Season 2, Episode 2 - An Entrepreneurial Story With Feniex Industries

 

 

The following transcription was generated using a speech recognition software, and will contain errors. Please review the timestamp and listen to the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

Quick Link to Season 2, Episode 1

 

Lightning (0s):

Holman, welcome to Bank’s Power to the conference room.

Holman (3s):

I’ve been walking around here since you were on the phone talking to customers and Yeah. Found myself wandering for some reason. Gail has this weird thing where he trusts me wandering aimlessly around his campus here. And I

Lightning (17s):

Think you’re a trustworthy guy.

Holman (18s):

Well, I mean, I, I stumbled into this one dark room that was full of engines.

Lightning (24s):

Mm, okay.

Holman (25s):

Yep. And then I stumbled, be

Lightning (27s):

Careful what you

Holman (27s):

Talk about. And I stumbled into this other area who had vehicles.

Lightning (32s):

Oh,

Holman (33s):

Okay. Then I, and then I walked by this other area and there was rooms

Lightning (36s):

Just don’t, the one that’s in this corner over here that I’m pointing at, the big one, the heavy

Holman (41s):

Vehicle. Oh, the military. <unk> Ah,

Lightning (43s):

Oh. I just, we should

Holman (44s):

That out should, I was gonna say, you’re gonna bleep it anyway. I just did. Hey, you should, we should talk about how banks is making a No, for the military.

Lightning (53s):

I can’t, I just had to bleep all that out.

Holman (55s):

Well, okay. How about we talk about how the super turbo Duramax is in the dino cell?

Lightning (1m 0s):

Well, that we can talk about.

Holman (1m 2s):

Oh, okay. Well, I don’t care. I only wanna talk about things we can talk about.

Lightning (1m 6s):

Yeah. All right. Well,

Holman (1m 7s):

The, the place, the place is,

Lightning (1m 8s):

There are a lot of engines aren’t

Holman (1m 9s):

There. It’s crawling with duramax engines. They’re, they’re coming out of every orifice and, and, and crack of light. You know, you walk around the outside, normally in buildings you would see like some ivy working its way through a crack in the wall. No, it’s a duramax manifold that’s sticking through. And although I did see some, how can I say this?

Lightning (1m 31s):

You can say that we have some EcoDiesel engine. What’s

Holman (1m 38s):

It say? You see a, what is

Lightning (1m 40s):

ITT six? Yeah, the bank six 30

Holman (1m 43s):

T I just can’t say where they’re at

Lightning (1m 44s):

Or what they’re, you can’t say what they’re in. Okay. What they’re connected to.

Holman (1m 48s):

Hmm. Well, that’s gonna make talking about them really hard.

Lightning (1m 51s):

You can just say

Holman (1m 52s):

That they’re here. Okay. Well, they’re here. So I, I wandered around banks and I don’t know, I’ve wandered, I’ve, I’ve made it back into the conference room where we have previously recorded. This is gonna be, thank you Mr. Gale Banks. This is gonna be our podcast studio home for probably the next two to three episodes until the pod gets up and running.

Lightning (2m 10s):

And what’s funny is there’s no one here. It’s you and I. Yeah. As a matter of fact, in about 10 minutes, I’m gonna have to pause and go call the alarm company and tell ’em I’m working late.

Holman (2m 19s):

I heard you yodeling when I walked in.

Lightning (2m 21s):

That wasn’t me. Then

Holman (2m 23s):

Somebody else is here. There’s a ghost. There’s absolutely

Lightning (2m 25s):

Somebody. Oh, that’s right. You saw Matt Gamble, who we had on the show. He was exiting.

Holman (2m 28s):

Yeah. You were on a call and he and I talked about soundproofing walls.

Lightning (2m 31s):

He is working late on a project, the one that we can’t talk about that’s out there.

Holman (2m 35s):

Yeah. He wouldn’t divulge that

Lightning (2m 37s):

Information. Oh, he wouldn’t elaborate. Really?

Holman (2m 38s):

No. I said, what are you doing here? And he goes, and then he looked at the ground. I’m like, oh yeah, there’s something there.

Lightning (2m 43s):

That guy has been putting in some serious, serious hours. He’s one of our engineers. He’s the guy that, he was on the Joe, you know, we, we sold him from Middlebrook. Yeah. And he came here to build a race truck to go to Pikes Peak,

Holman (2m 56s):

And now he’s building other stuff.

Lightning (2m 57s):

Now he’s, can we say <unk> things?

Holman (3m 2s):

No, I don’t think you can say that.

Lightning (3m 3s):

No. I just bleep myself out. I

Holman (3m 5s):

Think you have to bleep that. I don’t, I’m pretty sure that that’s not allowed either. Yeah. Nah, I can’t say that. I think we should move away from that part of the thing and, okay. Hey. All right. I don’t know if you saw on my social, is that Sean P. Holman? But I’ve been busy. I’ve been a busy little beaver lately.

Lightning (3m 18s):

You’re talking about building the studio behind your house.

Holman (3m 20s):

All right, well, let’s see. Building the studio. All right. So, by the way, massive, like, I think they call it an atmospheric river, hitting Southern California right now. Pod shed totally dry.

Lightning (3m 32s):

Really

Holman (3m 32s):

Double checked it today. Not one leak in the whole thing. I’m feeling good. Oh, that’s great. I’m feeling really good

Lightning (3m 36s):

Cuz we’re gonna have electronics in there. A lot of

Holman (3m 38s):

Electronics. And so that’s, that thing is, is good. We’ve got our friend Rich coming out to help out next week

Lightning (3m 44s):

To, from Holdaway

Holman (3m 45s):

Construction. From Holdaway Construction up in Hollister. He’s gonna, one of our very first listeners, he’s gonna come down and help hang drywall and things like that. I’ve had a couple contractor buddies have helped me do the electrical and the installation so far to make it a lot easier for when Rich comes down. So to maximize his time. So yeah. So I got the, the podcast studio, and then if you guys saw, obviously Truck Famous is up and running. And then I launched Use for Adventure Incorporated.

Lightning (4m 8s):

And what is that company gonna

Holman (4m 9s):

Do? So that is my, it’s basically the S corp that owns Truck Famous that owns the podcast.

Lightning (4m 17s):

That’s a Shell corporation owning a Shell corporation.

Holman (4m 20s):

No, no,

Lightning (4m 21s):

It’s, that’s something you see in like a bad No, it’s completely legit. It’s a gangster movie.

Holman (4m 26s):

No, no, no. So the, because it, who owns it? It pays the S-corp. The s-corp pays me. Right. That’s how I get, that’s, that’ll be my paycheck. Yeah. I wrote this little boiler plate. I posted up on LinkedIn, I posted it up on, on my socials. And dude, my phone’s been ringing off the hook. So

Lightning (4m 42s):

How do you have, I’m gonna the time to do,

Holman (4m 44s):

I’m gonna read this you and I want you to tell me if you would hire me. Okay.

Lightning (4m 48s):

Sure.

Holman (4m 49s):

All right. Used for Adventure Inc. Is an automotive freelance and consulting business specializing in the truck and off-road market. Principal Sean P. Holman has over 20 years of automotive editorial experience to pull from and is ready to assist you with your next project. From OE vehicle programs and aftermarket new products to trail planning and guiding bespoke backcountry trips used for Adventure Inc. Is positioned to offer valuable customer insights, advice, and expertise in the off-road and truck space. Other services include writing, hosting, voiceover work, panel moderation, marketing and business strategy, and distilling complex topics into something that could be understood by your everyday consumer.

Lightning (5m 23s):

Give about a 94.

Holman (5m 24s):

Yeah,

Lightning (5m 25s):

About a 94. Scott, there’s just some, a few words I would change to make them spice it up a little bit. The only thing you don’t tell me there is that you, you say that what you can do, but not

Holman (5m 35s):

What I do. I’m

Lightning (5m 37s):

No, no. What you have done.

Holman (5m 38s):

Yeah. This is, this is not about the past.

Lightning (5m 41s):

I also don’t like the word business in there. I think still business. Yeah, it is a business, but you don’t need to say it in that.

Holman (5m 48s):

Interesting. Well, I’ve had a very, very good response and now I’m hoping I don’t have too much on my plate because then I also did a third thing and I am, there’s a new magazine coming out in the off-road space that everybody here, if you loved my previous magazine, is

Lightning (6m 7s):

This the one that I saw go through the mail slot called O V

Holman (6m 10s):

R? Yes. So Right. A little background on that. The guys that started Recoil Magazine and therefore started concealment Off Grid, if you guys love those magazines, hugely successful. Also launched one called Geek, and I believe it was Inc. Back in at, at my previous employer. Long ago Recoil got sold, they went with it and then they eventually left and went out on their own. They also started another magazine, and this one is called O V R Off-Road Vehicle Recreation. And so it’s all about the lifestyle of overlanding off-roading, gear reviews, destinations, the doing of it, the lifestyle aspect of it.

Holman (6m 51s):

And they have offered me a minority interest to come aboard and I took them up on that. So I’ll be a, a part owner in that. So looking for, if you guys are going, how can I support you? Well, if you live off-roading the magazines, there’ll be both a print and digital version, and there’s also a website, go to o mag.com and we are also gonna be hosting a podcast tab on there where you’ll be able to see our podcasts and listen directly from that website as well. So hopefully we reach a new audience of, of people. So yeah.

Lightning (7m 21s):

But that’s so far out of our wheelhouse.

Holman (7m 23s):

You think off-road?

Lightning (7m 25s):

I’m

Holman (7m 26s):

Being sarcastic. It’s

Lightning (7m 27s):

Exactly in

Holman (7m 28s):

Our wheelhouse, right? I mean, you know, I think there’s some stuff that we do that, you know, like the lowered custom truck stuff that might not be a perfect match, but I mean, we talk about enough stuff. No, no, no.

Lightning (7m 36s):

Everyone takes Lowered Mavericks off-road.

Holman (7m 39s):

Well, that would be fun. So yeah, so anyway, so those are my, my three ventures right now. Minority Stake in O V R Mag and then also used for Adventure and then also Truck Famous in the podcast. So

Lightning (7m 53s):

Congrats dude.

Holman (7m 54s):

Things are just like happening the way they’re supposed to.

Lightning (7m 56s):

They’re lining up Yeah.

Holman (7m 57s):

For you. Well, except for the bill I have to pay later.

Lightning (7m 59s):

Oh, wow. That’ll, that’ll be stiff.

Holman (8m 1s):

It’s, it’s, yeah. You talk about risk in this, this episode’s about entrepreneurial ship and we talk about risk going in as a business owner and stuff, and I’m, I’m feeling that, I’m definitely feeling that right now.

Lightning (8m 14s):

So what Holman’s getting at is we’re gonna be checking in with a guy named Hamza daf, and I think I’m screwing up his last name. I’m, I’m almost positive. But Hamza is the CEO and founder of a company called Phoenix, spelled f e n i e x. And they make l e d lights, strobe lights, things like that. There are a lot of lighting suppliers you can go to, but I don’t think many have a story like his. So it’ll make a lot more sense when we get into it. But I, I’m pretty excited. I’ve been following his career for, since I found out about the company, and he’s a young entrepreneur that’s got a great story. So we’ll check in with Hamza shortly, but first we want to thank Nissan with whom we wouldn’t be at Banks. Isn’t that weird?

Lightning (8m 54s):

Like, we wouldn’t be be sitting here doing this show without Nissan.

Holman (8m 60s):

Is that because Nissan brought me here and is taking us home a

Lightning (9m 3s):

Little bit of that? Yes. Nissan did provide you with a brand new Titan XD Platinum Reserve, which we do flowered last

Holman (9m 10s):

Night, by the way, with chili dogs, by the way. I I am gonna tell you right now, the audio quality in this room is completely way worse than the tight nty. That’s true. I was listening to it. Well,

Lightning (9m 22s):

There’s a conference room

Holman (9m 22s):

Too. I get it. But I was

Lightning (9m 23s):

Listening. There’s pegboard.

Holman (9m 24s):

We were in a car

Lightning (9m 26s):

Behind You

Holman (9m 27s):

We’re in a car while it was raining.

Lightning (9m 29s):

Yeah. And it was still better than,

Holman (9m 31s):

This was still better than this. I couldn’t believe it when I was listening to the, the playback. I’m like, the audio’s actually really good. It’s just, it goes to show you how quiet that truck is and yeah. Thanks.

Lightning (9m 40s):

Well, so about that truck, the, the, this particular platinum reserve, when you close the door, it is not the tin can that you hear on other trucks where they go clinging. This is,

Holman (9m 51s):

Nope. It has a nice quiet, it’s

Lightning (9m 53s):

Just that th that you’d expect from a hundred plus thousand dollars vehicle

Holman (9m 60s):

And it’s only a fraction of that cost. That’s true. Hey, if you, you’re looking for a Nissan, you can go to the Nissan Drive at home program. So you can go to the website nissan usa.com and you can use drive at home to schedule a test drive online. And they will bring the vehicle that you’re looking at right to your house. And then you don’t have to visit the dealer, but of course you can visit the dealer. And, and of course we highly recommend the Titan and Titan next to you in the five year 100,000 mile warranty. And of course, the midsize Nissan frontier nissan usa.com.

Lightning (10m 28s):

What have I told you, Holman? That the

Holman (10m 30s):

What? What, wait, what? Hold on, I’m looking in the corner here and I see just the tip.

Lightning (10m 35s):

Just the tip. Sorry. Actually three of ’em tip exhaust tips. Yes. What if I told you that the one on the left and the one on the right both have multiple patents?

Holman (10m 44s):

I see the inner cooling on the tip in the middle.

Lightning (10m 46s):

That’s not ours. That’s the competition. Oh, really? Yeah. And that, that, that

Holman (10m 51s):

Cool.

Lightning (10m 51s):

Yours? Hold on. So check it out. Yeah, I’m,

Holman (10m 53s):

I’m sliding away all here. Listen to that echo. If I was in the back seat of a tight, next D Would sound as dead as can be. Yeah.

Lightning (11m 0s):

All right.

Holman (11m 3s):

I have a Banks’s oval exhaust tip in my beard

Lightning (11m 8s):

That is called a sidekick tip,

Holman (11m 10s):

Sir. Okay, so sidekick. So this is a slash cut Oval Banks tip. That’s right. It looks like it’s somewhere around five inch, six

Lightning (11m 17s):

Inch. So it’s a five inch inlet, right? That’s the size, the size of the tubing. It’s six, but that’s about seven inches across in the outlet,

Holman (11m 24s):

But

Lightning (11m 25s):

Six tall and it’s slash cut. Yeah. So this is an oval with a flat top and a flat bottom. Weird,

Holman (11m 30s):

Huh. And why do I want this? Why do I care Lightning?

Lightning (11m 33s):

Because that evacuates, it’s scavenges exhausting. Get li grab the one on the right in the corner. Yep. So this is the same except even larger. All right. You see the inlet, which is where it connects to the pipe right there. Yeah. Okay. Now the curve at which it gets larger in size, that curve is part of the patent. I can’t say much about it, but it’s rocket nozzle technology. Why do, why do you care about rocket nozzle technology? It sound exhaust pipe. Well, yes and no. I mean, it’s a diesel pickup truck and it’s after the dpf, so it doesn’t add a whole lot of sound. It makes it a little lower rumble, but you care because it scavenges exhaust. That is a zero back pressure tip, my friend. That means that not only is does it reduce the back pressure after the dpf, it helps draw exhaust out a couple psi less at the tip of the exhaust can mean a lot more at the turbo.

Lightning (12m 25s):

So that means better fuel economy and more power with a bank’s monster exhaust with sidekick tip.

