Keep Hammering is such a good, uh, so to me, it's so fitting on a blade.

• 43:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  You know?

• 43:08Cameron Hanes?

  I, I, I just love that. I mean, I just love how this feels with the, even the spot for your thumb right there. I don't know. It just feels like that control. And you mentioned too, is like even the diaphragm, like having your finger on the tip where it's, it's not that the, the knife isn't so long. Sometimes you just, that wouldn't be an option. You'd be halfway up the blade and trying to hold the tip. Um, but yeah, this is.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  And with this, with this blade, with you choked up, if you just do this with your wrist, you look at the amount of cutting distance that you're going to do. So if you're inside and you're just doing this with your wrist, you know, it's not big arm strokes. You're under control. You're like this, but you're getting a lot out of that small movement.

• 43:48Cameron Hanes?

  Super effective. Yeah. Well, I love that we were able to team up on this and I think people are going to love this knife. I mean, and it's, it's just a, yeah, it's just a great tool.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  It is.

• 44:00Cameron Hanes?

  It's just a tool you're going to use out there. I don't know.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Well, the other thing I, I think I've always been adamant about is, you know, when you have a knife, you always, you also have to be able to take it with you and pack it in the field. And I've seen knives that in stores where you, it's like, okay, this decent knife. Hey, let's see the sheath and then they hand you this piece of shit that it's going to fall out of.

• 44:22Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  These are form molded to the blade and they also have this clip on here where you can carry this horizontal or vertical, you can flip this.

• 44:30Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And you can put it on and off of your pack strap or your belt.

• 44:33Cameron Hanes?

  Perfect.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Um, you know, so we, we try to do those extra little things to make this an actual usable package, full package, like it's, it's a tool and you should be able to carry it and not worry about losing it.

• 44:46Cameron Hanes?

  One thing I've noticed with your sheaths are they are, I mean, they work.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Cameron Hanes?

  You know, the knife's not coming out. And I have, I have had it on my bino harness here where, you know, with the knife right there. I've had it on my belt. I've had it on my pocket.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:01Cameron Hanes?

  Wherever I have it, it works.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:02Cameron Hanes?

  I've never lost a knife.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And some people even pull the clip off and they will just tuck it in like a bino harness pocket right behind their, their binos or something, but it, it is, it should work. And you know, the last thing that I think makes us different than so many other companies, this is why you buy American made is if you need this knife sharpened up after season and not just you as Cam Haynes, but like Bill in Ohio. You need this sharpened, uh, say you've gone through a bunch of deer and elk and whatnot, and maybe you're not real, real good at sharpening. You send it to us, we'll sharpen it for free and send it back to you the next day. We don't hold these for more than 24 hours.

• 45:39Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  So, and if it's missing a screw in the sheath or you got some little issue, like we'll, we'll fix all that stuff. We'll clean it up. People send it in with fat and meat and shit all over them.

• 45:50Cameron Hanes?

  That's most my knives.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we clean them and sharpen them and get them back the next day. Cause that's part of it too, is like, if I'm, if I want you to pass this down for generations, it needs to be useful for decades.

• 46:01Cameron Hanes?

  Right. It's the last.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And if it's dull and you really aren't good at sharpening, I mean, we have YouTube videos and all that stuff to show you. But if you just don't want to learn or you're not real good at it, I'd rather you send that to us and let us sharpen it. You know, and I hear people go like, oh, 300 bucks, I can buy a knife for $39 at Cabell's and it's like, First of all, it's made in China. And second of all, you're gonna send that in and get it sharpened and somebody's gonna take care of it like.

• 46:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  You spend 300 bucks on this knife.

• 46:31Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  It might, you might have this knife for decades and we'll take care of you.

• 46:35Cameron Hanes?

  Well, yeah, that, I mean, that's huge. And then also one other little thing that I, I've learned this lesson the hard way. My father-in-law, like, is when I killed that bull right there, but it was, so it was 97. However, many years ago that was, God, that's getting close to 30 years, but he bought me this, this sick knife and it had this green and black handle. And you just could not see that thing. And I ended up losing it. I left it where I was breaking down that bull and I went back in there because it was like he spent a couple hundred bucks on it. You know, it's just like concrete finisher. It's not, you know, that's a lot of money and it was a sick knife and I could not find that knife again.

• 47:18Cameron Hanes?

  So I've always liked knives with a handle that isn't going to blend in.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:23Cameron Hanes?

  You know, and in a, in a red knife or, you know, I've had some that are orange. I think you guys had, had one that I used that was orange. I just like being able to kind of glance and like, okay, there's my knife.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:34Cameron Hanes?

  It's just little things like that.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  I don't care what people say, like you are gonna set them down.

• 47:38Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, you have to.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to. And it's like, all right, we got this quarter cut free. Like when we were handling Hank's Moose. You know, it's like, all right, it's cut free. I gotta help load it in the game bag. You set your knife down and your other buddies over there and all of a sudden something gets pushed over the top of it.

• 47:53Cameron Hanes?

  Kicked over, yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, we, three or four guys working, there's always a knife laying around and you grab one and next thing you know, the one you set down on the ground is gone.

• 48:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  So it is, it's nice to be able to go back and find it, especially in headlamps in the middle of the night.

• 48:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. So that's, that's, that's why I like the red, because it just kind of pops out a little bit more where it's gonna be a little easier to see.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:13Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, it's a great, great looking knife. Um, yeah, couldn't, couldn't be more excited to be able to team up with you guys on this one.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  It's awesome, man. Well, I, I appreciate it. It's a, I can't wait to see you putting this thing to use this fall. Absolutely out there crushing it.

• 48:30Cameron Hanes?

  Well, I want to talk too about, um, Uh, just where is, you know, Montana Knife Company? So let's, we'll talk about, we heard where it started, but then you and I, uh, what, was that Kalispell?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. So I was there with Trump Jr.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:48Cameron Hanes?

  Trying 2020 election, whatever they're speaking. Uh, met you there. You had knives for us. It's super cool. But I didn't realize that that was like when you're just getting going.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:59Cameron Hanes?

  And, and I've heard you talk about this before about what a grind it is to, uh, to make a business like Montana Knife Company and grow and invest and like how to do it, how much to invest, how many people to hire. But the team you have now, just the people I know, you know, I haven't met, or maybe I have, but Brandon, he's done a great job with you. I know Jess.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yep. Jess Byers.

• 49:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. She still works for you, right?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. She's fantastic.

• 49:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. She's awesome. Love Jess.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:31Cameron Hanes?

  And, uh, I know Kip is kinda, is he on your board?

• 49:34Speaker 01

  He is.

• 49:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Kip Fokes.

• 49:36Cameron Hanes?

  So tell me about your team and like how that's allowed you to, for this vision that you have to implement it.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. There again, not, not thinking that you can do everything just by yourself, you know? And, uh, you know, when I, yeah, when I met you in 2020, uh, I still was a lineman is a day.

• 49:55Cameron Hanes?

  Brandon wasn't there, was he?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  He was, uh, we had, by that point, we had just partnered up officially.

• 50:01Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  So, uh, yeah, he would, we had just partnered up. He was still living in Kalispell, actually. And I was down in Missoula. So he was right there. He was out of town that weekend.

• 50:11Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, got you. Okay.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  But to come to that event, and it blew me away because Trump Jr. shoots me a message. I'm freaking nobody. I mean, I'm still a lineman for the power company and he shoots me an Instagram message. Hey, we're going to be in Kalispell. You want to come up and hang out? And I was like, your, your dad's president and running again. And you're, you're shooting me a message?

• 50:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  How is it? And so I thought it was going to be some big, long VIP line, like shake his hand, you know, he walks by. And and it's kind of reminded me actually of like grade school or junior high where I was the only kid allowed to bring knives to school. I'd show them teachers and the principal and here I show up and secret secret service I meet up with them and I'm packing freaking knives. And they're like, yeah, come on back. And it was just you and Ted Nugent and Junior and a couple of local politicians and we just hung out and bullshitted and it's when I realized like, wow, Don Jr. Really is just, I mean, he's this big figure, but he's also just a

• 51:14Speaker 01

  regular guy, like wants to be a regular guy. And you were super kind. And you guys had no idea, like, the dream I was trying to build. But I, I do believe kind of in manifesting your destiny and like, I'm gonna work with that guy someday. Like, I'm gonna work with Cam, you know, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some of these things. But the help that you needed along the way between Brandon and then, like Bert Soren was Soren X, you know, his was the first event in February of 2020, right before COVID, where I showed some knives around at that event. And that was the first time I had been surrounded by humans that were that driven as a, as a group. Every, every person there had their own incredible

• 51:59Speaker 01

  story. And when you have that many people go, hey, we believe in you, you can do this. Justin and I went home and it was like, just into overdrive, like, we're absolutely gonna do this. And, and then I met Kip through that, through Bert and through that event, and just started asking him questions, you know, about what he did in Under Armour and how he built it and what, what mistakes did you make, make? And I, I constantly just asked people, I got to meet, you know, Evan Hafer with Black Rifle, and I really looked up to Evan, what they did at Black Rifle, because Evan's just some dude from Idaho, in the end, like, he's just a regular guy, like me, a logging town, and went to the military,

• 52:43Speaker 01

  but then he got out and did something special. And I'm like, well, if Evan can do it, and you know, these guys over here can do it, like, why can't I? And, and then, you know, I hired early on in the company, hired Andrew Oliver, our Director of Operations, he sent me a message. This is kind of a cool story. I actually saw a comment, this early in the company, like, late and early in 2021. I saw a comment on Facebook or Instagram and he's like, somebody had posted one of our knives and they said, and Andrew commented and said, oh, I had one of those knives. I love it, but my truck got broke into and it got stolen. So I just sent him a new knife and I just shipped him

• 53:26Speaker 01

  one and I looked his name up in the system and he sent me a message and he was like, dude, that was super cool. I work at Amazon in Spokane, you know, like to talk to you about operations and stuff. And so later that fall, I posted a director of operations job because I needed help on the operations side. And he applied and he was sitting at my kitchen table interviewing and he's like, do you remember me? And I was like, no, why? And he's like, he told me the story. He's like, you did that. And he's like, I went home that day from Amazon and told my wife, I'm going to work for that company someday. Wow. And that fall, he interviewed and I joke because I interviewed him, but technically he interviewed us. He asked me a hundred questions.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  I couldn't answer one of them. And I was like, this dude is way smarter than I am. Yeah. And he hired like 4,000 people at Amazon in Spokane and built that from the concrete up and was operating it. And so I hired him and he literally, we were working in a two-car garage, his computer next to mine and the workbench and we're making the knives right behind us. I was still sharpening all the knives with Tristan and he took a huge risk gamble with his family to leave that corporate job and come to Frenchtown, Montana, work in my two-car garage. And but a guy like him, a guy like Jason or CFO, they treat it like it's their company. And when you hire people, you

• 54:53Speaker 01

  need to find people who will match your work ethic and treat it like it's their own. Right. But then you also have to treat them.