Holman (12m 30s):

So where do I go to find out if there’s an application for my

Lightning (12m 33s):

Truck banks power.com type in your year, make and model

Intro (12m 37s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer What? The truck, cause truck rode the truck show. We have the lifted, we have the lower than everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa. It’s the truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Lightning (13m 15s):

All

Holman (13m 15s):

Right, hold on. You forgot to tell everybody season two. Oh yeah. Episode

Lightning (13m 19s):

Two, season two, episode two. Do we own season one?

Holman (13m 24s):

No. So we should probably let people know, oh, did that fall apart? I no, it’s, those are owned

Lightning (13m 29s):

By, are those ongoing, the negotiations?

Holman (13m 32s):

I’ve, I am working on a licensing deal that will allow us to keep our previous 267 episodes up, but it won’t be in perpetuity. So if you love the back catalog,

Lightning (13m 45s):

Listen

Holman (13m 46s):

Now, you should listen to it now, because at some point it could be six months, could be a year. We’re still finalizing

Lightning (13m 51s):

It. Be Tomorrow details.

Holman (13m 52s):

No, it won’t be tomorrow. Okay. We’re, we’ll have a, we’re working a licensing agreement so you guys can still enjoy the back catalog, but we’re forward looking here, season two, episode two of the Truck Show podcast.

Lightning (14m 3s):

Oh, this season is way better than the last season, than the last

Holman (14m 7s):

Five you have.

Lightning (14m 7s):

Holy McElroy. I wish we owned the last 260 episodes.

Holman (14m 12s):

We don’t. Well listen. All right. But let me just leave it with this motor trend on my exit has been incredibly gracious in the way that they handled everything. I,

Lightning (14m 21s):

I I, in all honesty, so I don’t, I didn’t, I didn’t work for Motor Trend. Okay? I am a contractor and I will say God’s honest truth, they have treated Wholeman really well through this. I have n no, ill Will, I think it’s a, I do think it’s a great company. I’m sad to see this part of their operation kind of dissolve and them reorganize, but I will say that as they’ve been nothing but kind to me.

Holman (14m 46s):

Yeah. And it’s, it’s same here. So they, they gave me,

Lightning (14m 50s):

Although I do wish we, we owned our backhand,

Holman (14m 52s):

Right? Well, they gave me the opportunity to own the podcast. So that’s huge just in and of itself right there. And yeah, I mean, they’re willing to negotiate to, you know, listen, I don’t keep all my old four wheeler stories when I leave. Just like if you work for Boeing and you write a patent for them, you don’t get to take your patent on the way out. So I get it, that’s just business that’s typical for a media company. But the fact that they’re willing to work with us so that we can maintain as much of the back catalog as possible or keep it up for a while so that you guys can enjoy it until whenever the time is. But just a heads up, it won’t be forever. So we’re, we’re looking forward. So tell your friends, get them to listen, and let’s get as many new listeners as we can on season two. All

Lightning (15m 26s):

Right. Do you wanna shift gears and talk about lighting?

Holman (15m 29s):

I, I would love to do

Lightning (15m 31s):

That. All right. This is where you dial Mr. Hamza daf, CEO of Phoenix Industries. Wonder if he’s at the gym.

Hamza (15m 59s):

This Hansa

Lightning (16m 0s):

Hamsa, it’s Lightning in Holman from the Churchill podcast. How you doing?

Hamza (16m 3s):

Hello? Hey. Doing good sir. How about you?

Lightning (16m 5s):

We are absolutely amazing now that we have you on the phone, cuz you’re the world’s hardest CEO to track down,

Hamza (16m 10s):

Man. As long as you think that then I’m, I’m, I’m okay

Lightning (16m 14s):

Doing alright. I mean, we, we could have got a whole of Bill Gates easier than tracking down the man behind Phoenix.

Hamza (16m 22s):

Man. I appreciate that sir. I

Lightning (16m 24s):

Appreciate that. Hey, all right. So you got Lightning and Holman, there’s two of us and we have a quick intro to play. So don’t move Ain’t tight. You got it.

8 (16m 34s):

What

Lightning (16m 35s):

To

8 (16m 35s):

Entrepreneur, quit your and get, don’t anyone tell you you can look always be another. This is what Entrepreneur

Lightning (16m 51s):

Now Hamza, everyone gets a silly jingle. So they’re all different. And yours is how to be an entrepreneur basically. And it’s saying there’s always gonna be another crappy job. Not

Holman (17m 0s):

If you’re

Lightning (17m 0s):

Successful, not if you’re successful, not if you’re on his trajectory. But, so you need to know the backstory, Hamza. So this is Lightning speaking. I work at Banks Power during the day and before

Holman (17m 10s):

That. And he wants to yell at people through a pa

Lightning (17m 12s):

Well, we’ll get to that. Hold on, we’ll get to that. That’s the whole thing. Right? Okay. So my backstory is I spent 25 years in radio and then I went to go work for Gail Banks who does performance parts for diesel pickups and other stuff. And then Mr. Sean Holman across the desk from me, he’s been in automotive journalism for almost the same amount of time, 20 plus years.

Hamza (17m 32s):

Oh, very cool.

Lightning (17m 33s):

And I have always wanted and always followed strobe light technology and just strange things that my friends thought I was wacky for enjoying Right. And PA systems and whatnot. And I was watching Duramax Rhino at Dmax Rhino out of San Diego, and he’s been on the show a bunch of times and he’s become actually a friend of mine. And he was installing, this is a couple years ago, installing some equipment on one of his Lifted show trucks. And he put in Phoenix and I had never heard of Phoenix. And then he did kind of an expose on the shop down there, I wanna say Escondido, somewhere around the San Diego way. And they were i e p and I’m trying to remember what that stood for. Oh, international Emergency Products.

Lightning (18m 14s):

Okay. And they were, they’re one of your retailers and he knew everything about all the skews and all that. And I was learning as you would want a YouTuber to teach. I was, I was soaking it all up. And then I did some research, found myself on your website, found myself on your team page, found myself on your LinkedIn, and now all of a sudden I’m a stalker. And I’m like, okay, this is getting a little creepy. I know too much about Hamza. Is

Holman (18m 38s):

That why you’ve been leaving me alone lately?

Lightning (18m 39s):

Bit, yeah. A little bit. And so I, it’s been

Holman (18m 42s):

Refreshing

Lightning (18m 43s):

By the way, I, I wa I watch one of your videos and you basically tell all about all the trials and tribulations that you not only you as a person, but the company has gone through and after I, I’m not gonna spoil the whole story cuz I want you to tell some of that to our listeners now. But everything about the whole story was fascinating. What you make was fascinating and the story and how you got there was fascinating. That’s how I arrived at trying to track you down. And you’re like, who are these two schmucks from a truck podcast trying to get me on the, like, what is this all about?

Hamza (19m 15s):

Lightning? I appreciate that man. I think you gave me way too much credit. You and my mom do. So I I’m, I’m very appreciative of that. So thank you. Thank you know. But in, you know, and, and, and, and success obviously is a, it’s, I I still, I believe it’s a very subjective term, you know, and it means something different to each person. So, you know, from a successful standpoint, I’m just, I’m, I’m blessed that my idea of business was, was a good one. It had a purpose. I had the necessary resources, the right people around me, the right time, right? I entered this industry during the rise between l the rise of l e d technology, the transition from strobe and halogen bulbs to l e d.

Hamza (20m 0s):

So my timing of industry penetration was, was good. So there’s a lot of factors to play into that. And through a lot of hard work, good people, good decisions and overcoming a tremendous amount of failure, we’re here and we’re standing, you know, I’m really, I’m very, very proud of it. So where do we wanna go? What do we wanna do from here? Now we have a lot of dreams, man. Lightning. It’s a, there there’s a, we’re we’re very ambitious. All of us. I can’t, I cannot, I am not where I am today without the good quality people that trusted and believed in me from, from from the beginning.

Holman (20m 36s):

So maybe that’s the key to success that we’re lacking is we have nobody who believes in us.

Lightning (20m 41s):

Well, lovely. I don’t think that’s entirely true. We have thousands of listeners. But now did you,

Holman (20m 45s):

Of course, did you talk about Phoenix and who,

Lightning (20m 48s):

No. So let’s, let’s, let’s right into, right, let’s Hamza as an

Holman (20m 51s):

Entrepreneur. Now they’re listening right now going lightning. We don’t know who you’re talking to. Oh sure. Let’s help ’em out there. So

Lightning (20m 56s):

The backstory is I love their slug line Phoenix, by the way, we need to get into the spelling cuz it’s not spelled Phoenix like either the band that does 19 one, the pop song, and it’s not the spelled like the bird either, right? It’s, it’s F E N I E X, which I’ll want zu to explain in a minute. A manufacturer of innovative American made products for the world’s toughest jobs, lights, sirens, communication, and more. They do stuff for police, fire towing construction list goes on. It’s, it’s a weird niche thing I think. But we have so many listeners that are in construction. We’re about to build a new podcast studio, for example. And Rich Holdaway, one of our construction guys, his trucks are, you know, have l e d lighting and such.

Lightning (21m 36s):

The Ambers things you need right? At a construction site. We have a lot of police, we have fire, we have everyone. So I think that we will find listeners that have something they’ll be interested in your product line.

Holman (21m 47s):

Well, I think everybody who’s listening is always in, you know, interested in a good entrepreneurial story. Cause we’ve got a lot of guys out there who own their own business or want to take the jump. And so I think every time we have somebody like you on who has that track record of going out on their own, it’s inspiring, especially to a guy like myself who just went out on my own after 25 years. So I congrats on that. I’m in the same, same boat.

Lightning (22m 7s):

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s awesome. Sean, who’s sitting motor, sitting across from me has just left Motor Trend after 20 some odd years and has started up famous and now owns this podcast. So that’s a whole nother story. But Hamza, take us back. You started another company. Speed lights. Speed Tech. Speed Tech, okay.

Hamza (22m 25s):

Speed Tech lights. Yeah. Same similar industry, right? Same industry, just different market. Going back a little bit, I always wanted to be a cop. I wanted to be a police officer or a firefighter. It was, I wanted to be in the emergency response sector. There was something about that. So I went to ut I ran track and field there, and our track stadium was on the edge of this intersection. And through during track and track practice, I used to watch the off the police officers and firetrucks blow through this intersection. I was fascinated by it, man. I thought it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, right? These are real life superheroes that exist and, and look at them just conquering the road and, and, and going to save somebody’s life, right?

Hamza (23m 9s):

In our industry, our products show up on the worst day of somebody’s life. And, and, and the idea that we can be there and help and make that that situation just a little bit better is very fulfilling and very rewarding. Now, my father, I called him up at u how was that? Ut one day. And I said, Hey dad, I know what I wanna be. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m a sophomore junior here at ut, now I wanna be a firefighter or police officer. My father told me, you know what, that’s rewarding. That sounds great,

Lightning (23m 39s):

But,

Holman (23m 39s):

But,

Hamza (23m 40s):

But find a way to provide for your family. Incredible financial security. And those jobs, as rewarding as they are, may not necessarily give you that. See, my dad was a software engineer for 25 years. He stayed with the same company nearly Wow. Two decades out laboratories a software engineer. And then he was laid off during the telecommunication bust and struggled to, to, to find a job during some really tough economical periods, right? 2008, just a little bit before that. So there was, there were challenges and he really, really focused in on financial stability and security for our family.

Hamza (24m 21s):

And that was a big thing. And, and I said, you know what? I wanna buy some of these lights. I think they’re the coolest thing ever. So as a college student, I bought a couple of flashing lights, put ’em in my car, thought it was, I thought it was the coolest guy ever. Obviously it probably wasn’t the best thing to have some flashing lights in my, my car at that time. Lighting.

Holman (24m 41s):

Lighting,

Lightning (24m 42s):

Yeah. We, we’ll get into that. Yep. There’s some of us that don’t care, but yes. All right.

Hamza (24m 47s):

You know, these, and these were just white lights, right? I, I got these white flashing lights that I thought was really cool. So I had them in my vehicle, had them, you know, I thought it was the coolest guy ever.

Lightning (24m 58s):

Don’t, don’t hold on. Toms don’t gloss over what, what car or truck was it?

Hamza (25m 2s):

It was a, it was a Toyota Camry. Okay. A

Holman (25m 5s):

Which totally blends in as a police car or a construction vehicle or an ambulance. Completely right, right in there. Nope.

Lightning (25m 11s):

Yeah,

Hamza (25m 12s):

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You know, it was just, for some reason, I I I, I loved the industry, I loved the product type. I knew lighting systems that, that made, gave some element of warning right. To, to people out there. And I thought it was, I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. But, you know, I was a poor college kid. I had $8 in my bank account. You know, I, I I, I would pull up the deck in the box every now and then at night, and thank God one day I’ll be wealthy enough to, to pull up to, to this restaurant and buy anything. It is I desire. You know? So understanding what it’s like to be hungry, going two days at times as a collegiate athlete with no food. Because at that time you can’t really work.

Hamza (25m 53s):

Don’t want to ask parents for money, don’t really have another job. It was, it was tough. It was a, it was really, really tough. He’s

Lightning (26m 1s):

Just thinking of the, the two taco combo. He’s like, if I, you can just get a two taco combo with a small fry and the medium drink, it’s a home

Holman (26m 8s):

Run. But look at him today, tell me. Right. He can go for a large combo now can thanks.

Hamza (26m 13s):

And a drink too. You

Holman (26m 15s):

Know, it’s, wait, hold on. We, I I know you’re down in, in Texas. We, we have to ask. Oh yeah, we do. In and out or Whataburger.

Hamza (26m 22s):

Oh, Whataburger, man. No, no,

Lightning (26m 25s):

No, no. Wrong answer. No, seriously.

Holman (26m 30s):

So here’s the thing. What Whataburger used to be amazing until they got bought up or their new corporate overlords, and now they’re not. And I, all my Texas friends, I go down Texas quite a bit. They’re always giving me a hard time. They’re like in and out and I’m, I’m like, let me ask you this, why does Whataburger have no cars in the drive-through and in and out has a line around the block. Right.

Lightning (26m 50s):

That’s why Valid.

Hamza (26m 52s):

That’s a valid point, man. That really is. But I mean, Whataburger gives you the three chicken strips, you know, with gravy and stuff. I don’t think, I mean,

Holman (26m 58s):

That’s, that’s solid. It’s

Lightning (26m 59s):

Free because they can’t sell it. It’s not worth anything.

Holman (27m 3s):

Come on

Hamza (27m 3s):

Now. No, I love it, man. I love it. It’s a such a, such a valid point

Lightning (27m 8s):

You have been to in and out. Right. And if not, we’ll take you to when you’re in. Okay. All

Hamza (27m 11s):

Right. Well, well, the thing is, the thing is that I grew up in Dallas. I lived there for nearly 18 years before I went to school in Austin. And I went to UT in two from class of what, 2005 to 2010.

Holman (27m 23s):

Lot of Waffle House in your life in late nights. Yeah.

Hamza (27m 26s):

That’s, that’s really true. But my dad found a temporary job while I was in high school. It was sophomore and junior year of high school in North Carolina. And we moved there to go to, we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. And I went to school there. And I think in and out, that’s, I mean, that’s what it was all about, you know? I think so. I don’t think they had Whataburger in, in, in, in North Carolina.

Holman (27m 50s):

Nope. Not that all, not that far east.

Hamza (27m 52s):

Yeah. But no, I, I get the, I get the love and passion for it, man. It’s great. You know, and when you’re, when you’re a starving college kid, man, anything was good. And Jack Boston

Lightning (28m 1s):

Was,

Hamza (28m 1s):

Was definitely, it was definitely my thing. So, but ultimately I sold out that light. I, I got on eBay, I listed it, I said, Hey, you know, red and blue, sorry, a white, you know, flashing light. And my phone was blowing up that, that day. Cops, you construct, anyone was calling me wanting that light. And I remember thinking, why there’s, there’s a business here. So I stripped it apart, found the manufacturer part number inside the product, Googled it, found the factory in China, email them, Hey, can I buy 10 of these? You know, what would be my price? And wow, that’s much less than I thought. Called up my dad, dad, can I borrow 800 bucks?