• 55:00Cameron Hanes?

  That's, that's not easy to do.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Well, you know, yeah.

• 55:03Cameron Hanes?

  It's not easy finding those type of people.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  It's true. But they, I think when they see how much passion and work you're putting into something, the right kind of people, like when I interview people, a lot of it, it's not technical. I'm trying to find out who you are. Right. What's your work ethic?

• 55:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, you can train skills. Yeah. Yeah. You just want, you want the right fit.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do you think? What kind of a human are you? And you know, that's why I respect so much of what you talk about, what you're about, not just talk about, but what you do.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  I, the hardest working man I ever saw in my life was my dad. I grew up in that excavation, excavation business. I logged pipe around ditches from the time I was five years old. You know, I saw him go to work and he's not on Instagram. He's not doing it for followings or fans or to be an ambassador of whatever like. He did it because he was trying to feed his family and grow a business and they got married. They had $50 in their bank account. And he had this piece of shit, cabless backhoe and built an excavation company as I was a kid and, and I really helped. And my sister helped in that family business all the way through high school, but I got work ethic modeled to me.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And I believe in, you know, you, the only way to success is hard work. Like that's the only way, you know?

• 56:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's true. It's a, then also I'm like, when I think about myself personally, and I don't, I can't speak for you, but. We talk about hard work is the only way to success, but I also know that there's a lot of people out there busting their ass. You know, who no one will ever know. They'll never quote have this voice, right? So it's, it does take hard work. You're right, but it also takes something else. I don't know what.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  I don't know what that is and I, I know I also had, like when I started MKC in 2020 and I came and met you, I had no money. So I couldn't, I, I wasn't going to be able to stand there and offer to sponsor you or to sponsor a podcast. Or Brandon and I had zero money. So we, we only did it through handing a knife to somebody like you at that event. Or handing that knife to whoever else. We seeded product out and then we, we just counted on, but I never asked for anything. I never asked like that day, I never asked you to do anything with it or post it, or it's just like, I wanted the product to speak for itself. But to be honest, I was really fortunate because a lot of the people I gave stuff to, they were just good to us.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  And a lot of them waited for us to grow before maybe I could. Be of use back to them to help them.

• 57:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, but I think that so when I think it's something else too, I think it's it's your and you can't really script this or you can't really tell somebody else, but it's your demeanor, your who you are makes people because I don't, I don't, I remember that night and I remember getting the knife and you know, the interaction, but I just mostly just remember that you seem like a good guy, cool guy. So when the opportunity came up, I don't remember when the next one was, but I do remember me and Joe breaking down his bowl and we're using your knives.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:17Cameron Hanes?

  And so I don't know if that was the next time, but it makes you want to like, oh, this, this Josh guy, yeah, he's cool, he's a badass. I like this guy.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:26Cameron Hanes?

  I want to use his knife on this thing. So it's like, you could have the, a person doing the exact same thing, but if they're not you and don't have your demeanor or your, how you interact with people, do you know how people, you know, going out saying, oh, I have all these knives, but I want to use this guy's because of whatever else. So there is something there.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I don't know what that is because I, I appreciate that. It's very, very kind of you, but I, I just love, I love people and I don't care how famous they are or not famous they are, but like, um, I've been so fortunate in four years to meet, you know, like meet, meet in Rogan, right? Um, but, or so many of these other really, really cool people. Um, I try not to ask anything of anybody because I genuinely want to just be friends with badass people.

• 59:17Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  I don't care if they're a country music singer, if they're just a riffra in Missoula, or if it's Rogan, right? Um, and when I meet really, really famous people, I've also been like disappointed. I don't care if you're famous. If you're a douchebag, I don't want to be friends with you.

• 59:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  You know, but what I found is there are so many cool people, like when you sit down with Joe and his bar, you know, after his, you know, doing his stuff at the mothership, uh, he's just a good human.

• 59:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  You know, and went out pig hunting with him and Tyler and we just hung out like boys. And I also think a lot of those people don't want to be treated like anything other than just one of your buddies.

• 59:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 59:57Cameron Hanes?

  Sure.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  But I don't, I don't know what that is or why I somehow broke through and so many other knife makers haven't and I don't think it's anything they're doing necessarily wrong. I, I honest, I just, I don't know. I feel like I'm just gotten lucky.

• 1:00:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:00:14Cameron Hanes?

  But as you said, with hard work.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  To, to, to sometimes for sure in my life to a fault like I wouldn't change anything or regret anything, but like when my kids were growing up and young, like I probably worked too much, you know? Even today.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  I mean, it's seven days a week like, but it's, it's pa- it's passion. And to be honest, you know,

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  like I could, I could sell Montana Knife Company today. Like people knock on the door. They want to buy it or these big conglomerates that they're trying to buy us or whatever. And it's like, I could probably become a wealthy person if I sold Montana Knife Company today, but I, I told our employees and I've told people when I, from the day I started this, like I've been making knives since I was 11. I want to grow a generational brand. I don't care about like the money side. Like yes, it's nice to make some money and go do some cool things. But

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  if you gave me $50 million today, tomorrow I would go to my shop.

• 1:01:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  I, I, this is what I do and the last thing I'd ever want to do is like sell this just for the money and then watch somebody say, hey, we can make a better margin if we make these handles in China.

• 1:01:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  You know, and I also want to be able to support like my friends in the industry that have helped me, you know? They're such good people behind a lot of these brands, whether it's Evan with Black Rifle or you know, Nosler, I wear the shirt just because like John Nason and Matty have been great to us, you know? And there were companies and people and it, and it's actually difficult because like I have a lot of friends that compete with each other, you know? It could be a comp- a person from this pack company and this pack company and whatnot, but we try to kind of be Switzerland be- because like, God, there's such good people behind so many of these brands and it's sometimes that's hard, but I, I don't know. I'm rambling on, but I just truly love the people in this industry.

• 1:02:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. Me too. It's a. Yeah, I just know that it probably, I know how it feels for me, but like when you see Joe wearing an MKC hat or sweatshirt or whatever it does, this is like, how incredible is that?

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  It's, it's mind blowing and people will send me photos and um, sometimes I feel awkward about it because I hate to, you know, Brandon runs our Instagram, he'll share that stuff and, and you know, tag Joe and all that and I, and Joe knows what he's doing when he puts something on, like he knows, he knows his influence, he's not dumb, but that being said, I also just want people like him and these other people to know how much I appreciate that, like, and I never want people to feel like we're like using them or whatever, but they, they know their platform makes a difference and I've never been on his podcast, but it's amazing how many people come up and they're like, I heard you on Rogan's podcast. It's

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  like, no, you didn't, but you probably saw him wearing our hat or, but people have no idea how powerful, like, you don't need to be Joe Rogan. If you, if you wear an MKC hat and on, when you're buying a Montana Knife Company knife, you're buying an idea. You're buying what we are about and what it means. And it's, it's two dudes that started a company and bootstrapped it. There's no major investors. We didn't sell out. We, we didn't, we didn't even go borrow any money in the beginning because I already felt like I was risking my, my family by quitting my job.

• 1:03:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  And even when everyone was telling me so many knife makers and not in a malicious way, they were just like, dude, you can't make honey knives and make it and compete against the big boys. Like you have to make these in China. You can't make a honey knife and sell it for $300. A honey knife in a store is $69. And I said, I know there's enough Americans in this country that will appreciate what we're doing, that will make a living off of it. And I think we were on the verge, and this was again, kind of luck, but in 2020 with COVID and a lot of the BS happening, I think there were a lot of Americans out there starting to turn their eyes back towards like American-made products.

• 1:04:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  And I, I tell people, hey, if you can't afford to buy our knife, I totally understand. If you're on a budget and whatnot, maybe you shouldn't. Like, if that 300 bucks is your last 300 bucks, you should, you should probably save that and make sure your kids have food. But if you even buy a hat or a shirt and wear it, or you tell your friend, like, it doesn't matter what marketing we do, it doesn't matter what podcasts I've ever been on, every single one of our post-knife surveys that we get, how did you hear about our company? Number one is always friends and family. It's recommendation. And so, you know, when you as an American walk into your closet and you put your shirt on for the day, you were advert, you were part of an advertising budget for somebody

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  right there. And if you choose to put that Nike shirt on, or that, you know, Black Rifle shirt, or that MKC, or that Keep Hammering shirt, you are telling America something about yourself. If you're wearing that Keep Hammering shirt and you're walking down the street, somebody looks over and they, they're like, oh, that dude, he's like me. Like, that's what I thought Black Rifle did so well. You know, like, the world didn't need more coffee.