Hamza (28m 41s):

I wanna, I wanna sell these lights that I, that I, I probably shouldn’t be owning, you know,

Holman (28m 48s):

Moving the hot goods. Right.

Hamza (28m 51s):

And when he, he lended me 800 bucks and I lived in the track and field stadium at the, the track and field team room. Cause I couldn’t afford a computer. And I made a website and I’d manage my eBay listings and all that. And man, fast forward 17 years later and two corporations and what nearly a, a quarter billion dollars in products sold since then. It’s, it’s been a,

Holman (29m 16s):

Yeah, that’s, it’s been a, I mean, you don’t have to rub it in. Well man,

Lightning (29m 20s):

Well, but hold on. You can’t, you’re, you’re like, Zi, you’re not allowed to just gloss over those years and we’re not gonna spend an hour talking about it. But I will say that, like, so, so you get the $800, you, you buy the parts, you put it together and you put up a store on eBay. And

Holman (29m 34s):

How, by the way, my, my parents are awesome and they, you know, when I’ve ever needed a loan, they’ve come through Sure it’s been right. And, and, and parents will do that for you. But don’t you, when, when you’re starting something out, don’t you have a little bit of guilt and you’re like, I hope, I hope they believe in me enough to gimme and then they give you the money cuz they’re like, you’re, they believe in you and then you walk away, you’re like, I hope I don’t let ’em down now.

Hamza (29m 55s):

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Well,

Lightning (29m 57s):

How did that become a, a legitimate like, online thing

Hamza (30m 2s):

In the, the, the, the windows of opportunity and in business or in life are not sometimes that obvious. You know, they come to you in, in, in tiny and, and sometimes micro views, right? You and you, you look for them and you, you give that a shot because it’s not like, wow, I sold this product and it, I made money off of it. I mean, I made a little bit of money, but when I started buying these products from Asia, some of the very first lights I sold, I only made, I think I bought them for about 50 bucks. And I was selling them at one point for $55 minus the EBA fees. Well, that’s minus

Lightning (30m 38s):

No margin.

Hamza (30m 39s):

No, but for, it was, it was, I told my mom this when I called her up when she told me similar things. I said, mom, if I made $1 on every light that I sold, I will sell a hundred lights to make a hundred dollars. And that’s, I valued money. I valued the value of that dollar. And, and I push forward, well what can I change here? Maybe the keywords, what can I, what else can I do? I can add a red filter on it and, and more people are gonna pay more for that. Wow. Okay. What, what’s this thing? L e d l E D technology call up the factory in China. Hey, can I buy 10 of these l e d ones? Boom, l e d I’m selling that for a hundred, $200 a light.

Hamza (31m 19s):

Wow. That’s incredible. And, and, and it, it’s valuing every exchange, every dollar that that really brought, that really helped me move forward because man in business, you guys know it. There’s a a million forces, some obvious, some knot that, that want destroy you, that wanna pause you, that wanna, that, that wanna cripple an idea. And, and you just have to have this blind, ridiculous ambition to just persevere and, and push forward.

Lightning (31m 48s):

Were you thinking that, man, I really only have one major because I won’t say the name, but it starts with the w Like that’s the only other company that I can think of that does what you do. It sounds like you fell into it and you looked around and go, I really only have like, there’s a bunch of Chinese competitors, right? A bunch of guys making LEDs and IDs, whatever, but like really legitimate companies that make fire safety lights, sirens, things like that. I I can’t count more than one or two.

Holman (32m 16s):

I know a I know a few. Do you? Yeah, I mean it’s, but that market is really tight knit. Small. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, cities, municipalities, people who buy the emergency equipment, the city yard, whoever they have the relationships with, the people they like to work with and the products they like to work with, whether it’s, you know, if you think about it on a police car or something, once it gets retired, all that police equipment doesn’t go with the car. When it gets retired, it goes to the next police car. Yep. And so they want to know the wiring schematics, how easy they are to, to, you know, repurpose on another vehicle. How long do they last, you know, how, how efficient they are. How long can your, your cop bike run its lights on a car, a traffic stop without your motorcycle going, you know, battery going down, all that stuff.

Holman (32m 58s):

And actually when I, you know, in a long time ago, in my past, I worked at a police department as a civilian and went through the police academy and all that. And this was back in the late nineties, early two thousands. So this was probably 2000. And remember we had a company come to the police department with an l e d light bar. It was the first time anybody had seen it. And we put it on one car and that car was like the test if we were gonna outfit the rest of the fleet with them. And I’ll never forget how freaking blindingly bright those lights were. And back then the, the, the reds had kind of a little bit of a pinkish issue to it. And the blue was a lot more brilliant than it is on, on the incandescent or the halogen bulbs. Yep.

Holman (33m 38s):

But you could see that car on a traffic stop two miles down, you know, the boulevard. Whereas, you know, other equipment, it was, it was faint or you couldn’t see, I mean it was amazing. You’re like, oh, I know which unit that is cuz that’s the one with the l e d light bar. And back then in 2000 working for a police department where your whole life surrounded, you know, the quality of lights, cuz lights are everything you do. I mean, it’s how you pull somebody over how you exert authority, how you search for somebody, how you search for addresses, how you can keep a, a, you know, a suspect or somebody at bay by, you know, blinding them through their mirrors for the take down line points, all that stuff, right? So lights are everything to a, to a cop. And to have that kind of, you know, technology, it was, I remember the reliability, the leading edge was like, wow, this is the future.

Holman (34m 25s):

This is amazing. So fa you know, flash forward, what, 20, I guess three years, 24 years now. And the technology I’m sure has grown incredibly since then. But yeah, it’s, it’s cool to see some of the stuff that you have on, on the site and, and all that, but, oh, thank you. Going back to the lightings question, it’s hard to break into a, a category that already has those relationships based, you know, or built already. It’s,

Hamza (34m 48s):

It’s incredibly hard. And, and, and our, in industry specifically, I would, I would, I would look at our market regardless of the, the, some of the innovative technology. I’d look at our market as more of an archaic industry, archaic market. It’s, it’s very traditional. We you’re talking about pre-internet type sales models that existed, manufacture reps, territory based models, face-to-face sales, the good old relationship, right? When you look at it globally, I think our total market size is maybe 600 million, 600 and maybe 700 million. And that, you know, you, you get kind of the big guys, the the 300 million, the 150 million guys, the, the a hundred million players and so on, you know, and then we’re, we’re working our way up in that category.

Hamza (35m 33s):

I would say we’re probably maybe the, maybe the fifth at biggest player in this, this space. And it’s, it’s great to, to grow to that specific point. You know, with, with some of the new technology we’re releasing next week, we’ve been working on technology for two and a half years that I believe is gonna transform our industry forever. And we’re launching it on Wednesday at the Phoenix Summit. It’s a virtual summit and we have thousands of subscribers and people that will attend. And I’m, I’m really excited about it. But for the last 10 years, 12 years of Phoenix, all we’ve been doing is trying to chase new innovative technology because the way to capture new market share in our space and to break these traditional norms that are really, really hard is with really impressive transformative technology.

Hamza (36m 18s):

And when you look at the historical sales of Phoenix and, and where we’ve been with hundred 80 million in, in, in, in, in total sales since our start that capital, where’d it go into new product innovation and development literally in its entirety, it went into the investment of developing your technology and your products. So it’s,

Lightning (36m 39s):

It’s, well that’s a, that’s a big letdown. I hope you were, you’re gonna tell me that you bought a castle and a bunch of Lambos.

Hamza (36m 44s):

Yeah, I wish it

Lightning (36m 45s):

Was like that.

Hamza (36m 47s):

No, not, not even close. Well

Lightning (36m 49s):

Were in ho one of your videos that I found online, you were detailing in, in almost painfully, like how you went through these trials and tribulations. You built lights and they failed out in the marketplace, or they failed on vehicles and you had to revise them. And you had, you had electronic issues, you had water issues, you had all these and you were, you were open about it, you’re like, but we solved them all. Lights

Holman (37m 14s):

Are hard. I mean, you think about these things that are, are be, they’re never in a garage, right? On an emergency vehicle. So for maybe a firetruck, they’re always in the elements. They’re in the worst of things. You don’t park an emergency vehicle on a bad day and don’t take it out. You’re dealing with everything from UV and dust and vibration and extreme heat, extreme cold. I mean any, it’s gotta be one of the hardest products in that type of, you know, environment to, to have those sealed lights and reliability. And even the little, you know, on the old halogens, they had like a little servo motor that would go around to spin it. Well, you remove that from an L E d because you can have LEDs facing different directions and you don’t need to have, you know, the, the, the, the gumball spinning around or whatever like you did in the old days.

Holman (37m 56s):

And each of those little steps kind of gets you a little bit closer to more reliability and, and all that kinda stuff.

Hamza (38m 2s):

Well consider, consider mill speck rating, right? Even mill spec itself is a year, maybe, maybe two years. Consider some of the most advanced consumer related products that are designed to work forever. What is the average warranty on those types of products? iPhones and TVs 32 a year maybe manufacture warranty, right?

Holman (38m 24s):

If you pay for it Yeah,

Hamza (38m 25s):

Sometimes. And if, and if you pay for it. Yeah. Then along comes our industry, which is in some cases so incredible, right? Lifesaving technology. The product has to work. If it doesn’t, someone can die. But on top of that automotive grade, environmental harsher conditions and it’s gotta last for five years. That’s the warranty period of our, of our products. I think our industry goes down and I, and I mean this, it’s not just a bias statement. I genuinely believe our industry goes down as one of the most difficult products and development segments that exist because of warranty, duration application and what the products is subjected to over time.

Hamza (39m 8s):

Not to mention add the variable of amateur installation, you know, a lot of,

Lightning (39m 12s):

Yeah,

Holman (39m 13s):

Yeah. I think,

Lightning (39m 14s):

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Holman (39m 15s):

The, the easier you can get to plug and play, you know, the, the better. But that’s not always the case. I mean, you look at an emergency vehicle and the wiring system, even if they come, even if it was meant to be an emergency vehicle from the factory and they’re pre-wired for some of it, the amount of electronics, I wanted to say somebody told me once, or I read it once, like the average police car has like 25 miles of wiring in it or something ridiculous like that. And, and just, you know, navigating all that. And then you take a, a construction truck that was never made to be an emergency vehicle that has to befitted. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a lot of variables. I was looking through the website. One of the things that caught my eye is you talked about in the early days how you had found these lights and you found the manufacturer in China and you ordered them overseas.

Holman (39m 57s):

And now on the website you’re talking about American made products and innovation. Yep. Is that part of your marketplace differentiator, number one. And then number two to the follow up on that is what is the value of that to the business, bringing that in-house and what products are you doing? How, how does that help you sell more to, you know, min and municipality or something like that?

Hamza (40m 17s):

Man, great question Sean. Real, really good question. So, you know, I ran with Speed Tech for, I would say about four to five years. It was, it was the, the 2005, 2006 to about 2010. And you’re talking about, I’m sitting in class, I’m trying to sell products. I’m, I’m, I’m running track, track and field. I’m getting ready for, for an Olympic year to, to go train and compete both collegiately and world and on a world level. And that’s

Lightning (40m 46s):

A pretty awesome, by

Holman (40m 47s):

The way. Yeah. Look at overachiever, man.

Hamza (40m 49s):

Man, I’m, I’m, I’m trying, I’m trying to glue <unk> together and see what sticks

Lightning (40m 52s):

And you know, what we were doing last night? Hold on a second. Hams Coleman eating Chili Dogs next. Yeah, we were outside of a wiener schnitzel recording a show in a Nissan Titan Nty, a proud sponsor. We’re eating wiener schnitzel, chili dogs recording a show. Like that’s how different we are. We,

Hamza (41m 10s):

Man,

Lightning (41m 11s):

Coleman, we

Holman (41m 11s):

Suck. No, that’s not true. You, you, you been entre entrepreneur in your past and have failed. And I’m an entrepreneur now,

Lightning (41m 19s):

Hold on

Holman (41m 19s):

Second and

Lightning (41m 19s):

We’ll probably fail. I don’t know that it failed. I’m just not, I don’t own it anymore. Yes.

Hamza (41m 24s):

But it’s still, still listen to a different episode. I, I love, I love y’all. She’ll listen to different episodes online and stuff. You guys, you guys are great and it’s, it’s, and I love the energy you bring cuz you, you really bring stories, stories to life and it’s, it’s been, it’s been a one heck of a battle bringing this, this company to life and, and bringing it forward and, and at Speed Tech it was, I would say about four years. And I think it went from, let’s see, dad’s initial small investment to recycling that over and over again to, to perfecting an online digital algorithm of Google ad campaigns, right? It wasn’t so much just the product for speed tech as much as it was how do I create a click campaign that generates the highest amount of yield and visitors and conversion.

Hamza (42m 9s):

And I created this philosophy of a seven second rule, seven seconds on my homepage, seven seconds on the product page and seven seconds in checkout. How do I maximize that? The seven by seven by seven. And I built that up to about four and a half million a year in sales by our fourth year. And it was all online digital sales. And, and that sounds great. You know, I’m, I’m a college kid. I’m, I’m pumping out four to 5 million a year by my fourth to fifth year. But I’m seeing a throttle. What’s going on? There’s gotta be more potential out there. You know, I’m maximizing all these efficiencies online. I have a good product. Oh, this industry sells through distribution. Oh, this market is over $500 million.

Hamza (42m 50s):

It’s sold through regional resellers. How do I get them? None of them are gonna buy a Chinese product. You know this, I need to go innovate a true American made product that I can control, its manufacturing control, its ip, and have a differentiating factor. And I can go sell to distribution network. And I, yeah,

Lightning (43m 10s):

They’re clapping. Hold on.

9 (43m 14s):

Love it. Love it. Yep. America,

Hamza (43m 15s):

That was, hold on, that was a

Lightning (43m 17s):

Push. Hold on one second. You guys

9 (43m 20s):

Sit down, sit out on the back in the back. Look at that guy in the back. Yeah. Really loves Phoenix Lighting. Oh yeah. Look

Lightning (43m 25s):

It. Woo. I love it.

Hamza (43m 27s):

I love it, man. I love it. It was, it was great. I sold my shares of the company at that point. It was a speed tech would begin to be a little diversified with different family members and, and, and other investors and so on. But I sold my shares and I took my resources and I said, I’m gonna go start this Phia pH you know what, let me just misspell Phoenix with a pH and see how that, you know, but, and it, and it worked, right? Branding is about owning the, the, the full domain name of your site. I wanted Phoenix rising from the ashes of the industry, failures and failed products and failed ideologies and philosophies. Let’s build something new and great. You know, I didn’t know how bad I was misspelling it. I was just making that,

Lightning (44m 5s):

That yeah, you screwed it up pretty bad. I’m gonna say I did. I did, man, you know, and by the way, coming, hold on a second, hold on. Hubs I coming out of like mastering SEOs, search engine optimization and knowing all that and then Miss Valley work and then here you come forcing people to not find your new company. You’re like, I wonder how I can start this at a deficit. Geez. You know,

Hamza (44m 25s):

Sometimes the the crazy ideas the are are the, are the ones that somehow magically find their way into fruition. I mean, who knows, you know, but, but the, the, the intention there, because even F E N IX is, is a flashlight company. F E N I E X is not even a way you spell it. So, but the, it’s such a niche industry that you can pull that off because when you look at the global market of five, $600 million broken up through a network of about a thousand dealers worldwide, what does that tell you? We’re sitting in a market of less than half, close to half a billion, very small divided up between a network of distribution of about a thousand people. The average business size out there is a hundred thousand dollars a year.