• 1:05:47Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Like, the world doesn't need another knife company.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  But people were buying an idea, you know?

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And that's what I really enjoyed about following Evan and Matt and Logan and those guys in those early days, is I could follow the owner of a company and realize, That guy is saying the shit that I believe. He's not afraid to stand up to the woke bullshit and say, no, this is BS. You know, and we try to not be super political on our MKC page because there's plenty of that out there. But if you follow me, like, yeah, I'm going to the inauguration next week. Yeah, I like Trump. You know, and if you don't like Trump, that's fine. Like, yeah, but we also don't have to hate each other for it. But you know what? American made, like, American manufacturing. I had no idea, truly. I always thought it was important and powerful, but now that I've started this company and I have 75 Americans working for me.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  And then it's not just that. It's also the contractors we use for like where we buy our steel. The steel is made in America. It's rolled in America, laser cut in America, ground. And you start to see the impact that those, when you buy a knife from us or a hat or whatever, those dollars are being spread across the country. And you look at like Francesca with Teton leather where we get our sheaths made. She was making sheaths in her basement when I started MKC. She now has a full commercial facility with like 10 employees that was built around Montana Knife Company.

• 1:07:14Cameron Hanes?

  So you've impacted that whole business.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Cameron Hanes?

  And her employees.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, where we have our cutting boards made, Montana Block and Billings. He now has employees in a different facility and he's, you know, and, and people also see like, hey, where did MKC get those cutting boards made? And now I see like, oh, there's Montana Block cutting boards being sold over on this website, but they found them because of us.

• 1:07:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  So the impact when you buy something that's American made is, is far reaching.

• 1:07:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. And I think some people, they do buy into the idea of Montana Knife. I think some people also just want a good knife. You know, and they don't really know about your idea, but then they, because, you know, and I don't want to, it's not all marketing, but your marketing is so, you guys do such a good job. Even if they just wanted a good knife, now they're in the network. Right. And they're, you guys can get that messaging out and that's what you do a great job of. You follow up with the emails. The the merch looks great. The storytelling is great. So that's what I say like when I talk about your team. That's how you grow and that's how you get that this vision of expansion like,

• 1:08:27Cameron Hanes?

  you know, I know you have a big investment in expansion, but you have to have that that network of people.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Cameron Hanes?

  All going the same direction, doing the same thing, you know, and Kip talks to me about, oh, they do a great job there, you know, whatever their visit is, turning that into sales, this and that percentage and all that. And just like, that's what it takes. It's like that business mind too. So you have this vision as a passion, a knife maker, and this is what you want to see. And this, this feels good to be involved in something like this. But then also, it's like implementing this.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Cameron Hanes?

  This very well thought out business plan.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Cameron Hanes?

  And that's what I've been impressed with, with you.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And, you know, yeah, we, you won't find our knives and Capellas and Shields and some of those places yet because we can't even supply our own website, but all and keep ahead of it, you know, but by selling knives on our website, we know who our customer is. If you go buy, you know, something from Shields, the people who made that don't know who you are.

• 1:09:26Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  So we're able to, with your data, reach out and be like, hey, are you happy? Did, did we do a good job? Oh, by the way, here, here's this. And right, we can retarget that. And but owning your customers' data is important. And then we can also track who our best customers are and reach out and say, thank you, and send them a VIP pack. And, you know, we do some of those things that we don't market and talk about. But we, we keep track of our VIPs and our best customers. And but you're right, like, we have three full time videographers. I mean, you have to invest back in your company and in people if you want to grow. And, you know, a lot of people use agencies and that stuff, but we can control the exact feel of how we want our brand to feel. It's very important to me, when you look at Montana

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Knife Company, ultimately, it's, you know, it's representing Josh Smith and what he's about and myself. And, you know, Brandon does a really good job on the marketing side of making sure, like, I don't want to ever come across as hokey or douchey or doing shit for, that's not authentic.

• 1:10:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  But you're right, you do have to market well. And Black Rifle Coffee, they marketed well. Like, they were really good at that. And you know, the other, the other part of the idea of Montana Knife Company is I think we had this BS narrative in our country, starting to build where the American dream was dead and everything's unfair and you know, you can't get ahead in America. And granted, it's, it's tough, like it's, but I don't think it was ever, it also wasn't easy in the 1940s in the Great Depression. Like, it's never been easy. But I think what Montana Knife Company proves is that you can be a regular guy with a regular job and four kids and broke

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  as hell. And then 10 years later, you can have Montana Knife Company and, you know, 75, 80 employees and, and build a brand and only in America does that happen.

• 1:11:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  That doesn't happen in other countries.

• 1:11:23Cameron Hanes?

  It's true.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  If you combine some good connections and some good people helping you, a good work ethic and a good product with some good marketing, like you can build anything. And I have people message me a lot and they're like, well, I'm, I'm going to quit my job and start chasing my dream because I'm, I've been motivated by you. And I'll ask them like, well, what have you, what have you done so far? Like, well, nothing. I gotta quit my job. And it's like, no fucker, you gotta get up earlier. You gotta go to bed later.

• 1:11:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  Like you, you, you're risking your family. You know, it's like, well, I, I want to be the next, next Cam Haynes and I need to be an ambassador for these, all these brands. But I gotta quit my job so I can go bow hunt more. And it's like, you're just gonna go broke, bro.

• 1:12:10Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Like, you need to, you need to start working on that on Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, Monday night, Tuesday morning, Tuesday night. And, and you know, sleep less.

• 1:12:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  And work harder.

• 1:12:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:12:26Cameron Hanes?

  People said, you know, yeah, I want to be a, I don't even know what a professional bow hunter is, but they want to be that. And not like, what does it take? I'm like, It's not gonna happen.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:39Cameron Hanes?

  It's just not gonna happen. And it's like, because that's the, that's the, the bottom line is the chances of it happening are about zero.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:47Cameron Hanes?

  So, just like with you, if that's your goal just when you were 12, like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be this, this thing and the president's gonna have my knife, probably not gonna happen. If

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Cameron Hanes?

  your goal is to make cool knives and you just love doing it, then who knows what?

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:04Cameron Hanes?

  But it's gotta have that passion. It's gotta have that, it's not gonna be perfect when you start. It's gonna be grinding it out.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm 43. 32 years later, the overnight success of Montana Knife Company appears.

• 1:13:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  It's not, I didn't, I didn't do this all the way through my twenties and my thirties, thinking I was ever gonna get rich.

• 1:13:23Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  I did it because I loved it. And, um, and then I got old enough and wise enough that I made a few good choices and then I got some good help. And then I had some really nice people, you know, willing to share some things because again, I think they shared it because they just liked the story and liked what it was about. But then we capitalized on it.

• 1:13:43Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  And

• 1:13:44Cameron Hanes?

  You have to, that's, that's another part of it. So, yeah, the storytelling, we talked about marketing, but really it's storytelling. What's, what's your story?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Cameron Hanes?

  If your story isn't like, isn't gonna resonate with people, it's the wrong, I guess that story's not gonna work. But your story resonates and then you were able to capitalize on it.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Cameron Hanes?

  You know, and that's, that's what people miss too. It's just like, yeah, they had, everything was great up until like, so how, how do we maximize this opportunity?

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:13Cameron Hanes?

  And that's what you've done a good job of.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and you also have to be willing to keep pushing your chips in the middle of the table. It's, it's, it's easy to hit one big thing and then say, well, I'm gonna pull those chips off and just put a couple more back on the table.

• 1:14:28Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  It's like, no, I'm gonna go all in again and I'm gonna go all in again. You know, I was, you know, we were kind of facing a choice here this year of like, you know, do we take on investment and kind of sell a big chunk of the company to help pay for the next stage?

• 1:14:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  You know, we're still making these knives in my horse pasture at my house. I mean, 70 employees report to work in my backyard at my home.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  That's why we don't have like a public facing location because it's literally at my house.

• 1:15:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  And so when we went to buy land and build a building and we started realizing like this is gonna cost 15 to 20 million dollars. It's like if we're gonna do that, we got, we're gonna have to like literally risk everything. And including putting our homes up for collateral and that's if we could even get the loans. And, um, and so we started talking about this about a year and a half ago and started building towards it and asking Kip and different people for advice and even some of them were like, yeah, it might be smart to bring on an investor and like let them put five or 10, 15 million dollars into the company, but you're gonna have to give up a big chunk, maybe even ultimately control.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  But you could probably use their money in that boost to, to build like this major brand, right? But ultimately you won't be, you won't be in control. And, uh, you know, Brandon and I talked about it and it was like, that's, you know, if we can possibly do it just on our own, we're gonna do it. And so we, this summer, we spent all summer trying to figure out the financing part and just a week and a half, two weeks ago, we, we closed on the, the building loans, 20 million bucks that we took out as a, as personal loans and, uh, loans against the company loans against Brandon and I's homes, the whole nine yards with zero dollars invested in, just Brandon and I.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  And, uh, I told our team in our shop, uh, the only reason we're willing to do that is because I have an army of 75 people right behind me. Like our, our crew of people, you know, with Jason as our CFO and Andrew as our COO and then, and then all of the, all the way down through the worker bees that we've just hired in the last couple of months.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  You know, I feel like we can invade this country and take this country over with those 70 people. But I said, I told them, I'm like, we, we need every bit of effort out of you guys because we literally just went and put all on the line. And I think it was actually kind of a transformational moment when there was a dude walking around my place and you had a tape measure stretched across my shop. And one of my guys walked in, he was like, hey, what's a dude doing measuring your house? And I was like, I told you guys, like, they're, they're praising everything I have to put it on the line for this building loan. And I think that it was just like, they were like, oh, holy shit. Like, he's not, he's not just full of shit, like.

• 1:17:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  And we risked it all to build this next phase and where we just poured the concrete foundation. We're going to start tipping seal up in February, but we're hoping by the end of 2024 to actually have like a public facing building. It's going to have a Black Rifle Coffee shop in it.

• 1:17:55Cameron Hanes?

  Nice.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  You can stop if you're on your way from Oregon to Yellowstone Park, you could pull in and get a cup of coffee and you can actually see through the windows and see the knives being manufactured. But, uh, you know, we're in 10,000 square feet right now and that building's 50,000 square feet.

• 1:18:09Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  And we're trying to bring the rest of some of the processes we don't do in house now in-house.

• 1:18:14Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  But, uh, it's, it's funny, one of the, one of the pages that's shitting on us right now is, is, uh, the new narrative is that I'm a fed.

• 1:18:26Cameron Hanes?

  Fed.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm a, I'm a fed because, uh, I'm friends with like Trump Jr. And whatnot. And the only way that our business could have ever gotten a loan to that degree and to grow as fast as we, as we grew was through help with the government. And so we're, we're, we're feds and I was like, oh my God, this is the, it's like, and they're like, well, yeah, it's not possible for a knife maker to build what you built in four years. You have to have had help and.

• 1:18:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  You know, you've probably had help from like, they were saying meta and all this different stuff. And I'm like, I haven't been able to go live on my Instagram page for.

• 1:19:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Nine months because we're shadow banned.

• 1:19:04Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  I hit live on my MKC page and it says, uh, that you're not allowed to use this function at this time because you're, it's like.

• 1:19:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, because you're a patriot.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:15Cameron Hanes?

  Well, no, people are fucking insane, dude. It's just like so, so, you know, if you just look at, so if you look at from the 30,000 foot view, it'd be like, oh, Josh, yeah, he was a lineman. Here's what people think. He was a lineman, quit his job. Now he's going to the inauguration and they're making millions of dollars.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:35Cameron Hanes?

  It's just like, okay, I think you're missing a big part. That's where the storytelling is so important, but even if you tell a, a good, you do a good job of like explaining the investment and putting everything on the line, then you still have these pages of dumb fucks.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  I swear the only way to get through, and I don't think it would even work is if you actually showed them your bills. Like, yeah, I still have a car payment.

• 1:19:57Cameron Hanes?

  It wouldn't work.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  I'm not, it's not.

• 1:20:00Cameron Hanes?

  Nothing works with those dumb fucks. That's all there is to it.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  It's true, but it's the, the thing I will say is 99% of the people are supportive. And even the amount of messages I get from custom knife makers that are like, dude, you're an inspiration. You're showing me what's possible. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And I'm always like freaking rock on, like go do it, you know? Now, you know, like you said, how do you become a professional bow hunter? You're not. I had knife makers tell me like, you know, I told them what I wanted to start and they're like, you're not going to do that.

• 1:20:33Cameron Hanes?

  And that's, that's, that's a good point.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  You have to prove them wrong.

• 1:20:37Cameron Hanes?

  That's a good point. It's like, if that's enough to stop you, you are never going to fucking make it.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:42Cameron Hanes?

  So if it's me saying you'll never be a, a, you'll never be this sponsored bow hunter. If that stops you, it's fucking never going to happen.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Cameron Hanes?

  Because there's going to be a lot worse things that come up than just some words from, from me or from you. Or, you know, you heard Noah's, you'll never make it. That wasn't going to stop you.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  It actually drives me. I mean, it's like, I know, I'm going to, I believe in this so strongly, I'm going to prove you wrong. And, and some of the hater stuff, like I know Rogan says, don't read the comments and stuff. And I think in general, it's generally a good idea.

• 1:21:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  But I, trust me, I, I go find some of those comments sometimes to walk out in my shop with like a renewed sense of like, fuck you.

• 1:21:21Cameron Hanes?

  I love it.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  I, I, I will show you, you know? And to be honest, we haven't even gotten started. I mean, we grew Montana Knife Company, where it is today in the hunting space. Was it like 2% of Americans have a hunting license?

• 1:21:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, something like that.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  You know, for a fixed blade hunting knife. Um, wait till we launch our folding knife next year.

• 1:21:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Our pocket knives, we're coming out with in 26. Wait till I'm not in my backyard.

• 1:21:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Like, and I do, I get sometimes this attitude of like, dude, just wait.

• 1:21:57Cameron Hanes?

  I love, well, I love that.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Horse pasture.

• 1:22:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, you haven't seen shit.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  My friends come to visit and they're like, where do I park? Like I have people parking down my road.

• 1:22:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  They park in my barn where our cows are like, and I always tell our employees, like even the people that just got hired. I'm like, you might think you're late to the party, but you're going to say someday, we're going to be in that new building. And in 10 years, you're going to, you're going to be telling people like, dude, I used to come to work and have to back into Josh's barn and park next to his Kubota tractor.

• 1:22:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Like.

• 1:22:27Cameron Hanes?

  I love that.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  This is still just the beginning.

• 1:22:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's what, and I think that's some, you know, sometimes when you see those, the hate comments or whatever, it's like, because you've sacrificed so much, it's like, if I didn't care, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care about anything.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:44Cameron Hanes?

  But because you care so much, you read that and you're like, you motherfuckers.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Cameron Hanes?

  Because you don't know what, they don't know what it felt like for you to be like risking everything.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54Cameron Hanes?

  And to go through, you know, you, you mentioned like, oh, I got a divorce and I have four kids. I don't, do people realize how traumatic? Like those type of just regular life challenges are.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Cameron Hanes?

  And to like quit your job because you couldn't get the day off to go deliver, you know, uh, Thomas Redd a knife. Those type of decisions you had to make and live with.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Cameron Hanes?

  And just like, they can just write it off on like, oh, yeah, he got help from the government, obviously. It's like, what the, what are you talking about? Do you know what this takes?

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Do you not, you, you don't remember the time like I do that Craig Kelly had, my lineman buddy had to drive 30 miles to the Tapololo Pass to tow me home because I had a piece of shit truck. I, I couldn't afford a decent truck and me and my kids are stranded up there. And like towed me home because I couldn't afford to. To call a tow truck.

• 1:23:44Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Like, that was, that was nine years ago.

• 1:23:48Cameron Hanes?

  That was real. So that's real life.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So then when you come on my page and you comment and you're talking shit and you're saying, like, and I did, I shot, I shot a guy a message last week and I, I did, I started, I, I said shit I shouldn't have. But I, so then what he does, he screenshots it and he goes and puts it on his feed and he's like, look at Josh Smith. He's, you know, this is the kind of guy you're supporting. It's like, dude.

• 1:24:12Cameron Hanes?

  He's petty.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  I defend, I have 70 people, I'm with 75 people. I'm also responsible to feed each month and you're fucking right. I'm going to defend them and defend that because if we don't succeed, they can't pay their bills.

• 1:24:26Cameron Hanes?

  They lost a job.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I lose my home. Like if, if this doesn't work, like we lose, I don't have Vista Outdoors or whatever conglomerate as a backup. No, it's me and Brandon.

• 1:24:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's what people, I've done the same thing and mostly just because it's been such a hard grind. But it's like, and people will say, oh, you know, Cam's petty. It's like, yeah, I fucking am petty. You better believe it. And yeah, I'm, I'm going to keep reminding you how petty I am. But, uh, no, it's just like, when it's, you put, you know, the blood, sweat and tears, it sounds cliche, but God.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Well, and I see it too. Like you, you see somebody like Jelly Roll or you see some of these country music singers or UFC fighters. I'm friends with Bo Nickel and Jim Miller and you, you know, you, what I enjoy about being around, not because they're celebrities, like I don't care if I hang around, I, I get just as motivated by being around uh, somebody like my dad who just ground his whole life for no, no accolades, no what, because he was trying to build for his family.

• 1:25:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  But when you're around some of those fighters or you're around some of those country music singers or, and it's like, they, they're telling stories about like, when they were just going down and playing in their local bar, uh, for, for tips, right? Or the UFC fighters who were, were battling away, learning their craft early in their careers and they were all broke. They all probably came from tough.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  You know, conditions. What I love about being around quote unquote famous people is most of those people didn't weren't born famous. They earned their name. They earned it through their hard work. And so I get motivation from that because sometimes it's, it does get daunting of like, God dang, like, is this going to keep going? You know, how are we going to keep doing it? And then you you go be around someone and you're like, yeah, it's it's like, look at what that guy did. It's possible, you know. I see like the hate that Evan gets with Black Rifle. Like, after all the tens of millions of dollars he's giving away to veterans and whatnot. And they're like, you know, oh, he's woke piece of shit. And it's just like, I was in that guy's house when the New York Times

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  article broke, and I heard him talking to a private group of people, like how pissed off he was about, like, how they were talking about that guy and his company. And he's defending his company and what they're doing. And, you know, I've personally been around when I've seen them give away money and take care of veterans and do things that aren't on the internet. And so when you're around people like Evan or around other like, famous celebrities

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  that that earned their way for over decades, like, I get, I get energy off of that. And I go home and it's like, let's freaking go. Yeah, you know.

• 1:27:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, me, you know, I think you mentioned Evan is like, when I think of a CEO is like, he is like, so good at running a company, you know, I know he, you said, small town, military, but whatever the case, he's built for, I think, you know, his operations is kind of what he did in the military setting up when he was Green Beret. But he is so good. But your your story reminds me of, yeah, he's got so many critics, mostly it's just because of success. And and men who haven't achieved what they want, they like to lash out on people who maybe have quote made it. But I was listening to to another podcast with another knife maker, and I can't remember his name right now. But he had the

• 1:28:11Cameron Hanes?

  story about Evan, Evan.