Hamza (45m 8s):

Maybe the big guys are really big guys are two to 3 million a year. Right. You’re, you’re still dealing with small based businesses. So the, the research of this market is so intense. There’s what, 5, 6, 7 Really?

Holman (45m 23s):

Yeah. Prominent players. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this. I’m curious if any of those other players saw you coming and either dismissed you or tried to crush you, like the cockroach that you were now, now has somebody tried to say, Hey, you’re now, you’re now you’re bother before you’re just bugging us kid. Like go kick rocks. And now they’re like, dude, you’re on doorstep, you have to leave or we’re going to, you know, buy you out or something like that.

Lightning (45m 48s):

I want, I want your answer, but first I, I gotta imagine this lighting. I gotta imagine that you have an exit strategy cuz you’re an entrepreneur. So you either have to sell it, it’s got a private equity will come in and, and, and one of those things like wheel pros buying every wheel company or, because I I I just feel like you’re gonna have to do it again once you build this thing up to a behemoth or, or he buys a company, he buys the bigger

Holman (46m 13s):

Fish. Oh, that’d be funny

Lightning (46m 14s):

Because that’s what, remember that’s what happened to my radio company. He was a little radio company buy, bought the CBS radio. Yeah. So maybe that could

Hamza (46m 20s):

Happen. That’s interesting. He could

Lightning (46m 21s):

Do No,

Holman (46m 21s):

Listen to him.

Lightning (46m 22s):

Some got lbo. Hey,

Holman (46m 23s):

Stop talking lightning. He just dropped a hint. Oh

Lightning (46m 25s):

Yeah, he did. All you with the correct answer.

Hamza (46m 28s):

You know, you know. Well, so, so a lot of people don’t know, but I wonder Sean, if that lighting company back, you know, years ago was 9 1 1, EP was one of the early, early developers of lighting technology in our space. I think it was two brothers. They, they, they entered the market with some type of l e d technology and, and tried to push it. And, but eventually that, that, that company didn’t survive a lot of change and adjustments occurred and one of the, the, the bigger guys acquired that business. And, and during my transition from Speed Tech to Phoenix, one of those big companies approached me and said, Hey, don’t start another lighting company. Come here and, and be president of 9 1 1 ep. We just acquired them and, and run this company.

Hamza (47m 8s):

And, and I, and I tinkered with that a little bit and explore the, the, the thought process. And I said, you know what, this isn’t really for me. I, I wanna build my own enterprise. I I, I have a vision of what I wanna accomplish and I’m gonna go for it. And, and over the last decade ish, I’ve, I’ve really pushed for that. And along the way at different milestones when we were 20 employees, when we were 40 employees, when, when we were 60, when we were a hundred, when we were 120 at different milestones. I’ve built relationships with some of our biggest competitors, just about every competitor and competitors of equity firms that own our competitors. And, and along the way I’ve, I’ve been given re you know, respectful offers for the enterprise to merge with these bigger companies to be part of another conglomerate in another industry.

Hamza (47m 54s):

And, and, and I see that there, that was always an option. But I decided to go a different route. Three years ago I decided to make a, a big push. I had, Phoenix was a network of about seven total investors that helped me build Phoenix. And they gave me their, their, their investment early on. And, and in 2019, early 2020, I made them all an offer, 20 times their investment, you know, 20 x their, their initial investment. Wow. And I bought them all out, every, every single one of them to acquire a hundred percent of Phoenix Industries. And instead of going the route of selling the organization, I decided to, to make this next move and run this company on my own.

Hamza (48m 41s):

This is my journey. Yeah. Yeah. Loans, every dollar I’ve generated in the history of my business experience, a commitment to, to what my vision is and to the employees. And I, I made a big move. Took me six months to negotiate the exit of each and every one of them. And it was a lot of work and a lot of emotion and a lot of thanks and appreciation and struggle and commitment. Some people thought I was crazy. My family specifically, why are you doing this? Why don’t you just go sell Phoenix to one of these big enterprises and all of you guys just, you know, retire early. No, this is, this is my journey. This is my push from here. Every speed tech, you guys, you know, we, we, we worked our way to that point.

Hamza (49m 24s):

Phoenix, A lot of people helped me, got me to this point. This is my journey from here on. So when you talk about what am I, am I gonna sell it? It’s so removed from my vision right now, what I wanna accomplish I wanna transform this market. I wanna, I wanna see this enterprise grow. I wanna see this company become a, a legacy enterprise for my f future kids and their grandkids. I mean, there’s, that’s, that’s what’s in my mind today. And I’m mature enough to know that that can always change down the road. But for now, I’m really focused on where I’m trying to take this enterprise.

Holman (49m 59s):

I love it. Yeah.

Lightning (49m 60s):

That’s awesome.

Holman (50m 1s):

I wanna know that leap from, I imported some stuff from a factory to now I’m developing and building my own stuff because that’s, that’s a massive, that’s

Lightning (50m 11s):

A good one. That’s a good one. And you’re not an electrical engineer by trade?

Hamza (50m 15s):

No, but I learned every conceivable facet of electrical engineering and semiconductor development, microprocessors, power regulators. I mean, I, I, I had to learn how to develop an electrical system and become the engine. The chief engineer of our, of our company, I was, my degree was in, was in kinesiology, more sports medicine. So it was a, it was definitely a push, you know, as I was building speed tech, you know, I at college wasn’t necessarily, it became second to where I wanted to go. And I just, I graduated with whatever degree I was able to get. I eventually changed majors to youth and adolescent development in the college of education at ut.

Hamza (50m 55s):

So, you know, I could always be a PE teacher if this doesn’t work out. But, you know, the focus, the focus for me was really how do I, how do I, how do I build this business? And I learned that I had to become a, a finance expert in capital management. Right. Long term investment. How do you grow an enterprise to, to tens of millions of dollars with such minimal capital investment, right? What, what partnerships do you need? How do you engineer and develop products on a mechanical level? What, what’s the composite of polycarbonate? The right balance to prevent UV degradation a while being strong enough for, for clamping with such tight force for waterproof ceiling, right?

Hamza (51m 36s):

There’s everything contradicted itself. How do you push the boundaries of, of light performance while managing thermal performance in the smallest light package that the industry can accept? Right. And then go multicolor with that Go quad color with that.

Holman (51m 51s):

It’s, and also make sure there’s enough heat output so they can melt snow.

Hamza (51m 55s):

Yeah, exactly. That’s what it is. That’s the, that’s always the, the byproduct of it. You know, we always tell everyone’s got a, it’s got a built-in snow defroster see

Holman (52m 4s):

Lightning.

Lightning (52m 4s):

Well, that, okay, so unless you listen to last couple episodes, you don’t know that I’ve been, guys are bitching and moaning about that. The new vehicles that have l e d headlights won’t li won’t melt snow. And I go, dude, you guys are relying on, well, cuz guys are buying cars and trucks in Alaska, Minnesota, whatever. And, and they got used to last 20 years of their halogen lamps melting snow. So, but that was never the intent. No.

Holman (52m 27s):

God, here we go. Light lighting’s already lost this in the court of our audience. He’s

Lightning (52m 31s):

Trying to know that. But like, so I, here I am going guys, you’re gonna have to figure it out because you’re gonna have to put a coil,

Holman (52m 37s):

L e d lights from the, from most factories have a heating element in,

Lightning (52m 41s):

Or,

Holman (52m 42s):

Or the heat sink is designed in a way where the heat goes forward to melt the lens. Lighting sinks is just a byproduct. And once you put LEDs, you just, well, it’s snowing. You can’t see. I’m like, no, it’s,

Lightning (52m 51s):

Well, but it’s up to the consumer, right?

Holman (52m 53s):

It’s up for the manufacturer to provide a safe vehicle.

Lightning (52m 56s):

Well, yeah, I understand. To the manufacturer of the vehicle under the lighting guy, the guy who devices, the guy who, who develops

Holman (53m 4s):

The lights, lost the argument. Now you’re gonna get more emails, truck show podcast@gmail.com. You’re just,

Lightning (53m 9s):

No, I I, it’s like, it’s not the lighting

Holman (53m 11s):

Guy job. Listen, the grand jury has already spoken. You’ve been indicted. There’s nothing you can do. I’m going to jail. Just be, just because you’re on the courthouse

Lightning (53m 18s):

Steps, I’m gonna listen to

Holman (53m 18s):

Jail. You know, on your soapbox doesn’t make it any different,

Hamza (53m 22s):

Man. We should, you guys should sit in some of our round tables and when, when we have have our engineering discussions on new product concepts and philosophies and advancements, the question that always comes about is where do you draw the line of what the consumer is willing to pay for a product? And what functions and security and safety features are needed in that product. Ensure its reliability and who’s at fault, right? Well, okay, here, here’s the simplest one of all time reverse polarity protection. Red and red and black, right? Well, do we pay $4 and 50 cents on every light bar and add an internal circuit protection that allows for reverse polarity protections occur? Or do you not?

Hamza (54m 2s):

And you, and you

Holman (54m 4s):

Eat the warranty cost?

Hamza (54m 6s):

Yeah, you reduce cost of goods by $400,000 a year and you just tell the customer, Hey, clearly this is your fault. You forgot to do it. You should have followed the instructions. You know, and the, the product doesn’t work anymore. Who’s So take that simplest philosophy and apply it to so many different other, take it all the way to like

Holman (54m 24s):

A podcasting. We, we decided not to pay for the reverse polarity safety feature here. And you have to listen at your own discretion.

Lightning (54m 31s):

I think the answer to that one, so that, that, this is interesting because that equation guys,

Holman (54m 36s):

So banks makes electronic products. Absolutely. You guys talk about here,

Lightning (54m 38s):

So we have, we have theirs 17 electrical engineers that work in this place. So that equation changed a decade ago or more. There was a shift, and I wanna see if hame you agree with this. There was a time that the consumer would buy an electronic device and it might work a year, two years, three years, or maybe he buys it, he wires it incorrectly, it blows up, it fails. What does that consumer do? That consumer contacts the manufacturer or he writes an angry letter. Absolutely. And, and he puts it in an envelope and he mails it off. Or maybe he contacts the better business bureau. What were his recourses? That that was it. Today, within 30 seconds of, of reversing the polarity

Holman (55m 20s):

MFA all over the internet,

Lightning (55m 21s):

He’s destroying you on Facebook, even though it was his problem. Yeah. So now you have to bend over backwards and it costs you, so that light bar you maybe sold for 400 bucks. Now, not only do you have to give him a new one cuz he’s blasted you, you now have to spend an extra $1,500 on Facebook ads to overcome the negative effects that he’s had in destroying you on a particular group. So it costs you so much more money than just to put in that $4 safety feature. So just bake it in, suck it up and, and the, and today the customer wins. Well,

Holman (55m 54s):

I think, I think in, in business today for those reasons, the fact that wildfire spreads way faster than it ever has in the past is you, it does always air on the side of customer happiness, protect them from themselves, but then protect your business from those by protecting them. Right? I mean,

Lightning (56m 13s):

So it may cost a little more upfront

Holman (56m 14s):

To do that. 4, 4 50 is cheap insurance for what could be a massive headache at some point.

Lightning (56m 19s):

Is that what you found Hamza?

Hamza (56m 21s):

Amen. Amen. I mean, you guys are touching on some, some, some really fascinating points. Like look at the modern era that we’re in from a social media standpoint. We’re in this cancer culture era where, where news can spread really fast. And if you make a mistake as a brand and individual or corporation, you can get obliterated and you can destroy a hundred years of, of development in a very short period of time. Isn’t

Holman (56m 43s):

That weird that you could not make a mistake as a company?

Hamza (56m 47s):

It’s, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty wild. And, and it, it really is. And you, you have to be very careful. And, and that could be in the products that, that you developed. So what do you, what do you add? Right? And it’s simplest form a halogen bulb didn’t need reverse polarity protection on under DC current 12 volts reverse it either way. I mean, the bulb is gonna light current flows through the coil and it, and illuminates add these other features and this new technology and this, this thing can do this and this can do that, and it can regulate and then can adjust and brain eventually you needed more complex electronics, which adds characteristics such as reverse polarity protection and many other ones. Thermal shutoff, right? Overheat protection. The list goes on and on.

Hamza (57m 27s):

Which who is responsible? Who, who’s who, who takes the, the cost of that investment. And the truth of the matter is that’s research and development that’s sitting in a round table and having this conversation put aside all of that, the cancer culture, the innovative steps of new product development and add now the element of education, me and the team, we sat down my executive team, this was last week. We we’re launching this new product. We have millions of dollars invested in it and it’s r and d. We think it’s gonna transform the industry. We did a risk, a risk management list, right? We, we said, okay, what is our risk management plan if these things happen?

Hamza (58m 8s):

What if somebody hacks the database? Okay, one, what if somebody, what, what if this supplier, this critical supplier is not able to, okay. You know, the number one item on our list that we extrapolate, we said, this actually is the greatest risk. This product faces wasn’t supply chain, it wasn’t hacking, right? It wasn’t, it was what if the customer did not understand the product customer knowledge, right? That, that

Holman (58m 38s):

I believe, oh my man, lightning here deals with that on a regular basis. Yep. That happens

Hamza (58m 42s):

A lot. Yeah. Yeah. What if the customer doesn’t get it? You know, what are we gonna do? Oh my gosh, we need an education landing page. We gotta inform them within, within 60 30 seconds of what this does and how it functions. We gotta add the value. How do you break up something that can transform an industry and a company into two, two or three bulletin points? Can that, is that enough? You know, and, and the list goes on and on. So yeah, product knowledge, how to use it. That’s a, that’s a big one. That’s, that’s your customer reviews. That’s the challenge of innovative technologies. The rule of the, the, the law of diffusion of innovation, right? You guys know about Simon Sinek touch touches on it. Possibly in order for a new a company that’s to take on a mass market, you have to sell a product to the early adopters.

Hamza (59m 29s):

Three to 5% of the global market are the ones who will touch a new technology. And then if they like it, it passes on and moves on to the next 10%. The early adopters, then the early majority, the late majority, and then eventually at the tail end of it, the, the, the really old senior citizen guys that are still using rotary phones, you know, they’re, they’re the end of the, the chain. Yo you know, you, you, you’re catering to this early group. You have to educate them. You have to make sure you, you, you, you put in the right necessary protection and the the dummy proof solutions, you gotta pay for that. You gotta make sure you have it. Cuz these guys don’t mess around. They’re the ones who stood in a line and waited and camped out the iPhone store waiting on somebody waiting to get the first phone.

Hamza (1h 0m 12s):

You know? Oh, that

Holman (1h 0m 13s):

Was me for many, many, many years. Yeah. No Holman a total apple homer for sure.

Hamza (1h 0m 19s):

That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. How was it? Like, what was that

Holman (1h 0m 22s):

Experience? It was actually, you know what, I’ll be totally honest with you. It was kind of awesome, the community. So it’s not the same today because the advances aren’t leaps and bounds each generation. Okay. Yeah. So now I keep my phone for two or three years rather than doing it every year. Like I did in the beginning. Same thing with the iPad. I remember one of ’em was the, the iPad came out and I was on a business trip in Washington and I went early in the morning and stood in line at the Apple store to grab my, my iPad there and, and went to a business meeting after grabbing my iPad. And then I was on the plane playing with it. But I’ll tell you, being in of that generation where I had enough disposable income to go get a phone and I had the time with my schedule to be able to go stand in line, it, it was fun.

Holman (1h 1m 12s):

There were people you would see from before that you’d see once a year at the, on on that day it became a big thing. There was like a party. People were actually pretty polite. And then there’s always be that one guy who’s like the first dude to go in the Apple store and he comes out and he triumphantly raises his iPhone in the air to show everybody and they all cheer for him and then he drops it. Yeah. And then everybody claps and cheers some more. I don’t know that we’ll ever see a consumer product that had that type of following and that much excitement around it where the entire community came out. I don’t know that that exists anymore because we do less in person as a community anyway. And back then, you know, it’s funny, the device that got us to where we are today was actually a device that really was formed around community.