• 1:28:15Cameron Hanes?

  He was struggling. I think he was separated from his wife.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was probably Lucas O'Hara from Grizzly Forge.

• 1:28:21Cameron Hanes?

  That's it.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, great guy.

• 1:28:23Cameron Hanes?

  And Evan sent him money and made orders so he could keep going. And it's like, hey, could you make me 50?

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Well, and then Evan actually had him move into his shop there at Black Rifle's.

• 1:28:32Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Salt Lake location.

• 1:28:33Cameron Hanes?

  Nobody knows all that.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:35Cameron Hanes?

  If Lucas isn't saying it, Evan's sure the hell not saying it.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:39Cameron Hanes?

  But that, those type of people,

• 1:28:43Cameron Hanes?

  they, they're doing things that nobody knows about, but everybody's criticizing for shit they don't know. Or they just see from the surface. And that, that's, I think, what drives you crazy. And like I, I've talked about Rogan's generosity for, for whatever. But like, when you said that, you know, sometimes you need to, you want to show people your bills. It's just like, it wouldn't fucking matter.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:29:05Cameron Hanes?

  Because those type of people, it wouldn't matter what you did or how, how you tried to justify it. It's never enough.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Right. And the people that are going to be successful are the ones who study the successful people and they emulate it. Like, when I was a lineman, I was listening to every single, and I, I was on the service truck for a while, so I was solo. So I was listening to every single one of his podcasts.

• 1:29:30Cameron Hanes?

  Who's?

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Evan's.

• 1:29:31Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  And I was listening to, a lot of times it was, back then, it was kind of the core four. They were together a lot. And so I would try to take any little piece of what they're doing. I actually took vacation time in,

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  the summer of 2019, I'm sorry, 2020, in July. I reached out to Evan on social media and I was like, hey, I'd like to meet with you. I have some ideas, blah, blah, blah. I just, I didn't think that he would respond. And he's like, sure, man. What time you want to meet? And I was like, oh shit. So I, I was like, how about, you know, one o'clock tomorrow afternoon, right after our lunch break? I just figured I extended. He's like, okay, cool. Give me a call. And so I had to take a half hour of PTO vacation time. And I stood, I was in, I was in Lower Miller Creek in Missoula, Montana, in a subdivision down by the fire station.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Like I remember, I could go stand where the dirt pilot, today it's probably somebody's yard. We were putting in underground power. And I stood on the side of the job site while backos and everything were running around me. And it was Matt and Evan. And It's the first time I'd ever talked to him and I was like, hey, I'm starting this company. You know, and I kind of explained some of the ideas that I had going, what I'm going to do. And I'm like, I really want to work together someday. And they were like, yeah, man. And Evan asked me, he's like, have you ever thought about making bag openers for coffee? And I was like, no, but we could talk about it. And it was just like that initial connection. And it was funny because he's from Idaho and he's like, where are you from? And I'm like, well, Missoula, Montana. He's like, oh, so are you a fucking communist?

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  I started laughing because Missoula is kind of a liberal area. And he's like, oh, I used to come over there fishing on the Clark Fork and the Bitterroot and all this stuff. And he was busting my balls, but I told him that day, I'm like, uh, we're going to work together someday. And he's like, yeah, cool, man. Sounds good. And I'm sure they hung up the phone or like, whatever, you know? And that was in 2020, again, several months before I met you. And sure enough, down the road, we ended up becoming actually friends and then, and then working together. And people who were in part of the Black Rifle Coffee Club get a discount on our knives, stuff like that.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  But again, I, instead of shitting on people that I saw that were being successful, whether it was you, or whether it was Evan, or Kip, or Bert Soren, or whoever it was.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  And just like when I was, I took the attitude like when I was trying to learn how to make knives when I was 12. I tried to just ask people questions like constantly, what did you do here? How did you navigate this? Like, who do you hire to do this or that? Or should I hire it in-house? Or should I have someone else do things out of house? And you, you get a lot of different information and ultimately you have to choose your own path and build your own brand, you know?

• 1:32:26Cameron Hanes?

  What's, uh, that story kind of reminded me of something. So what's something you've learned from Evan? Can you think of anything?

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Don't give up equity early in your company. Best piece of advice I ever got. So he gave away, um, you know, not gave away, but I mean, he let some people in early because when you're brand new and you're, and it's early.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  You can be like, oh, you can run the camera and do like, yeah, how about I give you a 2% of my company? Because like, it's nothing today. Like when I gave-

• 1:32:59Cameron Hanes?

  It's not worth anything.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  When I gave Brandon the equity I gave him. Uh, you know, it's not worth anything. There's nothing there.

• 1:33:06Cameron Hanes?

  Two percent of nothing is nothing.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Nothing. Yeah. And so you give your camera guy 2% and you're like, hey, I'm going to trade this out.

• 1:33:14Cameron Hanes?

  Fuck my camera guy, by the way. He's not getting shit. But anyway.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  But, uh, and you, and then you're like, oh, my best friend, he, uh, you know, he's a good dude.

• 1:33:24Cameron Hanes?

  He's always been there for me.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's always, I'm going to give him 2%. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day and you have Black Rifle Coffee and you're trying to go public on Wall Street. And you gave, you know, some dude, whatever percent or whatever, and, and they're not doing anything, right? And so he told me early on, he's like, protect those chips, right? Like, keep that and also keep control, you know? And, uh, um, and then there was just a lot of other, uh, other things about business related stuff. That's just like, it's just small little things, but they add up, you know? Um, little, small piece of, pieces of advice, you know?

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  And I think also I learned not from him telling me this, but also, uh, Evan is still Evan today. Like he's the same guy and like, I'm the CEO now of this big company with Montana Knife Company. And I still find that, that acronym weird, like CEO. I'm not CEO. I'm Josh. I make knives, right? Um, but I try to still just be who I am and that probably comes with me saying should I shouldn't? And calling people names on the internet when I shouldn't. But I also think that's what if, if you change, if you let success or because you're now all of a sudden friends with Rogan, all of a sudden you change, then you're not who you are. You're not why that person became friends with you.

• 1:34:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right. Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's a good point. Um, what I like too, what I've learned from, uh, after I asked you that question, I just think about what I've learned, what I've learned from Evan and from Kip and from people who I look up to in business is. They'll just, they'll talk to whoever. Like, I'll tell Kip, you know, hey, he's helping me with my merchandise type stuff. He's like, uh, he goes, okay, yeah, I'll get on the phone. I'll, I'll, I'll get it figured out. He'll pick up the phone and talk to him. Like, most people, to me nowadays, it's like, it's either text or it's whatever, just not even saying anything, but it's like that communication, like, no, I need to talk to you about this right now and get it handled.

• 1:35:28Cameron Hanes?

  Evan's the same way. He'll like, hey, do you got a minute to talk, to talk this out? And it's just like, just dealing with it, you know? Sometimes business goes on and people just don't want to make the hard decision or have the hard conversation or even just talk to the person. And it's just like, that's what I've learned from those guys is they'll get on a plane, they'll pick up the phone, they'll go and just get it taken care of.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  I, I, I handled something last night that, uh, I sent an email and dealt with something last night and one of our people was like, that's not your job. You shouldn't have to do that. I'm like, you mean it's not my job? It's my company. Like, every job is still my job. You know, when we have a new knife that's like maybe a tough design that's hard to sharpen or that's new, uh, like even with this blade, like, I'll, I'll go down in the sharpening room and I'll spend a half of a day training and making sure that like, they know how to do this. And I think that also helps people follow you when they see that you can like walk in the sharpening room and sharpen for four hours straight and beat them on all their rates and quality. Like, they're like, oh, Josh isn't just a carpet walker upstairs.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  Like, he can come down here, stand up to the belt grinder and beat us all. Right? And it's not like it's a competition, but it shows like, you still can do the thing. Evan can walk in and he can do the thing. Kip can walk in and do it.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  I think the best leaders can still walk in and do it. Also, the best leaders know when they can't and they go like dealing with our machine and like, What, you know, Dylan will come sometimes to me or somebody will come with me with a question and I'm like, I don't know, you're the expert, go do it.

• 1:37:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Like, you know, you don't need to ask me to buy tooling, like, you know, I think some people are also used to being micromanaged.

• 1:37:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  And it's like, yeah, I can do the thing, but I can also say, figure it the fuck out.

• 1:37:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Do it yourself, you know, and that empowers them to be like, they can act like they own the company and go do it.

• 1:37:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, take ownership. I do think that that is, there is a fine line there because yes, you want to be able to do the job and you want to be able to do it better than anybody and you can, you know, show that you still, you know, carry some weight, but then also there's like, when do you transition over to like the Bill Belichick where he's not going to be able to go show a corner, how to frigging get on a route, you know, he doesn't have to anymore.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:37:55Cameron Hanes?

  You know, so he's, he did play at one time, but now he's not playing.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:00Cameron Hanes?

  But so it's like, it is that transition, like, yeah, I used to be able to do this. I don't need to anymore. But here's what I can, I can help you do your job better, even though I'm not doing it.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you know, Dylan's a master machinist. I'm not, I handmade knives. I hand filed them. Like I hand ground them. I do, you know, when we're making production knives, there's a lot of stuff involved with machines that I never owned.

• 1:38:23Cameron Hanes?

  You have CNC machines now, I assume?

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  CNC mills, or like a Swiss lathe that we just bought, like for making screws. So instead of buying the screws, we're starting to make our own screws. And it's because I don't want to have to count on like a supplier.

• 1:38:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, oh, I put the screws in the mail three days ago. I don't know where they're at.

• 1:38:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  And it's like, fuck, come to find out, you never even fricking shipped them.

• 1:38:50Cameron Hanes?

  Now you're in control of that. Yeah. You eliminate some variables.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:54Cameron Hanes?

  Make it yourself, maybe cut down on the margin.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:57Cameron Hanes?

  Good decision.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  But empowering those guys and being like, hey, man, you're the expert. I expect you to run that department and own it, you know, and empower. And I think that helps with the morale in the shop. Like that was one thing that bothered us as linemen. Like we're the experts, like we truly know what we're doing on the power line. And then you hire a boss that doesn't know what we're doing. And then he decides he's going to question every single thing. And it's like,

• 1:39:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  Dude, go to your truck, shut up, let us get this done.

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  Go buy us some coffee.

• 1:39:27Cameron Hanes?

  I, even though, you know, I was a manager, quote, whatever, I always said, I hate management. I fucking hate management because I don't like the guys who are, for me, it was guys in the ditch. For you guys, it's guys on the pole, but it's like, those are guys doing the fucking work.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:44Cameron Hanes?

  They, they're the ones who should get the credit where I saw managers taking credit for like, yeah, we got in, you know, 20,000 foot of pipe last year. It's like, well, you didn't get in shit. First of all, the guys got it in. So.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  And you still get the credit. That's the thing too. Like I, we, we really teach that and our, and I'm so proud of some of the leaders in our company because,

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  you're right. If you're managing that water crew, you're managing that line crew and they go out and they get a ton of work done in the night after a storm. And they whip it out and you as a manager, you walk into your bosses and you go, I got everything fixed. I blah, blah, blah. They know you didn't do shit. You look like a douchebag, but if you go, hey, uh, dude, my crews, like they crushed it. They kicked ass, like unbelievable job, blah, blah, blah. You're still getting, you're still going to get the credit as a manager. Like we know you still need a manager and we were, we do reviews quarterly at our business with every single employee. Cause I want them to have a touch point to me and to our managers.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  And so it gives them a, a chance to have a voice, but also gets us a chance to give them feedback and tell them how they can be improving. And, and we try to build our leaders from within. And I was complimenting Melissa, who, when I hired her, young girl, she came in, she was like our third employee. And she was working on like a construction crew. She was kind of lost, didn't have much going, right? Just trying to figure out life. She started knowing nothing and, and Tristan started with me. He was my first full-time employee, but he started when he was still in high school. Uh, didn't go to college. His family was pissed. He had a full ride for academics.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  Uh, he chose not to go. I think they thought, oh, he's just taking a year off. The next fall came. And he, I think he saw something was building. I think he just believed in what we were, I was trying to do. It was just me and him working in the shop together. Brandon didn't even live down there. And now him, who started at 17 and she started at 22, I think. Uh, they both now manage all like 60 people downstairs. The two of them have it split basically in half. And they're managing everyone, 21 years old and 25 or whatever. But when I was, I was complimenting her. On uh, some rates and a bunch of stuff and she goes.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that was all uh, like Jeremiah and Ben or whatever. Like she just was like, oh yeah, that was, that wasn't me. That was them.

• 1:42:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  That's why you're going to be successful here because. You, but you facilitated that. You, you made sure they knew how to do those things, but then you empowered them to do it. And then you passed them the credit.

• 1:42:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  There, no one else around, just me and her in a room. She could have easily said, eh, thanks. No, I appreciate that.

• 1:42:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  But she made sure I knew that was Jeremiah and Ben.

• 1:42:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, and it seems so simple that it's so hard. I don't know if it's harder for guys. Cause you, you know, you said Melissa, maybe women are better at that. Guys in general are terrible. At passing off credit. They want to get all the credit. So I don't know if that was just her, but it sounds like, you know, the other young guy too.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  He, Tristan's the same way.

• 1:42:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  But we, that's Andrew, who managed all those people at Amazon. And he was a, you know, he was um, in, in the army. Ranger qualified guy, had a lot of leadership stuff through the military. And we, we try to actually teach that into our people towards like. You're never going to impress me if you come up and you're taking all the credit for everything. But if you're reporting what your team is doing and what you're responsible for. And, and then also, one of the questions in our interview too is like, you know, tell us your biggest failure professionally, right? And for you to be able to walk in my office and be like, hey, Josh, yesterday, uh, like I completely fucked something up, right? And here's why, here's what happened, whatever, like, cool.

• 1:43:42Speaker 01

  Like, we want people to be able to come in and also tell us when they screw up.

• 1:43:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  But passing down that credit, because then that allows me as the CEO to walk downstairs and go, hey, Ben, Jeremiah, come here. Hey, I was chatting with Melissa in her review yesterday. She said you guys are responsible for this. Nice work. Guess who's gonna get the credit from them? Melissa.

• 1:44:05Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  They're gonna go to Melissa and be like, or they won't even say anything, but they're like, damn. My boss, Melissa, went up in her review and talked about us.

• 1:44:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  What are they gonna wanna do the next day? Work harder for her.

• 1:44:17Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Right? And then they're gonna wanna do that, they're gonna pass their credit down to, hey, Melissa, Aiden in the sharpening room, like, he crushed it yesterday. And now Melissa can walk in the next day and be like, hey, Aiden, you're sharpening those pack outs for Cam's knife? Nice work, Ben said you crushed it. Right? And it just snowballs. And the next thing you know, you have this cohesive 75 people that are just freaking crushing it. And that's what we have going. But that comes from, it starts at the top and it, and it works down through every single level, all the way to the bottom.

• 1:44:49Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:44:50Cameron Hanes?

  No, it's a, I don't know, I think, I think people, it's little things like that. That reminded me too of, we had this job, this waterline reconstruction job and something about, I was arguing with the city about, I don't know, we had to repave the trench line we dug up and how much of the road we had to replace type thing. And so anyway, I just, I asked the GM, I said, could you, it's kind of by the main office down there. I said, could you meet, meet me out on the job site? And, you know, I could just walk the job and show you. And so just the GM going to the job. That's all it took is just like the guys on, you know, the excavator guy, dump truck guys, guys in the ditch. There's like, oh shit, the GM's here.

• 1:45:34Cameron Hanes?

  And just, just that, that he cared about their job enough to walk the job. That's all it took.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  It matters.

• 1:45:40Cameron Hanes?

  It's just like those little things. It's like giving credit, you know, where it's due and where we want to take all the credit. But even just the little things like you walking through and just, you know, just checking out somebody's work. That's, that's all it takes.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:55Cameron Hanes?

  People just want to be acknowledged.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  They do. And that's the thing is they want, they want to feel like they're appreciated, you know, and ju- just sitting here on a podcast, talking about actual names in our shop. Like, those people will appreciate that. And we always are trying to, you know, show them appreciation where we can. But I, I think in general, and this is where so many big corporations lose it, is they don't realize that people don't, yes, they want to be paid more all the time and whatnot, but they also understand there's only so much that they're going to be able to get paid or so many pay raises. But man, just like, hey, you're, you're doing a great job. Goes so far, you know. And, and, and mentality, like, that's why so many of our

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  questions when I interview are about you as a human. I always tell them, when I look on, if you apply for a job and whatnot, and I look on your Instagram, if I see you, you get up on a Saturday and you go hike to the top of a mountain with your golden retriever, or you go duck hunting, or you go, you know, throw a frisbee in the park with your friends. If you're getting up and doing something, I know you're the right kind of person.

• 1:47:09Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  If you're just lazy and sitting around and unmotivated, like, I can't do much with that. But if I can, I don't care what you do, do something, you know. Um, because your, your Instagram, I always tell my kids, your Instagram and some of your social media, that's your modern day business card. That's your resume. I tell my kids who are big athletes. I'm like, your college coaches are going to pull up your page and like, if you're acting like a jackass on there, you're showing who you really are on your Instagram page. Like you better think of that. And I, I always tell, I think it catches people off guard, but when I interview, you know, we'll go through kind of the normal, serious interview stuff, questions. And then I'll be like, hey,

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Cam, uh, if you were in a giant swimming pool, like the biggest one in the country, and you're swimming in it with your friends or whatever, and somebody on the other end of that swimming pool takes a shit in it. Are you going to keep swimming? And they're like, no. And I'm like, well, it's a huge pool. And they're like, I'm like, you're going to stay in it if there's a turd floating around? And they're like, no. And I'm like, then don't be the shit in my swimming pool. Cause if you are, I'm going to scoop you up. Right? And, and that's the thing, like, when you put someone on a line crew, you put someone on, you know, a gas project or a waterline project, and you're, you have a crew of four or five or eight guys, right? Or a shop full of people making knives.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  And you put one poisonous personality in that mix, poisons the whole thing.

• 1:48:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Like that will spread through there like cancer. And so we try our best to really watch out for that because it's also my job to protect, and I have 75 unbelievable people in my building. It's my job to make sure number 76 is also awesome.

• 1:48:57Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  And, you know,

• 1:48:58Cameron Hanes?

  Doesn't taint the pool.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Cause we need help. I'm not going to be like, hey, Cam, you gotta train this freaking guy here. And he's, he's really a piece of shit, but it's your problem. I'm upstairs.

• 1:49:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  It's not my problem.

• 1:49:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  Like, no, no, we have to keep trying to hand them the best people possible. And we're always looking at people like, can we see this person down the road leading people? And if, if you can't, then you're probably, we're probably not going to hire you.

• 1:49:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:49:23Cameron Hanes?

  It's a, I, I read something the other day too. Uh, it's like, no matter what job you have, if you're not outperforming the expectations, even at the lowest job, you're probably not gonna.

• 1:49:37Cameron Hanes?