Holman (1h 1m 59s):

In the beginning it was the underdog, it was the, the cool new product. It was the, you know, we’re, we’re rising up. Well then now it controls the marketplace and that community has kind of gone away and, and people are are older and saltier about it. And the, the, you know, Steve is gone and Johnny Ives has gone. And some of the people who were behind those original things were every, every time it was a, a, a leap in design and technology and software altogether. I just, I look back on that and I’ll, I don’t think you’ll ever see that again. And there was a thrill for about 10 years of every year. Yeah. Once or twice, whether it’s iPad or iPhone or I Apple watch where yeah. The crowds that assembled to take part in that. It was almost a, a movement in a way that, that was, you look back and you’re like, man, that was actually really special to say.

Holman (1h 2m 46s):

I was one of those people who was there doing that.

Lightning (1h 2m 48s):

Some of the, don’t you think guys though that a lot of that had to do with Steve Jobs in that he, he had created a revolutionary, well he looked at electronics in a new way, right? He looked at electronics and he said, this has to make someone emote someone feel, well,

Holman (1h 3m 2s):

Well no, that’s, no that’s not what he said. What he said was, the technology has to get out of the way. You have to be able to pick it up, have it be innovative and be able to use it without the technology slowing you down. Cuz his feeling was that you’d get into like, let’s for example, a Windows product. It was clunky and cumbersome. The the learning curve was high. It would do what you wanted it to do, but you’d have to learn. His point was with the technology removed, you can just add this to the ebb and flow of your life. And yes, he created a cult in a lot of ways. People, people will say that. And when he died, you know, for it probably took three years, but a lot of the people would argue the soul of Apple kind of went with him as it became more corporate and more global and all that kind of stuff.

Holman (1h 3m 44s):

Then you lose the last connective tissue. Like Johnny Ives who was the head designer for, you know, decades or whatever. And when he went to go do his own thing, that the specialness kind of started to Yeah, well we,

Lightning (1h 3m 57s):

Okay, so what I wanted to get at, look at like a Samsung. Samsung has innovated in that mobile telephony space so many times,

Holman (1h 4m 6s):

Telephony very nice.

Lightning (1h 4m 7s):

But we, and we don’t really know or care cuz there’s no Mr. Samsung that is special. So I think

Holman (1h 4m 12s):

Yeah, you

Lightning (1h 4m 13s):

You nailed it. We, when we grab, when we gravitate to brands like home, and I will, we love entrepreneurs. We try to talk to as many as we can matter in the automotive, in the truck space, right? And those are the brands we try to get to know the, the people, the men, the women behind the brands because, you know, it’s one of the reasons that like, I could have bought freaking the wellen, the W name, right? I like, I could have, but I found Whelan Whelan, I’m sorry, could have bought Whelan and I don’t like ’em. So I’m gonna misspell them. I’m gonna mispronounce them. And like, I found his story, I found Hamza’s story and I thought that I wanna back that guy. Like you fell in love with, with Steve Jobs. You’re like, I I like what he’s preaching, right?

Lightning (1h 4m 55s):

No different than going to church and, and really liking what the pastor, the bishop’s saying. So let’s get into products really quick here so we don’t go too crazy on, on entrepreneurialism. Take us through some of your favorite products. Like I know that the cannon, the Hideaway LEDs are huge. Your light bars are not normal light bars that we would see on like a, on a trophy truck or an off-road vehicle, but they’re in some ways better constructed and more durable. Can you take us through some of the product lines?

Hamza (1h 5m 23s):

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, when, when you look at our solution Phoenix, in, in industries, the first initial launch of the product was the thinnest lighting series that exists. That was the idea under a quarter inch tall. And, and that came with enormous challenges that we had to face. The power regulator was a, was a switching regulator, a magnetic device that, that lowered the current of the product. So it can power lower the, the 12 volts so it can power the bar. So the reason I’m sharing this is because I’m trying to make something so small and so powerful with a switching regulator circuit, a magnetic power regulator device. We, and that we created the industry’s most revolutionary jammer.

Hamza (1h 6m 5s):

We jammed every frequency from, from CV radio all the way to V H F U H F dang. And, and within a, within like a two block radius with our light bars. And, and literally, well who uses the radio in the emergency responders? So our light bars used to pull up to, to the scene back in 2010 and 11. And anyone who had a Phoenix light bar turned on, it would jam every radio at that scene. You couldn’t use it. So I had no idea that we were so clever at developing some very sophisticated jammers, but we had to really design, filter, filter circuits and, and ways to, to accommodate for that. And it was one of our dark days.

Hamza (1h 6m 47s):

And, and learning how to develop those, the, the products effectively, size is important. Heat management is important. All of that is so lightbars lighting technology, finding the thinnest, brightest, most efficient yet reliable and non rfi emi emitting device. Eventually we built our lighting series. We started with something called the Python series and that evolved to the avatar, then the, then the Cobra, and then the Apollo series with wide angle disbursement. Then we got into multicolor with fusion. And, and then now what, two years ago we, we developed quad with four colors in one bar to help reduce SKU count and multi inventory count that exists.

Hamza (1h 7m 30s):

And next year we’re, we’re, oh, sorry, this year we’re launching a new product technology called Quantum. And we feel it’s gonna, it’s gonna transform our industry for forever. I believe it. I hope, you know, I’m, I get to be back on your show, whether it’s months from now or a year from today and say that, you know, remember that time when I told you guys that, that this technology’s gonna change the game. I believe it will. I believe this technology will, will, will revolutionize our space. And I’m, I’m really excited for it. I, I, I hope you guys get to attend the live presentation. It’s, it’s exciting. So it’s been a journey. 10 years of my life has been invested in developing these products.

Hamza (1h 8m 11s):

And, and it’s not just about the products guys. How do we make it and invest millions of dollars in developing it while making it affordable for the industry? That’s a big one, right? How do we make a quad color light bar cheaper than dual color light bars from our competitors? How do we give our dealers 20 to 25% margin, not four to 7% that they get from our competitors? How do we make sure they can have food on the table for their families when they sell our products? Right? How do we build it in a model that’s just in time, so gets to them in, in one to two weeks? That’s innovation. Three

Lightning (1h 8m 44s):

Months. That’s innovation. You have to innovate, you have to make the products better and you have to thrift components that are unnecessary or build new ones that are more efficient. Right? So as we go through, so, so people know you offer a really wide breath of products. So from light bars, the quad colors, things like that, amber sirens, you make sirens, perimeter lighting, you make flashlights, you make all of these really interesting modules that can form, they can, you can buy them individually like it’s four inches long, but you can link them all together and make something in the shape of an arrow. You can, I mean it’s really elaborate systems down to very, very simple like the cannon that I was referring to. Yeah. So if you had a, I mean if you had, and I, I wanted to talk a little bit about you do a lot of safety vehicles, but what if I have an off-road vehicle, right?

Lightning (1h 9m 32s):

I, or I have cuz I you talk about what, like chase lights, dust lights, like that. Dust lights. I have a, I have a side by side, like there, I don’t have to be a police officer to buy, to, to need something that Phoenix offers, right? Sure, sure.

Hamza (1h 9m 45s):

Yeah. Very valid point. I mean, we, we sell, if it’s a, a visual or acoustic warning device for a vehicle of any type, tow truck, construction, police, car, firetruck, ambulance, if it flashes or makes a sound in a warning capacity, that’s our industry. That’s what we do. And we, and we do that really well. Now, does the product need to be able to illuminate a scene? A absolutely. And we develop purpose, you know, specialty products for apparatus vehicles, for apparatus to, to do that. We develop cross functions within our lightbars our warning products to be able to illuminate a scene. Two, can those products transfer over into the off-road space and, and provide that type of capability?

Hamza (1h 10m 29s):

They definitely can, right? But, but that is a, that is a parallel industry that has its own distribution challenge and own distribution model with its own challenges and and so on. And, and those customers are looking for companies who represent the brand and the enthusiasm of the off-road industry while the police and fire, the, the, the visual and acoustic type customers, police, fire security utility are looking for companies that represent the value of innovative survival-based technology that they can put on a car and know that when a five-year-old’s drowning in a pool and this ambulance is on its way, that product is gonna work and, and trying to cross pollinate those two industries.

Hamza (1h 11m 12s):

We’ve tried and we failed at it. And we, we fail, you know, we, we, we developed off-road technology, new website, new branding, new distribution channel, new sales team. And we found it’s really hard because it started confusing our customers and, and, and our distribution model, you know, and there’s 3,500 resellers of, of off-road lighting products out there. But, and there’s a thousand resellers of, of emergency warning products. Very little actually crossover, very little sell both. So, gotcha. I mean Jason, Jason, I think it was, there’s Jason, Richard, Jason, I can’t remember his name. Former CEO and founder of Virgin Technology.

Hamza (1h 11m 54s):

You know, we, we talked on and off back in the day and, and he said, man, Zo, we’re really trying to get into the morning market and we’re finding it really hard. And I said, ha, that’s funny. We’re really trying to get into the off-road market. We’re finding it, finding it really hard. And, and it’s just, it’s two different industries. So can they be used? Absolutely. You know, a police officer by an off-road lighting product and use that to light up a scene to save somebody’s life. Yes. Can the reverse happen? Absolutely. But it’s, it’s, it’s a bit more challenging from a branding aspect. I’m sure you guys, you, you guys are aware of it. Brand is Yeah,

Holman (1h 12m 28s):

Of course.

Hamza (1h 12m 28s):

It’s, it’s, it’s everything that, or, or, or it’s Amazon. Either you’re dealing with

Holman (1h 12m 32s):

A Yeah, it’s either pricing or brand, right? It’s, it’s, you’re either, you’re either a price conscious consumer or you have the vanity of the brand because that equals value to you, whether it’s performance or just the name or the way it looks, the design, right? It’s, that’s basically

Lightning (1h 12m 47s):

It. Yeah. Well, we don’t need to talk about Amazon and go down that road and branding and all that stuff. I, I want to, I want to focus on the actual product itself and really quick so we don’t take your, your entire evening, but

Hamza (1h 12m 57s):

No, you’re good. This is

Lightning (1h 12m 58s):

Exciting where this thing started. Holman, I want you to rag on me for a while, right? How this, oh, why would I do that? Because you’re good at it. That’s,

Holman (1h 13m 5s):

No, that’s, that’s not good podcast acid.

Lightning (1h 13m 8s):

So I have, I think I’ve infected Holman and others, my other friends, right? Not in that kind of way. Not in a, not a puss way or anything like that, right? So there’s an epidemic happening on the, on the highways of Southern California. Okay? And I’m sure it’s happening everywhere.

Holman (1h 13m 26s):

Let’s

Hamza (1h 13m 27s):

Hear

Lightning (1h 13m 27s):

It. Let’s, the epidemic is vehicles driving with only their daytime running lights on at night where the driver, because the dashboard is illuminated when the DLS are on, the driver sees the dashboard on the driver sees a glow in front of the vehicle because, so they think the lights are on. They’re not in the wilderness, they’re on, you know, the, the 4 0 5 freeway through Santa Monica, which

Holman (1h 13m 54s):

Is well led. So they don’t realize the bottom

Lightning (1h 13m 56s):

Story is, but what they don’t realize is they’re freaking taillights. No taillights, no taillights, right? This is really common on Lexus, on Toyotas for whatever reason. We don’t know why, but like, so I become obsessed with rolling my windows down and yelling, people turn your lights on. And I can’t yell loud enough to overcome their stereo. So then I’m, I’m like, I’m gonna buy a PA speaker, I’m gonna buy a PA system. And that led me down the rabbit hole to Phoenix. I’m telling you that’s what happened. And I don’t know what the legalities, I’m sure it’s not okay, but I’m gonna do it anyway. And if you don’t sell me anything, that’s fine. I’ll figure it out. I’ll buy this stuff.

Holman (1h 14m 27s):

Why does this always come back to how you can better

Lightning (1h 14m 30s):

Your, I’m not bettering anything, I’m just telling you that is like, so I wanted to find, I feel like I’m, I’m the do-gooder, right? I need to do that on

Holman (1h 14m 37s):

You can’t, by the way, you’re not allowed to be a do-gooder if it’s self-proclaimed. It doesn’t work that way. Yeah, you’re right.

Lightning (1h 14m 42s):

It’s not at all. I’m gonna take it back. Self proclaim. I’ll I take that back. Okay.

Holman (1h 14m 46s):

That’s by the way, T-shirt self-proclaimed do-gooder. Oh, I like that. Let me write that down. Write

Lightning (1h 14m 50s):

That down please. Yes. Cause we’re launching a web store soon here now that we own the podcast. I love it. So tell me about that product. What, what does someone like lightning from the truck show podcast need? Do I need a typhoon handheld and a, like a, with a storm pro? Like do I need, like what do I need if I want a pa speaker to yell at my fellow off-road buddies in the dirt at glamorous or somewhere? Not of course on the road, because that would be not okay,

Hamza (1h 15m 21s):

I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. So allow me to try to answer this bud.

Holman (1h 15m 25s):

Will the card next to him hear him loud and clear is what I think he’s getting.

Lightning (1h 15m 28s):

Oh yeah. Thank

Hamza (1h 15m 29s):

You. Let me try to answer this. Maybe a very complex question within like, I don’t know, one or two minutes through a little bit of physics and a better explanation, right? Please. So, you know, when we developed our siren systems, we were one, one of the very first companies to develop what we call the audio amplification circuit. Before that it was just whale yelp phaser, these really high pitch frequencies that outputted a decibel reading of about a hundred and twenty, a hundred and twenty five decibels, depending on how much power you push through it and, and how accurate the speaker was and the direction of the sound.

Hamza (1h 16m 9s):

And so on one, you one, one you’re outputting that level of frequency at 125 decibels. The average vehicle, the average sound out there just measuring is about what, 40, 50, 60 decibels? Yeah, I’d

Holman (1h 16m 19s):

Say average city’s probably 45 to 50 background noise. 45.

Hamza (1h 16m 23s):

Yep. Yep. So, so now go on a highway, right? You’re go inside a vehicle, the vehicle can block out about 70 plus decibels of, of sound. Now, now, now you have a siren frequency that’s outputting about 120 decibels of, of sound. And depending on the range that you’re trying to go, you, that, that sound is gonna decrease over time. So at 70 miles an hour, at 120 decibels to warn somebody within three seconds of an approaching vehicle, you know, that’s about the time you have at that level of frequency because it’s so hard. The car blocks out so much sound there. The, the, the, the, the environment of you driving that fast in itself is very, is throws a a wrench in all of it.

Hamza (1h 17m 4s):

It’s, it’s really difficult. So we’re gonna blast as much power as we can and we’re gonna gonna push this threshold of 1 21 25 decibels. Now grab a PA and all that, right? This is where you’re trying to go with it and, and key up a mic. Well, you’re actually outputting a frequency through, through just communicating in a mic. You’re only getting about maybe 80, 90 decibels in a through a pa. You will never be able to generate the audible needs to be able to, to wake someone up unless you’re sitting there at a very quiet traffic light at night. So we develop something for the first in our industry called the amplification circuit.

Hamza (1h 17m 44s):

And what it does is we input those commands, pull over, step out of the vehicle, step out of the vehicle with your hands up, remain in your vehicle with the windows down. Right? These were,

Holman (1h 17m 56s):

You cannot not have any of those lightning. I I’m not asking those. Okay. The way you’re looking at me, I’m not asking for you. Remember back in, like back in the Looney Tunes, how like the coyote would look at the roadrunner and it turned like a, a leg of beef or something? Yeah. That’s the look you have in your eyes while he’s sitting here talking about the things the speaker would say. I’m not saying that I’m drooling, but maybe I am. Yeah.

Hamza (1h 18m 18s):

But it, it’s great. I mean, when we first did it, I remember, well it was, it was actually, if you wanna know the truth, before we were the first to input these commands because we increased the decibel reading by nearly 20 decibels. Cuz we put it through a PWM circuit and we amplified it through its own circuit on the board itself. And we found that through not pulling it through the mic and going through the wire and doing all that, we, we found that if we can control the audio here, we can make it louder. Right? So, and, and that became very effective. That was an accidental discovery because before that, all we wanted to do was put the Ghostbusters and the cops theme song in our son.

Holman (1h 18m 57s):

Yes. All I’m that I’m down with. That’s why you love homicide. I am totally down with that 100%. That’s,

Hamza (1h 19m 4s):

We we had to

Holman (1h 19m 5s):

Gonna call to pay. Yeah.

Hamza (1h 19m 7s):

We, we had to, we had to call up Sony. We had to put a pay, a $4 license on every siren that we sold and to, to put these, the songs, these songs in there. It’s still awesome.

Holman (1h 19m 16s):

Everyone worth everything. Everyone just, hell

Hamza (1h 19m 18s):

Yeah, man. I took with the board meetings, I went through with folks, Hey Hamza, what is this? What is this joke you’re trying to do, man? What is, what’s going on? I was like, guys, don’t worry. It’s gonna, it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be worth it. If not, we’re just making the same damn siren that everyone else is making. Yeah,

Holman (1h 19m 32s):

Exactly. Have a little Easter egg in there, have a little fun with the product and show people that you’re human and, and, and you can, you can laugh a little bit.

Hamza (1h 19m 39s):

So, so it got to the point for some reason that HR got involved and went to engineering and engineering said, you know, Hamza wants us to put in this, the song and our sirens and it’s complicating the circuit and it’s really tough to do. So HR came to me and said, Hey, engineering is really just confused about what you’re trying to do. And the, and so I went up to my VP of engineering, his name was Al at the time, and I said, Hey Al, what’s, what’s the deal man? It’s, I know it’s complicated, but it’s, we gotta be different, you know? And, and I, and I think, think the industry’s gonna appreciate this. And I said, how about this? Let’s put in real commands since you’re gonna build the circuit anyway, let’s put in real audio commands that and, and, and, and see the value that that’s gonna bring.

Hamza (1h 20m 21s):

It’s gonna be louder, clearer, crisper. And, and eventually it took off man storm sirens, typhoon series f1, all of them had the first audio amplification circuit. Then every other competitor followed after that. We should have painted it, but we didn’t. We were too focused on, on, on the bad voice long playing, you know,

Holman (1h 20m 42s):

They

Hamza (1h 20m 43s):

Didn’t think too much into it.

Lightning (1h 20m 44s):

So those are not customizable. They are pre-loaded and it’s the way that the audio sample is stored and played through the speaker and not through, like, I’m trying to wrap my head around it as a, as a, a quasi audio

Holman (1h 21m 0s):

That whatever the word is or the sound file is optimized for the speaker to get the most efficient amount of noise and dust wall out. Right? Yeah. So

Hamza (1h 21m 9s):

What, and if you need us to custom make one for you that says, well turn on your light, that

Holman (1h 21m 14s):

This is what light, this is what lightning is envisioning. Your headlights are off. Turn on your headlights.

Lightning (1h 21m 22s):

I’m not even joking. I would paint double if you had that because then I wouldn’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t even need the handset. I don’t

Holman (1h 21m 29s):

Have to talk. Well that’s the thing is you would just push the button while looking straight ahead driving and they would look around like, who this is the voice of God who’s talking to me. And you’d be like,

Lightning (1h 21m 36s):

It’s not me. Well, here,

Holman (1h 21m 38s):

This is what we haven’t determined though. That’s hilarious. Are you willing to drill holes in your metal bumper as a speaker grid so that the speaker for the, for the PA has doesn’t have to go through the metal bumper. It go right through the holes in the side.

Lightning (1h 21m 51s):

So first off, it might, there’s where I’m thinking about putting it, there’s just plastic. Now you, I know that some of the speakers you talk about, you have one called, dude, get this, it’s called the hammer. It’s a hundred watt speaker capable Holman of penetrating solid objects.

Hamza (1h 22m 9s):

Yeah. Low frequency,

Holman (1h 22m 10s):

Like your forehead.

Lightning (1h 22m 10s):

Oh, low frequency. Yeah. Maybe that’s not, maybe that’s not what we’re talking about. That is low frequency. Right?

Holman (1h 22m 16s):

It would compete with the, the JL audio stealth box in the back of,

Lightning (1h 22m 20s):

In the back. No, no, not at all. So where do I put that? I’m not sure. But I would hang it low and I would face it out. You

Holman (1h 22m 27s):

Hang it behind the front bumper on the, on the corner. Yep. And you drill a couple holes in it so the sound can get out.

Lightning (1h 22m 33s):

Yep. Would you run two in parallel or in series or do you, can you only run one? How does that work?

Hamza (1h 22m 39s):

Well, traditionally it, it reads the, the output signal from the siren and mimics the identical frequency and a lower frequency range. It still consumes the same amount of power. So you’re pumping, you’re still pumping the same current draw, but the sound output is a, a bit darker. And when when you hear it, it, it adds a twist to it, you know, at

Lightning (1h 22m 60s):

The end of the day, not the hammer I’m talking about like not the hammer. Yeah. Not, not the hammer. That’s low, low frequency. If we want to do like the PA style that you’re talking about, we wanna broadcast, put your, you know, turn your lights on. You want to face that towards a

Holman (1h 23m 12s):

Corner. Here’s what I’m thinking. Instead of putting, putting those giant Texas longhorns on your hood, just put three or four of, of the Phoenix speakers right on the leading edge, you

Lightning (1h 23m 23s):

Mean is that like the guys in Miami that hang all the speakers on the exterior don’t know the vehicle pointing

Holman (1h 23m 27s):

Outwards. Since you claim that the hood scoop on your TX doesn’t actually add air to the engine, just block the intake track with some speakers and then have it

Lightning (1h 23m 35s):

Shoot out to, I’m not willing to risk the horsepower, but I’ll find hood scoop hole. I’ll find another spot to put these for sure. And they’re relatively small. The speakers are not like 12 inches by 12 inch. Right. They’re like four and a half to six inches square.

Holman (1h 23m 47s):

You know your vents on the hood. Yeah. Just cut holes there and have ’em pointed up.

Lightning (1h 23m 51s):

Not up

Holman (1h 23m 52s):

Towards what? Don’t be loud.

Lightning (1h 23m 52s):

I’m not yelling at the sky.

Holman (1h 23m 53s):

Yeah, you are. When you go through the, the overpass. It just, it’ll just fill the entire overpass

Lightning (1h 23m 58s):

With sound. No, I’ve got the exhaust, I’ve got the attack from Borla exhaust right there that

Holman (1h 24m 3s):

Scare people you’re probably gonna get shot at,

Lightning (1h 24m 5s):

Which is I’m not gonna get shot. I’m trying to save people from being rear-ended.

Holman (1h 24m 8s):

They don’t like being yelled at while they’re driving

Lightning (1h 24m 10s):

Again, self-proclaimed do-good or whatever you’re calling me. What is it? Yeah,

Holman (1h 24m 13s):

Yeah.

Lightning (1h 24m 14s):

They are

Holman (1h 24m 15s):

Mutually exclusive.

Hamza (1h 24m 17s):

I think unfortunately, no matter how much power you pump through at the audible reading on, on any kind of just audio command, even at the highest efficiency that we have it at you, no one’s gonna hear it traveling 40, 50, 60 miles an hour. It’s gonna be at a traffic light when you’re frozen, cars aren’t moving. And then you can play that command. And hopefully if it’s an, it’s a, if it’s not a, a Mercedes or, or a Ford pickup truck, we just really, well, you

Holman (1h 24m 43s):

Know, the problem is he’s gonna do it to an undercover cop. Turn on your headlights, you

Lightning (1h 24m 49s):

Idiot. I’m not gonna, the

Holman (1h 24m 50s):

Guy’s gonna around and go

Lightning (1h 24m 51s):

Because an undercover cop’s gonna not drive with his lights off. He’s

Holman (1h 24m 55s):

Gonna, that means he’s undercover. He’s blacked out. They have a switch

Hamza (1h 24m 57s):

For that. Well, what, at that point, the whole and intersection’s gonna hear and everyone’s gonna be checking their lights. So

Holman (1h 25m 2s):

Za here’s what I think you need to do. I think we need to go back to your original product that we were talking about, which destroys any frequency. Frequency and then basically just have it so lightning can, it can’t be big enough for the FCC to find them, but just big enough where whenever he pushes the keys to the mic, everybody’s radio speakers all the way around, it just plays through. Can I do that? No. That, no, I’m

Lightning (1h 25m 26s):

Saying, can I kill their cell phone reception? Can I kill like their

Holman (1h 25m 29s):

A dirty bomb? You wanna make a dirty

Lightning (1h 25m 30s):

Bomb? I want a dirty bomb so I can just tell ’em to turn the freaking lights on. That’s all I

Hamza (1h 25m 33s):

Can. Yeah, well, horrible. The cell phone communication is, is digital. It’s very, very high. Frequently. So like luckily we never, never, luckily we never went that far

Lightning (1h 25m 41s):

In,

Hamza (1h 25m 42s):

In terms of the, the rest of it. You know, we, we dabbled with the idea of jamming devices. What if we can build one that, that, that transfers the frequency through the car? Well that, that, what about the people who use satellite radio? We, that comes vertical. How do we inter we can’t really intercept that. So we we bury that entire project of, of trying to jam. Yeah, but you

Holman (1h 26m 1s):

And then what if they, you know what, you never forgot about it, did you? No, he didn’t. He’s still floating bay in the back, in the back of his head going these days.

Hamza (1h 26m 9s):

He still know how to do it.

Holman (1h 26m 10s):

I feel like if Hamza ever went to the dark side and got a white cat to stroke in his chair, in his, in his executive suite, like that’s the first idea that would come. He’d be like, I’m doing the jammer. He’s got a T-shirt. He says, I am blow He’ll call secretary and be like, Hey, bring in number two. And then like the dude who’s second in command over there would walk in. He is like, yes Zo. He’s like, I’ve got the cat and we’re now doing the jammer.

Hamza (1h 26m 33s):

Maybe. So man, you know what we, when, when this was like the first two years, you know, back when we, we invested all of our resources developing these lighting products, the, the Python and Cobra at the time. They all developed too much radar frequency interference. So I brought in all these different engineers and they helped me find a way to remold my products to, to, and, and to do that I had to add an inline resistor. It was about the, it was about two inches long and it, it, I had to open up every single lighting product. I had to solder this inline resistor on every single module. Right? And the, the effort that’s painful headache.

Holman (1h 27m 11s):

You’ve never forgotten that.

Hamza (1h 27m 13s):

Never forgotten it. I mean, I was taking them home, I was calling up day laborers to, to come in and, and just, Hey, you, you connect this thing here and there and had thousands of modules I had to do it on. They were dark, dark times of, of Phoenix to try to get that, that product to work. But it’s a, it was to

Holman (1h 27m 29s):

Where you’re now. Yeah.

Hamza (1h 27m 30s):

Yeah. And you know, going back to that point, I I just, I I have to touch on it where you guys talked about Steve Jobs and, you know, the brand and so on. I believe that what Steve Jobs did so well, what Elon Musk has done so well is that they found a way to connect the human element to the brand itself. I mean, talk about innovative technology, the noble Peace prize winners out there. There’s what, 10 of them every single year, right? The, the guys who are pioneering discoveries in physics and the, and and chemistry and, and economics. We don’t know who they are, right? They’re geniuses that are transforming our world, but we don’t know who they are.

Hamza (1h 28m 10s):

But these other guys were able to get out there, connect with the world, and then bring their technology and their product to the world. Electrification of vehicles, right? And new intelligence, smartphone and so on. Who’s the CEO of Blackberry? Don’t know him. Nobody probably does. So I give these guys a lot of credit Sure. For being able to, to do that. Can our industry do that? Do do I hope that I can put the face of Phoenix and let people know that it’s, it’s real. We’re human. We’re trying, we’re working really hard, we’re self-made and we’re just trying to innovate and bring tech, great technology and good margin of profitability and good solutions to this industry.

Hamza (1h 28m 52s):

I hope I’m able to accomplish that and, and get that message across.

Holman (1h 28m 56s):

Can’t spell but hell of a business man. Yeah. In all seriousness, that’s awesome. I I I think, I think that’s a, that’s a noble model to be go going after for your business. I think that one of the stories, you know, these entrepreneurial stories that we have, you know, on the show, again, we always get people who email us and say, I didn’t know about that guy. I didn’t know about that company. I didn’t think it was a, a topic that I was gonna be interested in. But I hung off the whole thing because they said stuff that inspired me for my own business. And we’ve had several of our listeners over, we’ve been doing this almost five years, who have written to us and said, I started my own business because of you guys.

Holman (1h 29m 37s):

And, and you know, here we are, two chuckle heads who just like trucks, like, we didn’t think we were gonna inspire anyone. We’re just doing this cuz we like to do it and it’s fun. And here we come with these listeners saying like, you’ve impacted my life in some meaningful way. Which is really a hard pill for us to swallow cuz we just, we don’t know why anyone would put any faith in anything that we do.

Lightning (1h 29m 55s):

No, I mean, listen, last night again, we were at Wiener shit. So eating chili dogs. So you

Holman (1h 29m 59s):

Doing a podcast,

Lightning (1h 29m 59s):

Right? Doing a podcast. I think that your unique ability where, where you, a guy like you wins, and I think you know this is that you can preach to industry execs all day long, but that’s not where you win. Where you win is on the grassroots level talking to people regular schmos. And as you’re preaching there will be a certain number of influencers that will hear your message as you know. And, and they will trumpet your message. They will parrot that and they will be the mini Hamza. And that’s what you’re doing. You know, you’ve made two of them right here, lightning and Holman.

Hamza (1h 30m 35s):

I appreciate that. I appreciate. But, but I gotta say something before, before you guys try to wrap it up on me here, because this is really important. There is a tremendous amount of credit that goes to you both in the way you bring these stories and these, the, the the history to life. Because behind the scenes in business and is it is monotonous in some capacity. It is hard. It is difficult. There’s failure, there’s challenges, there’s, there’s HR involvement in theoretical ideas and projects. There’s the list goes on and on. And when I, when I started this conversation with you and I heard some of the other podcasts you guys have, have, have had, you find a way to make it fun and to make it exciting.

Hamza (1h 31m 17s):

And, and, and I, and I’m laughing about it and I was thinking, man, I haven’t laughed about that ever. You know, I was seven years ago. And so I, I appreciate you guys bringing that human element to it because behind the scenes it is really challenging. We are investing millions and pouring our lives into the, into the development of technology and products. And when they fail, it’s demoralizing and hear you guys get to come up and say, hey, here are the stories. Tell us them. Is that not crazy how that occurred? And, and you, and you get to add the human element to it. So thank you for, for making me believe more than I am human and that this is fun and that this is a joy because that’s, that’s fuel for all of us, man.

Hamza (1h 31m 58s):

So, so thank you both for that. I I I I have to say that

Holman (1h 32m 2s):

I have to No, I, we appreciate that. And for myself as a, as a new entrepreneur who just started two businesses and figuring out, oh, how does the s corp wholly own the LLC and pass through taxes and my, my c and how do I pay myself

Lightning (1h 32m 16s):

My numbing? You

Holman (1h 32m 18s):

Get it. And everybody, I mean we’ve been talking to entrepreneurs, I’ve been around entrepreneurs for 25 plus years and that’s beautiful. I’ve always wanted to be one. And here I am, I’m finally one and I’m going, this is really freaking hard. Nobody, nobody told me any of this stuff. Like you think you go, oh, I’m gonna go down to the, the business center and I’m gonna say, hi, I’m Sean, I opened a business. No, you have to, to deal with the, the federal, the state, the local, you’ve gotta build up everything. Marketing machine. You’ve gotta build up your social, you gotta go grab your websites. You gotta,

Lightning (1h 32m 48s):

You have

Holman (1h 32m 48s):

To Shopify account. You’re

Lightning (1h 32m 50s):

The biggest one. You’re missing the very biggest one. You must risk now. Yeah. You must risk or you’re not an entrepreneur. Absolutely. And those who are risk averse work for someone else. Yep.