  Your future isn't that bright, basically. So no matter what you do, no matter how menial it is, you can do better than than expected.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right. But that person with that negative attitude, or you said like the shit in the pool, that that also did remind me, linemen always have the best one liner. Like that's kind of like a longer analogy. Normally it's like,

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Cameron Hanes?

  Don't tell me how rough the water is. Just get the boat in. Normally it's like shit like that. Or like Aaron said, something about a wedding day dick harder than a wedding day dick. That seems like a lineman thing.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:08Cameron Hanes?

  But I do like those, those analogies. And it's like that attitude is so important for just the culture, you know, it's like, you know, you talk about these businesses. It's always culture first.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:21Cameron Hanes?

  You know, the skills will come, but you have to have that healthy culture.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  You do. And I told all our people at our Christmas party this year, like, you know, I've done our, I've done the best job I can do. Me and Brandon and Andrew have provided the best people that we can. But it's getting big enough now that it's hard to having a direct impact on each individual person as like the CEO. And I said, the, the feeling in this room at this Christmas party is unbelievable. Like the camaraderie, these, you guys shoot bows together, you go fishing together, you go New Year's Eve, four or five of the guys were going rock climbing together. Like you're snowboarding together, you're doing all these things together. Even though you spend all day at work with each other, I constantly hear about plans being made at night. I said, from here on, it's

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  now your job to make sure we don't lose that.

• 1:51:12Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Right. Like we provided this foundation, but we're going to build a freaking skyscraper on this thing. And I can't be a part of every single floor and know what's going on. It's your guys. It's your guys' responsibility as employees here to make sure you keep this culture good. And we, we don't allow this to slip because, you know, it'll be a real shame if someday, it's just some, somebody just has an attitude like, ah, it's a some corporate thing we do.

• 1:51:38Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  And that's where people need to take individual responsibility. If you work at a big company, have a positive effect on the people around you.

• 1:51:48Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Don't just bitch about so and so at the top. And that's what Andrew brought from Amazon. You know, people, you know, shit on Amazon. And obviously, it's this ma- major monster of a company. But there's a reason that Amazon grew and got so big. Like, that wasn't an accident. You know, Bezos started that and he obviously wasn't the dumb guy and he knew how to lead, right? And Andrew said at Amazon, they always had a policy that when you're hiring somebody, you need to try and hire somebody 50% better than yourself. You're trying to re- you're almost trying to replace yourself because what that does is it also drives you to get better. And, and if you're doing that and then you move, we always tell people,

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  train your people really, really good because down the road, when you move up, we're going to move one of those people into your role. And you're going to have to deal with that guy. That your results are counting on the results of that guy.

• 1:52:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:52:45Speaker 01

  So don't short their training. You are training your replacement. And if you're good, you're going up, not out.

• 1:52:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, you know, I want to make sure I don't go too long. We could get you to the airport, but uh,

• 1:53:01Cameron Hanes?

  what do you do with, it sounds like right now, your company's pretty up early mobile. Whereas if you work hard, if you do the right things, you're going to get opportunities to move up. So what do you do with the people who think they deserve that opportunity or they got bypassed? And like this, you mentioned this kid that started in high school and now he's 21 and running half a thing. I'm sure there's guys who are older and being like, fuck, I should be doing that shit. So how do you keep those guys satisfied?

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's through, it's through communication and also, you know, those managers that we do give those jobs need to perform and prove, prove their worth, right? But also at a certain point,

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  you know, it, it's going to be on those individuals to decide where they need to improve to get those roles or, or, or move on out, you know, like. Uh, you know, it's, I think we're still a little bit too young to have seen a lot of that yet. Because just today, yesterday and today, we're interviewing for some internal roles. They're not public roles, they're all internal. And the ones we interviewed yesterday, I personally, I told them, I said, there's two job and like, two jobs and like six people applying. Right? So four of these people aren't going to get it. And it's gonna, and I think this is where the communication comes in. I said, you can look at it like, if you don't get this role, like, you know, we think you're a piece of shit and you're turned down because you're no good, or you know, whatever.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  Or you can look at the person that got it and critically analyze yourself and them and go, no, I can see that, like, I could be stronger in this area or that area, or maybe have some faith in us that we think you're good for that job, but we actually have an idea of a, of a better job for you in a few months. That's, that's the other thing that I think we have shown is we've passed some people up for some jobs. And then later on, we move them into something else and later on, I can tell them, I always hate to over promise and under deliver, but I can tell them later, like, yeah, you didn't get that role because we knew this one was coming. So trust that we may actually have a, a, a plan for you. And I always, I, I told like Aiden yesterday, who was applying, I said,

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  you're, to get where you're going to want to get in our marketing department, you're not, you're not there, you're not good enough to get there now. And we're going to, you know, if, if you get this role today, this marketing assistant role, if you want to move up and be on the team of absolute hammers that we have today, you're going to have to get better. But it's probably not going to happen during your eight hours a day at work. You're going to have to spend time after work, like, you're going to have to learn how to edit better. You're going to have to learn how to shoot better photos. You're going to have to learn how to do all these different things better. And if you're willing to invest that time after work and before work and whatnot, and level your skills up, you need to become undeniable. And so that's what I tell those people, and I use that word several times yesterday, I says, you have to become undeniable.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  You have to force us to hire you, right? And so for those people that you're, if you're getting passed up all the time at work, you need to ask yourself, well, are you, are you undeniable? And if you're not.

• 1:56:10Cameron Hanes?

  Must not be.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  Then you must not be. So what, so what are you gonna do about that?

• 1:56:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  And if you're just gonna keep bitching and complaining, pretty soon you're that poop in the pool.

• 1:56:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:56:20Cameron Hanes?

  It's, uh, I, I know I've done like little things, sometimes pick and choose, um, opportunities and maybe pass over somebody just to see how they react is what I used to do. Cause it's just like, I remember I moved this guy off the crew to another crew, didn't want to go. And mostly it was just to see how, how he'd react.

• 1:56:44Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:56:44Cameron Hanes?

  Is it, is it gonna affect every day from here on out? Or is it gonna be like, okay, well, I'm just gonna, maybe I got more to learn, you know?

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:53Cameron Hanes?

  I think I moved him to maintenance. And, uh, so you can see how those type of people react to when things don't go how they want or how they expect, because that's life.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Cameron Hanes?

  And if that one thing doesn't go your way, derails you, that tells you a lot. Or, or I do that also, and then everything gets around, right? So if somebody's bitching out there and talking shit about you as the manager, you will hear about it.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  You will.

• 1:57:20Cameron Hanes?

  Sometimes you, you do that just to see about, okay, are they gonna fucking cry about this to everybody?

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:26Cameron Hanes?

  That's what I want to know too.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  Right. Are they gonna motherfuck me behind my back? Yeah.

• 1:57:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. So I would just put out little, little tests like that and you learn a lot and then.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  And you're way better off coming to your manager and be like, Cam, I think this is bullshit and this is why.

• 1:57:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  Like, I'm not happy about this. You can tell me what you want to tell me and tell me like, I think this is a dumb move. You're being an idiot here. Uh, but if this is where you're gonna put me, like, I'm gonna do it, but I think it's wrong. Uh, I can respect that.

• 1:57:53Cameron Hanes?

  Me too.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  If I find out through the grapevine that like, you know, in the morning, when I see in the, in the, you know, the break room, you're just like, oh, Cam, you're the greatest guy ever. How's it going? And then I find out later like, oh yeah, he's motherfucking you behind your back. It's like, okay, that shows you what a kind of person they are.

• 1:58:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, I've always said that too, just even in like in the hunting industry. If you don't like me, don't fucking pretend like you like me ever.

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:17Cameron Hanes?

  It's just like, just don't like me then. And that's fine. I don't care.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20Cameron Hanes?

  But I don't want one or the other. Like when you're around me, everything's all good and then you're talking shit about me.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:26Cameron Hanes?

  But uh, uh, I did, I did last thing, um, I put up that, uh, I think it was a guy from Tanzania, but did you remember that guy that, uh, they were hunting and he had that knife on like a fixed blade knife. I think you commented on that. You used to have to see a fixed blade knife.

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:43Cameron Hanes?

  What did he have? A shrade?

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Oh God, I can't remember what he had.

• 1:58:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:48Cameron Hanes?

  But, uh, I thought that was funny. It's just like middle of nowhere, but still have to have a good knife.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  Still have to have a knife. That's, that's the thing. Like a, a knife was literally our first tool. You know, and you can go hunt, you can forget your rain gear. You can forget, you know, your freaking, uh, you know, base layers. You can for, you can forget almost anything. You need a bow and a knife.

• 1:59:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've learned the hard way. Like I said, we had to break down a moose at the Broad.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Cameron Hanes?

  It wasn't ideal.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:20Cameron Hanes?

  A knife. Yeah. A knife. I don't know. What I always say is like, if I have my bow, boots and a knife.

• 1:59:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:59:28Cameron Hanes?

  I'm

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Good to go.

• 1:59:29Cameron Hanes?

  Good to go for whatever. But, uh,

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:31Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. It's like, I, I think, uh, I, I don't know. I just love the aspect of just the value of a sharp knife. I love what you're doing with Montana Knife Company. I'm so, I'm so honored to be involved and like to have these stories about way back when, you know, it's not even that long ago, but 2020.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:51Cameron Hanes?

  But, uh, and to see where you guys are now and to know you're going to the fucking presidential inauguration.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:59:58Cameron Hanes?

  And like you've had, you've handed Trump a knife, right?

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, how surreal is that coming from, you know, Frenchtown, Montana, your whole, I mean, does that even seem real?

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  No, uh, my whole life, from the time I was a kid, you know, and, and getting to travel, you know, when you grew up in a small logging town in western Montana, a lot of those people never leave the state and for sure the country.