Holman (1h 33m 2s):

And I’ve done that for 25 years. So hearing you talk about your business, you know, as much as I hope that this podcast inspires others, you’ve inspired me. So, so

Hamza (1h 33m 11s):

Well thank

Holman (1h 33m 11s):

You guys. I appreciate you in return for making the time to, to come talk to us. Cuz this has been really cool. So

Lightning (1h 33m 17s):

If you are looking an honor looking for, if you’re looking for lighting solutions, if you’re looking for PA solutions, if you have construction, strobes, strobes, all of that, they make it all. And it’s, and it’s elegant, effective, thank you. And, and I’m an American and oh my God, we didn’t even say that. It’s all, it’s all made America.

Holman (1h 33m 35s):

Exactly. Amen. Listen, you guys wanna check it out, it’s, it’s f e n I E x.com and they’re also on Facebook as Phoenix Industries on Twitter. You guys also have a, a YouTube page. All Phoenix Industries. We would love to have you back at some point if you’ve got some more news. Like, let’s stay in touch because you are our new, our new favorite entrepreneurial CEO friend of the

Hamza (1h 33m 59s):

Truck. And I’m honored guys. I’m, I’m, I’m so honored. So I’m, I’m a call away. Yeah. You guys let me know whenever, whenever I get the, the privilege of being back on and I’ll, I’ll be here.

Lightning (1h 34m 9s):

Fantastic. All right, Hanza. Thank you. We

Holman (1h 34m 12s):

Appreciate

Hamza (1h 34m 12s):

It. Thanks guys. Thanks

Lightning (1h 34m 14s):

To

Holman (1h 34m 14s):

Talk to you. Bye bye-Bye

Lightning (1h 34m 18s):

Home. Get some time. It is, it’s

Holman (1h 34m 20s):

Time for some new,

Lightning (1h 34m 21s):

Yeah.

10 (1h 34m 22s):

What’s new in trucks?

11 (1h 34m 24s):

We need to know

10 (1h 34m 25s):

What’s new in trucks.

11 (1h 34m 27s):

We need to know

10 (1h 34m 28s):

What’s new in trucks.

11 (1h 34m 30s):

We need to

5 (1h 34m 31s):

Know lifted, lowered and everything in between. What’s happening in the world of trucks.

Lightning (1h 34m 37s):

Ah, well that’s kind of interesting. Good one. That was good. Yeah, just a little bit of reverb. Made it through the door and into the hallway.

Holman (1h 34m 44s):

Yeah, I can still hear the hallway.

Lightning (1h 34m 46s):

Can you? Oh

Holman (1h 34m 47s):

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Lightning (1h 34m 50s):

Yeah, yeah. That’s, sorry. Hey,

Holman (1h 34m 51s):

Lightning, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 34m 53s):

Nope, I don’t think so.

Holman (1h 34m 54s):

The US Postal Service ordered some additional electric male trucks, if you remember. They

Lightning (1h 35m 1s):

Had Why not female trucks?

Holman (1h 35m 2s):

Well, these are male as in delivering packages. Ah,

Lightning (1h 35m 6s):

Trucks. I got your package. There’s

Holman (1h 35m 7s):

Gender involved here or there. So anyway, if you guys remember, the next generation delivery vehicle, which was won by Oshkosh Defense was a bit controversial because it

Lightning (1h 35m 19s):

Wasn’t, I’m not familiar with Oshkosh Defense.

Holman (1h 35m 21s):

Yeah, right.

Lightning (1h 35m 23s):

Jltv D 8 66.

Holman (1h 35m 24s):

Easy, easy, easy, easy. And there’s a bunch of criticism because it was only marginally more fuel efficient than the old Grumman LL V that is the mail truck that you all know and love today. And so apparently it was designed so that it could go electric or ice. And anyway, the USPS wrote a check for 50,000 of them, 3 billion check.

Lightning (1h 35m 56s):

Wow.

Holman (1h 35m 56s):

So that plan only saw 10% of the delivery fleet switching over to electric, which wasn’t enough for the epa. And so they were pushed to acquire more EVs. But you know, they’re back and forth, this and that. So, long story short, in a statement, the post office announced that it’s gonna have 66,000 electric vehicles by the year 2028, giving it one of the largest electric fleets in the nation. They’re gonna have 21,000 commercial off the shelf or as known as cots, battery electric vehicles by 2028. And it’ll have a preference for domestically produced B EVs when shopping for off the shelf, which puts brands like Tesla, Rivian, Ford, Chevy, those are all companies that have a off-the-shelf, b e

Lightning (1h 36m 40s):

V, how they gonna charge these

Holman (1h 36m 41s):

Things. That was exactly my point is having that many BVS means that there’s gonna be a, a lot of infrastructure that’s gonna have to come with them. So writing the big check to buy them all, there’s, it’s not like you’re done, it’s

Lightning (1h 36m 55s):

No, you know what they do? They power ’em all with solar at night, right? Yes. And then they store right. All that electricity. So when they

Holman (1h 37m 3s):

Come, put the wind turbines inside the, the hangar where they park ’em that

Lightning (1h 37m 7s):

Exactly. Yeah. Perfect. It all works out. Yes.

Holman (1h 37m 9s):

Anyway, so get used to some new mail trucks and then also get used to some quiet mail trucks. I guess

Lightning (1h 37m 16s):

I don’t know how my dog is gonna feel about that. He, because my dog knows all the Amazon trucks knows the old, the

Holman (1h 37m 23s):

Old dog is

Lightning (1h 37m 24s):

New dog. The three-legged? Not the puppy. The puppy. She has not been outside.

Holman (1h 37m 27s):

I gotta meet the puppy.

Lightning (1h 37m 28s):

Yeah, the puppy’s cute. You’ll maybe you’ll see her next week. It depends if we do it here, we do it at my house. All right. The three-legged dog knows the sound of all the delivery trucks. So the silent running trucks, that’ll be confusing for him. All

Holman (1h 37m 41s):

Right. Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 37m 45s):

I don’t think so.

Holman (1h 37m 47s):

Goodyear is pushing a new tire that’s made from soybean oil, rice husks, and pine resin according to our friends over at, at MotorTrend.

Lightning (1h 37m 56s):

Is this the one that has like a very bizarre pattern on the, on the, on the

Holman (1h 37m 59s):

Sidewalk. Sidewalk, yeah. 90% of the tires ingredients are sustainable and it has past regulatory testing for, for road use. So interesting to see some new compounds coming to it. Will

Lightning (1h 38m 10s):

This tire come with an expiration date?

Holman (1h 38m 13s):

I don’t know. I think all tires already.

Lightning (1h 38m 15s):

Do you not use after this

Holman (1h 38m 17s):

Date? All tires have an expiration date on the,

Lightning (1h 38m 18s):

I mean, but this is like made with soybean oil or whatever it is. So it’s gonna get a degrade faster.

Holman (1h 38m 24s):

Is it though?

Lightning (1h 38m 25s):

I, I say so. Yeah.

Holman (1h 38m 27s):

From your extensive engineering background? Entire manufacturing.

Lightning (1h 38m 30s):

I’m an engineer of rubber versity,

Holman (1h 38m 32s):

Huh? Okay. So anyway, CS is where they brought it out. And again, in past regulatory testing, the company said that 90% of its components are materials that come from sustainable sources.

Lightning (1h 38m 43s):

What? See the consumer electronics show the debuting

Holman (1h 38m 46s):

Tires. Right? I mean, dude, CES is becoming sort of like a new sema anyway. Goodyear says, out of the ingredients there are 17 that are sustainable, including things like recycled polyester, plant-based components like soybean oil, rice husk waste, biore, renewable pine tree resin, and then also has a high recycled pipe.

Lightning (1h 39m 4s):

I hope it smells good.

Holman (1h 39m 5s):

I think the burns will smell like pinesol.

Lightning (1h 39m 7s):

Nah, I think they’ll smell like Christmas.

Holman (1h 39m 9s):

Okay. All right. Moving right along. Lighting, have you heard?

Lightning (1h 39m 12s):

No,

Holman (1h 39m 13s):

It’s been sad lately. Rainy, dank.

Lightning (1h 39m 18s):

I cannot get out of bed when it’s raining. What is

Holman (1h 39m 22s):

That? I just like to sleep to the rain. It’s amazing. Is,

Lightning (1h 39m 25s):

No, I’m serious. What’s It’s, I can’t get outta bed when it’s raining. Is that a thing?

Holman (1h 39m 28s):

Listen, Jeep wants to help you out. They just launched a new special edition Wranglers for, I guess you could get ’em ready for Jeep Beach week if you want. It’s the Wrangler High Tide in Jeep Beach. The high Tide is based on a sport s trimm with the v6 and it’s paired with the HB automatic and you do get the extreme recon package, which adds the 30 fives. So that’s pretty cool.

Lightning (1h 39m 50s):

That’s cool. I wonder one of the V6 instead of the, the two liter turbo,

Holman (1h 39m 54s):

Because it’s probably the more affordable engine and obviously it’s a stripper model that has the money went into the upgrade of the suspension package. Gotcha. Which is pretty cool. So on the extreme recon, in addition to the 35 BFG tires, you get the 17 inch beadlock capable wheels, 4 56 axle ratios, one and a half inch suspension lift. And then on the, the high tide you get a body colored hard top, a sun rider, flip top and hood decals. And then there’ll be rock rails, l e d headlights and fog lamps and interior sand slush mats. So that’s pretty cool. And then that comes to the price of 53, 3 35 and is available for order now. And you should see ’em at the dealership by spring of 2023.

Lightning (1h 40m 33s):

Did you mention any custom graphics packages?

Holman (1h 40m 36s):

The hood decals.

Lightning (1h 40m 37s):

Okay. Hey, speaking of graphics packages, did you see the news that came out from our buddy who does, owns Jeep Graphic Studios? I

Holman (1h 40m 45s):

Did.

Lightning (1h 40m 45s):

He’s now doing Dubrick. You just inked a deal with General Motors to do

Holman (1h 40m 49s):

Graphics. Yeah, he’s, he’s killing it. We should probably have him back, so that would be pretty cool. Okay. So that’s the high tide model, but 500 of ’em will be a special Jeep Beach model which pays homage to the Jeep Beach event.

Lightning (1h 40m 59s):

Oh, is there, I I just figured they were stealing the name. It’s actually paying homage to the event. I, I, I That is massive. That’s the one in

Holman (1h 41m 5s):

Florida, right? I’m guessing. Yeah, so this, that event which brings 20,000 Jeep vehicles has become a big thing for Jeep owners. I think the in corporate people over at Jeep have realized, oh, we should probably be supporting that even more. And so this year’s the 20th anniversary of that event, which is pretty cool. So the Jeep Beach model, the 500 special ones, they have Hood decals and Jeep Beach embroidered Mopar Cat scan leather seats from the factory, body colored fenders, Jeep Beach swing gate plaque, and the Jeep Beach there will be 55,835. And so you can get the either special edition in hydro blue, which is the one of, is the color of the 3 92 that I put on two wheels high velocity, which looks like nuclear waste.

Holman (1h 41m 47s):

Yellow.

Lightning (1h 41m 48s):

It’s nuclear, not nuclear, whatever.

Holman (1h 41m 50s):

What black bright white.

Lightning (1h 41m 51s):

Which, which president said that all the time? Who carries? It was George Bush. Were you

Holman (1h 41m 56s):

Done? Let’s do a, A podcast?

Lightning (1h 41m 57s):

Yeah. Okay.

Holman (1h 41m 57s):

Sorry. Did you hear

Lightning (1h 41m 59s):

What? No, I don’t think so.

Holman (1h 42m 3s):

Bentley

Lightning (1h 42m 4s):

Sure. Bring on the Bentley news.

Holman (1h 42m 6s):

Set a sales record in 2022 And the BENGA is the bestseller.

Lightning (1h 42m 12s):

The

Holman (1h 42m 12s):

What? The Benga suv. The automaker sold 15,174 cars and 42% of ’em were at Benga SUVs.

Lightning (1h 42m 21s):

I don’t know what that vehicle is.

Holman (1h 42m 23s):

Where have you

Lightning (1h 42m 23s):

Been? No, wait. Is that the one that

Holman (1h 42m 25s):

It’s there? It’s the Bentley suv.

Lightning (1h 42m 27s):

Oh, I thought that was a started with a cce, a Accord.

Holman (1h 42m 30s):

That would be the Rolls-Royce.

Lightning (1h 42m 32s):

I’m thinking of the colon in ah, the rolls. Roy’s colon in what’s the same family rolls in Bentley?

Holman (1h 42m 38s):

No they’re not. They’re owned by two different companies. They’re, they haven’t been the same one’s owned by Porsche, Audi, that’s the Bentley side. And the roll side is owned by BMW now.

Lightning (1h 42m 47s):

I don’t know if I knew that. Interesting. Okay,

Holman (1h 42m 50s):

Moving right along. Moving

Lightning (1h 42m 51s):

Right along. Did you hear?

Holman (1h 42m 52s):

No,

12 (1h 42m 53s):

No, no, no,

Lightning (1h 42m 55s):

No. Nope.

Holman (1h 42m 56s):

The European car companies are not owned by who you think they are.

Lightning (1h 42m 59s):

Apparently not breaking

Holman (1h 42m 60s):

News.

Lightning (1h 43m 0s):

They’re all owned by peo.

Holman (1h 43m 2s):

Jaguar Land Rover has a backlog of 215,000 vehicles

Lightning (1h 43m 8s):

Backlogs, meaning backlog or they’re like

Holman (1h 43m 10s):

Backlog of vehicles that need to be built. 74% of those, those are for the Range Rover. Range Rover Sport and the Defender.

Lightning (1h 43m 18s):

Wow.

Holman (1h 43m 19s):

It’s a lot of stuff. Dude, you guys better be working three shifts in some overtime cuz you got some makeup

Lightning (1h 43m 24s):

That’s, that’s a lot of back orders.

Holman (1h 43m 25s):

A lot of back o orders. That is just insane

Lightning (1h 43m 29s):

How many people? There are a lot of ballers dude,

Holman (1h 43m 32s):

There are a lot of ballers, A lot of freedom. Well I’m sure that’s not just the US I’m sure it’s probably international, but there

Lightning (1h 43m 36s):

Are a lot of ballers. There

Holman (1h 43m 38s):

Are a

Lightning (1h 43m 38s):

Lot of where they live.

Holman (1h 43m 39s):

Hey letting, did you hear

Lightning (1h 43m 42s):

No

Holman (1h 43m 42s):

Spy photos are coming out of the 2024 GMC Sierra A T four X hd. That is a mouthful.

Lightning (1h 43m 48s):

Say that again Slower please.

Holman (1h 43m 50s):

A T four. Yeah. X heavy duty. Yeah. And it comes from the factory with 35 inch tires and Multimatic D S SV shocks. That’s gonna be red. You can go to your dealer, you can get a Duramax HD Sierra Crew cab on 35 s.

Lightning (1h 44m 9s):

That’s pretty cool. With

Holman (1h 44m 11s):

A really good

Lightning (1h 44m 12s):

Shot. Why just now, like people have been putting on 30 fives for I know since the dawn of the duramax.