• 2:00:24Cameron Hanes?

  Some never get on a plane.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  And from the time I was 13 years old, I was flying to knife shows and I was meeting cool people and I made, you know, a knife for the governor when I was 15, right? And You know, you know, getting flown to Turkey to go tour the top Cappy Palace by the Sheikh, the third in command of the United Arab Emirates, right? And having him fly me to England and go through the Wallace collection and look at swords from the 1700s and hold them with white gloves on and measure them like from that all the way through to, you know, meeting the president and shaking President Trump's hand and, you know, so many of the cool quote unquote celebrities that, you

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  know, you and I both get to meet. I mean, you're the same way. You're a dude that worked at the water department in Bohan and ran a lot and look at what you get to do like, um, it doesn't make sense, but it does. Like in the end it does because it's a it's a consistent, uh, it shows what being consistently passionate about something, something is passionate, you know, over time.

• 2:01:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:35Speaker 01

  Like you, you didn't get the success you got overnight. Um, and I always hate to say like the success I got because it's not like I'm a rich guy or whatever. I just, I get to do really cool things, but it's because I've been passionate about what I've done for 33 years.

• 2:01:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  You know, and everyone says like, oh, MKC's, you know, like overnight, how did this happen overnight? And it's like, it's 33 year overnight success story.

• 2:02:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  You know, so it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem real, but I was the keynote speaker at the Drummond High School graduation this spring. They were the competing rival, uh, high school to ours when I was growing up.

• 2:02:17Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  I think there were 14 kids in this class, seven boys, seven girls, and I was the, the speaker there. And I said, you know, among other things, so the last thing I want you to think when you're growing up in Drummond, Montana, or Frenchtown or Lincoln, Montana, is that because I'm from a small town, I can't achieve the things that people achieve from the big city. You know, you actually have an advantage growing up in those towns because you got to watch that farmer in that ranch or model hard work. You got to watch Mark Smith, you know, absolutely model hard work in a ditch, you know, he was a ditch digger. Like, oh, do you want to grow up and be a ditch digger? Fuck yeah, I do. Like, like, I, you got to

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  model in these small towns. You got to actually get to know these people. In these big cities, a lot of times kids don't get to go have a summer job tearing off roofs, right? Or working with a welder, learning these things. So if you're from a small town anywhere in America, that's an advantage. That's a superpower.

• 2:03:18Cameron Hanes?

  I agree.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  You know, so take that hard work that's modeled and be passionate about something and don't give up. Don't stop, you know?

• 2:03:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, it's a, and then I think like, once we've quote, made it out, or whatever, whatever that means. But I remember speaking there in Kalispell when I met you. And I was like, I was speaking because I still had my regular job, but I'm speaking for the guys back at work because they feel how I feel. They just don't have this platform. So to me, like, I'd never, and I know you don't either, but we don't want to forget, we have a platform. We can talk about the things that are important to us, but I'm talking mostly for the guys who are putting in the water line, who are hanging those power lines, who do the fucking work.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:02Cameron Hanes?

  You know, who get the military, those type of guys who the, our military relies on.

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:08Cameron Hanes?

  Who when concrete needs to be poured, it's those type of guys. Those are the guys who I want to speak for or represent. The hardworking guys who keep the, the fabric of this country together. And I think that that's where we came from. You know, to, to your point, when I grew up, if you were a logger, nobody, nobody dreams, like in a city, dreams of being a logger.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:29Cameron Hanes?

  But where I came from, if you were logger, you were a fucking badass.

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:33Cameron Hanes?

  You set chokers.

• 2:04:33Speaker 01

  You are. Yeah. You're, you're running the skidder. You're, you're sawing logs. I mean, uh, you're up at 2:30 AM to get up there and get those first logging truck loaded.

• 2:04:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:46Speaker 01

  Uh, there was honor in that hard work.

• 2:04:48Cameron Hanes?

  Same, same with being a hunter back then. It's like if you killed a big buck, you were like, oh shit, did you see the buck? So to me, those are the type of guys I put on a pedestal, the hard work and the loggers, the hunters.

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  Same.

• 2:05:00Cameron Hanes?

  And that's so that what I think about our discussion here is still elevating those type of people.

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  And I, and I, that's why when I pull into our job site, I mean, we're, we're pouring the last of our peers on our job, on our new building today.

• 2:05:15Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  It's January. Those dudes are out there.

• 2:05:17Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 2:05:18Speaker 01

  They're thawing frost, right? We just had eight inches of snow this past weekend. Um, when I pull in on that job site, like I appreciate those people because I was that guy in that ditch or doing that work just four years ago.

• 2:05:31Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:05:32Speaker 01

  Um, I have so much respect for the blue collar working man and woman in this country. And, you know, when you're driving down the road and you see those cones and the flashing lights, slow the fuck down.

• 2:05:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  Like, maybe run over to Starbucks or Black Rifle or whatever and buy four cups of coffee and stop by and drop it off and say, hey, thanks, guys. Like,

• 2:05:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  You're, you're sitting there thawing out, uh, you know, a water key and a freaking hole in the ground as a water department guy. So people have water to drink in their,

• 2:06:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  in your town, you know, I, I, I have so much appreciation for hardworking, blue collar people. And I really think the pendulum is swinging a bit. And I think down the road, some of the most successful people in our nation in the next number of decades are going to be people that knew how to do shit.

• 2:06:22Cameron Hanes?

  And yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  And, and they, they know how to build something, you know, they know how to weld something or, you know, uh, digging around gas lines with tobacco. I mean, that's what I'd,

• 2:06:32Cameron Hanes?

  It's a big deal.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  It's a big deal. Like when I was digging, uh, electric mains down Higgins Avenue in Missoula, Montana and digging around two inch gas mains, you hit that gas, I mean, you have blowing gas, like they, they're evacuating blocks. So when you see that guy out digging up your sidewalk in front of your office building.

• 2:06:49Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:06:50Speaker 01

  Be glad he's a professional.

• 2:06:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  Don't walk out there and bitch at him because you got dirt on your freaking sidewalk.

• 2:06:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:56Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:06:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, you know, Tanner works, my oldest son works where I worked and he talks about the equipment operators there, Sean Bush and Mike Royce, about how good they are at operating equipment, digging. And I just said, like, the biggest thing is, like Sean on the excavator, he's digging and it's like, it's a, it's a huge machine and uh, he can feel.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  He can feel stuff.

• 2:07:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's just like he'll stop and it's like he felt something with the, with the tooth of that bucket.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:07:24Cameron Hanes?

  And comes back out.

• 2:07:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:07:26Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, maybe it's a gas line, maybe it's power, unlocated power, something like that.

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:30Cameron Hanes?

  But just that feel, I don't think people realize what a talent that is. And it's like, I'd, I'd like to have the, the spotlight shown on guys like that because those are the guys that keep the fucking wheels going in the, in this country.

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, that's my dad. I mean, that's my biggest hero still is my dad, just with that hard work and the things I got to learn and um, that, that's, that's the level of, of operating a machine that my dad and I, but I got to because of my dad, I got, he got to teach me like, you're in two, you're not sitting there with earbuds in, in the backhoe.

• 2:08:01Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  You're sitting there and you're listening to everything and, and when the engine, you know, tone changes, like, is there something potentially wrong or is it bearing down? Or are you tugging on something?

• 2:08:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  Like, if you're tugging on something you shouldn't be, maybe you should stop, get out and.

• 2:08:15Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  Poke around with a shovel, like, oh shit, there's a freaking gas line.

• 2:08:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:20Speaker 01

  Wasn't located.

• 2:08:21Cameron Hanes?

  It's a big deal.

• 2:08:22Speaker 01

  Those people are truly masters and the thing is, is not everyone's going to get rich at what they do, but we can sure still appreciate them for what they do.

• 2:08:29Cameron Hanes?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:08:31Cameron Hanes?

  That's a, that's a good point. Um, well, Josh, thank you so much. Uh, it seems like we could sit here and talk forever about all this, but you know, just, just know how much I appreciate the partnership and like what you stand for and what you do and what you offer this country. I'm honored to call you a friend and I'd love to see how the success you've had and I just, I just want to see more of it.

• 2:08:52Speaker 01

  Well, I honestly, man, it's, uh, I've, I've listened to you for years. I, I, I listened to you in my shop, uh, you know, like wa- watching your Instagram stories of you just continuing to keep doing what you were doing through. You know, I had so much respect when you were involved so much in that 2020 campaign because you weren't afraid to stand up and lose followers, lose some some respect from certain people, but then you gain so much more from other people. We need people who are willing to stand up and say what they believe in. And everything that you're about and everything you talk about, it resonates with me. And so for my company and for us to be at the point where we can actually work together with somebody like you, it's

• 2:09:36Speaker 01

  it's truly an honor and it's a it's one of those surreal moments. We keep having those little things that come along like this. And yeah, it means a lot. And it's not just like, it's, it's different for me because I am so passionate about where I've come from and how long it took to get here that it's not like, oh, I'm just going to write a check to some guy and he's just going to be some ambassador, right? Like, I didn't want to necessarily do that. I wanted to work together with you on something that's real. Like, people are going to pass these things down for generations, you know? And people are going to give these to their kid for their first hunt.

• 2:10:13Cameron Hanes?

  That's amazing.

• 2:10:14Speaker 01

  And so it means a lot to me that you have, because you have a great reputation, for you to be able to put that out there with us and partner with us on this means a lot.

• 2:10:24Cameron Hanes?

  Thank you for the opportunity. All right. Well, I'm gonna get you to the airport. Thank you so much.

• 2:10:30Speaker 01

  Thank you. Appreciate it, brother.