Holman (1h 44m 17s):

It looks mean. Dude, and I’m not sure if this is gonna have the, you know, the a v package on it, but somebody had just posted from this, this particular truck looks like it has the AV creston wheels on it. Okay. You’re

Lightning (1h 44m 30s):

Gonna share that or just ho

Holman (1h 44m 31s):

It to yourself? I’m just gonna hog it to myself. Okay. I don’t know if they noticed it, but it looks like an eight lu version of the GMC wheel that’s coming on their half 10 trucks. And the, somebody posted on in my socials the first AV versions of the Sierra at four x at the dealership with the AV bumpers and everything. Oh my gosh, that looks good. That’s so amazing. Really There’s a storytelling we have to hook up with Dave over at AV because they are gonna be one of the very last bumper manufacturers standing.

Lightning (1h 45m 4s):

Why do you say that? What about your fusions and can’t, can’t Westins and all those guys

Holman (1h 45m 9s):

Can’t talk about it too much yet, but when you understand what was required to get onto an OE program and make all the sensors work and make it so it can go on the production line and make it sure that it’s the right weight for the ergonomics and to make sure it was packaged the right way

Lightning (1h 45m 25s):

To But you’re talking about oe, you’re not talking about aftermarket, right? Or are you, what do you mean? So

Holman (1h 45m 29s):

When you’re looking at the future of parking sensors and pedestrian and crash and eight a s, which is advanced driver assistance systems that are coming in, you’re not gonna be able to just bolt up a fab bumper in the shop anymore. The amount of

Lightning (1h 45m 43s):

Work you’re saying you physically won’t be able to cuz the sensors won’t

Holman (1h 45m 46s):

Work, your car’s gonna freak out. You have to have a certain level of engineering acumen both in the aftermarket and off the showroom floor to be able to do that. And I saw a taste of what goes into that. And we will bring them on when the time is right because this is mind blowing what they had to go through to get on the program and build the bumper to work with the trucks. Yes.

Lightning (1h 46m 8s):

I wonder with all the engineering money, they would’ve had to spend all the r and d if they’ll make money on the bumpers or it’s just, just like a feather in their cap.

Holman (1h 46m 16s):

I don’t

Lightning (1h 46m 17s):

Have, or a halo I should

Holman (1h 46m 18s):

Say. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of work that went into it and it’s, it’s amazing. So the A T four X HD with 35 s fricking, look how nice and high that thing sits.

Lightning (1h 46m 30s):

It’s hard to tell with all the, the camo on it cuz they’re trying to hide it from us, but

Holman (1h 46m 35s):

Damn, tell those are 30

Lightning (1h 46m 36s):

Fives. Yeah. Oh yeah, you can

Holman (1h 46m 38s):

Multis.

Lightning (1h 46m 38s):

It’s cool. Wow. So I mean, it’s gonna be good looking truck.

Holman (1h 46m 41s):

It’s, it’s gonna be awesome. And that one’s GermX truck tell by the exhaust on it. So

Lightning (1h 46m 46s):

Are they, well turn it towards me again.

Holman (1h 46m 48s):

Look how high that thing sits,

Lightning (1h 46m 50s):

Man. They keep shooting the exhaust out at an angle back. So they’re, they’re, you’re, you’re hitting your, your trailer with hot exhaust gas, 800 degree exhaust gas. You’re melting your fifth wheel trailer when it’s in regen. That’s why you need the banks exhaust, my friend, because it kicks it out sideways bank power.com. It’s diffused when you’re going down the highway. Lighting.

Holman (1h 47m 15s):

Yes sir. Did you hear?

13 (1h 47m 16s):

No,

Lightning (1h 47m 19s):

No, I don’t think so.

Holman (1h 47m 20s):

On the drive, somebody posted up a story about a 1987 Nissan Hard Body with 1092 original miles.

Lightning (1h 47m 30s):

Tell me

Holman (1h 47m 31s):

Why. I believe it was on Bring a trailer and I don’t know what it’s sold for, but it was an amazing example. It hadn’t even had its first oil change yet. Oh, here it’s sold for $17,000 and it’s a base model, two wheel drive long bed with a camper shell on the back

Lightning (1h 47m 49s):

That is pristine. Oh my God.

Holman (1h 47m 52s):

It’s charcoal gray.

Lightning (1h 47m 53s):

Where was it stored? Do we know? Yeah,

Holman (1h 47m 55s):

So there’s a little bit of a history here. So if you go to the drive and read James’ article, apparently it was initially bought new in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and it was outfitted as a recreational truck with a body colored matching bed topper fog light speakers in the bed and even a towing package. But it was rarely used. It remained in the garage alongside some classic Chevy Corvette for 20 years and just sort of, I guess forgotten about in the corner. And how

Lightning (1h 48m 23s):

Do you forget about a fricking Nissan hard body

Holman (1h 48m 25s):

Power comes from

Lightning (1h 48m 26s):

With only a thousand miles on

Holman (1h 48m 27s):

It. 2.4 liter fuel injected four cylinder, which at that time made 106 horsepower and 137 pound feet of torque.

Lightning (1h 48m 35s):

That’ll, I’ll throw you back in your seat buddy.

Holman (1h 48m 36s):

It’s a D 21 body style. And this one’s near base even has steel wheels, which is, which is pretty cool. It’s never received an oil change. So it’s probably not even really broken in yet. The tires are the original tires, so they’re probably cracked dry rotted.

Lightning (1h 48m 52s):

That’s now the benchmark for the soy tires to live up to.

Holman (1h 48m 56s):

I’m not sure that’s totally true. Okay. Anyway, this, this, this thing is, it’s just super clean. $17,000. The steel are fourteens. I love it. The, with a 1 95, 75 bridge dough on it. And just like the current Tacoma comes with front disks and rear drums, but

Lightning (1h 49m 14s):

They the current,

Holman (1h 49m 15s):

By the way, tire mounted behind the axle. So anyway, this, the thing that I love about this is when you get in those old Nissan hard bodies, it’s got all the Nissans of that vintage have the orange font or orange color for all the gauges. It’s just so eighties. This would be like the Redwood vehicle right here. Like you just buy it and take it to rad. Leave it exactly how it’s,

Lightning (1h 49m 35s):

Do you think people know what Rawood is?

Holman (1h 49m 36s):

Yes. We’ve talked about

Lightning (1h 49m 37s):

It before. Well, I know we talked about a 70 episodes ago.

Holman (1h 49m 40s):

People know what it is.

Lightning (1h 49m 41s):

Okay, well I’m more interested or as interested than

Holman (1h 49m 44s):

The fact that it comes with 105 mile per hour speedometer.

Lightning (1h 49m 47s):

It’ll never get there. Well downhill tailwind and pulled by a Ferrari. Who bought it? Who spent 17 g on this thing? I

Holman (1h 49m 54s):

Don’t know, but I looked at the auction and I’m like, man, if I had some dollars I would’ve bought it. Really? Well how often can you buy a 20 year old vehicle brand

Lightning (1h 50m 1s):

New? You can’t but, but 17 special.

Holman (1h 50m 3s):

Hmm. Yeah. Well there’s enough. I’m

Lightning (1h 50m 5s):

Not saying it’s not worth 17. I just, who’s the guy that bought it? And will he lower it and then put the, the bed on a scissor lift and spin it in the air? Ah,

Holman (1h 50m 15s):

No, I don’t think so.

Lightning (1h 50m 16s):

Can you imagine it was an old school, like a OG mini fan?

Holman (1h 50m 20s):

Dude, there’s some thirsts. They’re out there. Awesome. Hey lighting. Did you hear how about

Lightning (1h 50m 25s):

New?

Holman (1h 50m 25s):

Nope. The GM design team, they showed off some sketches of what a future Chevy truck could look like and some design language and looks pretty cool. It’s kind of a hint at where they’re going. Some people say it has square body influence. I really don’t

Lightning (1h 50m 40s):

See it. That’s, that’s very No, I see. Square body influence for sure.

Holman (1h 50m 43s):

Too much surface detail.

Lightning (1h 50m 44s):

R 30 inch wheels.

Holman (1h 50m 46s):

Well it’s a, it’s a concept.

Lightning (1h 50m 47s):

Of course. Yeah. And that is, again, everything to me looks like a badger. Like the Nikola Badger.

Holman (1h 50m 53s):

Nah, I don’t see badger in that one. I do see, I do see Badger in the, it’s very

Lightning (1h 50m 57s):

Square. If you thought that the current generation GM trucks had a square wheel, well they got nothing on this one. This one is just hard, sharp corners. Why do they did that? Well, how do they choose that? Like, not, not this almond, but who’s the designer that said let’s put round wheels and tires in a square opening. It’s very interesting right? That, that design, no one else is doing it.

Holman (1h 51m 25s):

Jeep does it with trapezoid wheel wells.

Lightning (1h 51m 28s):

Yeah. Okay. But square

Holman (1h 51m 32s):

It’s hip to be square. If you’re GM fan, I guess. Hey lighting, did you hear? No.

Lightning (1h 51m 37s):

Nope.

Holman (1h 51m 38s):

There’s a guy on YouTube. I’m surprised this hasn’t come across you. Tyler Hewitt of Hewitt Industries.

Lightning (1h 51m 44s):

It’s not ringing a bell yet.

Holman (1h 51m 46s):

Tyler has blasphemed the truck world.

Lightning (1h 51m 50s):

How so? What did he do?

Holman (1h 51m 52s):

He took a first gen ram, pulled the Cummins out of it,

Lightning (1h 51m 59s):

Put a Ford in it. A

Holman (1h 52m 0s):

Six liter of

Lightning (1h 52m 1s):

All Fords. Yeah. He had, normally that’s wrong. You, you normally you put the Cummins in the Ford called a Cummins. This is now a cord.

Holman (1h 52m 9s):

Nope. A cord to something else. Elegant and not this. I don’t know how I feel about that. I I almost feel like we should have him on the show.

Lightning (1h 52m 17s):

We

Holman (1h 52m 17s):

Should. You should. If I send this to you, will you find him? Since you know how to find people on YouTube?

Lightning (1h 52m 21s):

I can do that. It’s a six

Holman (1h 52m 23s):

Liter. It’s a six liter powerstroke. Well that’s why we have to have him on the show. Not

Lightning (1h 52m 26s):

Even a seven three.

Holman (1h 52m 28s):

No, a six liter. Not even a six

Lightning (1h 52m 29s):

Four. He’s like, and you know what? I didn’t even head stud

Holman (1h 52m 32s):

It. That’s I Exactly. I’m living dangerously. I I’m sending, I’m I just texted you the link. I want you to find this guy and get him on the show. All right. Because I think this would, this there’s something wrong with him in a good way. Yeah. And we like talking to people who have,

Lightning (1h 52m 43s):

I love people who blaspheme. Hold on a second, I gotta pause the show. I just got a text. Ah, damn it. It’s you.

Holman (1h 52m 52s):

What’s wrong with you? Lightning. All right. So engine blasphemy aside. It fits, it looks pretty cool. He also put some King Ranch seats in it, I guess to continue the Ford. Ford, okay. So matching center console on armrest. So Dodge is it, it it drives and runs. He calls it a forge.

Lightning (1h 53m 14s):

A

Holman (1h 53m 14s):

Forge. Which is,

Lightning (1h 53m 15s):

That’s all right. No, that’s, I like it.

Holman (1h 53m 17s):

Anyway. I think you need to find him. I’ll try and we need to have him on the show because I, I have to know more. What’s

Lightning (1h 53m 22s):

Worse? The, the putting a six Oh in the, in the normally Cummins powered Dodge or putting the six oh in a Nissan gtr.

Holman (1h 53m 31s):

Definitely what he did with the truck.

Lightning (1h 53m 33s):

You think so?

Holman (1h 53m 34s):

I think a six liter in GTR is so out there wacky one off. Like you have to just be like, you gotta be okay with it. Yeah,

Lightning (1h 53m 40s):

Yeah. Right. But the, the six Oh, where a Cummins should live. You’re really stabbing a guy. Tell you’re stabbing a guy in the, in the

Holman (1h 53m 48s):

Spleen. Let’s get him hurts on the show. Let’s get him on the show. Okay. Cause I, I wanna find out what’s wrong with him. I mean we could maybe we have to put him on a 51 50 hole to save him from himself or something. Maybe. Maybe.

Lightning (1h 53m 57s):

We’re gonna interview you and straight Jack at you.

Holman (1h 54m 0s):

Alright, got one more here. I’m not sure if you heard about this or not. No.

Lightning (1h 54m 4s):

Nope, I don’t think so. Add

Holman (1h 54m 6s):

C e s. There is the all electric vehicle from Centro to ends built off its tee backs that’s called the Desert

Lightning (1h 54m 14s):

Beaver. What? Hold on a second. You’re just making up names. Centro does this Exactly. Does the what?

Holman (1h 54m 19s):

Yeah, it’s a little

Lightning (1h 54m 21s):

And it’s called the Beaver.

Holman (1h 54m 22s):

The desert

Lightning (1h 54m 22s):

Beaver. The Desert Beaver.

Holman (1h 54m 24s):

It looks like

Lightning (1h 54m 24s):

Beavers don’t live in the desert.

Holman (1h 54m 26s):

It looks like the mix between a golf cart and a Ford Conine van pickup truck. It’s completely wacky.

Lightning (1h 54m 36s):

Is it a joke?

Holman (1h 54m 37s):

It real? No, it’s real.

Lightning (1h 54m 38s):

It’s not a gag at ces.

Holman (1h 54m 41s):

No. Why would you pay a million dollars to display at CES and then bring a joke? I don’t know.

Lightning (1h 54m 45s):

We would,

Holman (1h 54m 47s):

This one is a limited speed payload and has maximum speed of 25 miles an hour. Can only be driven on roads of the speed limit up to 35 miles an hour in such states, even though it can’t go that fast. But it has a payload of 700, 800 pounds and meets the 3000 pound gross vehicle weight requirement by law. So Motor did a little expose on this is what caught my eye is somebody on LinkedIn who is the marketing rep for them, said, Hey, we should get you guys on the podcast to drive this thing. And I went, don’t threaten me with a good time. Not really knowing what it was. Sure. And I saw the motor trend story and I was like, what is that? Is it a pickup truck? Is it a UTV here? This is what it

Lightning (1h 55m 21s):

Is. Let me see that. That looks awesome.

Holman (1h 55m 24s):

I told you so like in a con line, don’t know pickup bed. That

Lightning (1h 55m 27s):

Likes a, like a, not a, what do you call those? Like those things that they drive around on golf courses. You know the guy’s got all his, his shovels and stuff in the back club.

Holman (1h 55m 41s):

Club

Lightning (1h 55m 41s):

Cart. Not a club cart. No. They’re like, they’re little mini pickup trucks.

Holman (1h 55m 46s):

I don’t

Lightning (1h 55m 46s):

Know. You don’t know what I’m talking about. I have no idea. This looks like a better version of

Holman (1h 55m 49s):

That. Anyway, these, this is part of the loads. This is,

Lightning (1h 55m 52s):

Anyway, how many guys are just pounding on their dashboard right now? Cursing my name.

Holman (1h 55m 56s):

Well, truck show podcast and gmail.com. This is part of the low speed vehicle market. Alright, so this is part of the low speed vehicle market or an lsv. Again, this is from a company called Centro. It was spotted at the 2023 c e s show. Again, CS is becoming this weird place for cars again. And it’s, it’s crazy. The Centro Tmax, which is T E E M A K, is a vehicle intended to be sold as something you can drive around a private property. And as an lsv it’s limited in speed and payload. Maximum speed is just 25 miles an hour. The desert beaver is bestowed with a 15 kilowatt hour. Lithium ion phosphate battery pack range is about 65 to 70 miles.

Holman (1h 56m 40s):

So perfect for like your private ranch or something like that. It’s can charge only at AC level one using a one 10 outlet. So it’ll be probably slow. The charge slow. Yeah. Although a quicker level two will be available on the second generation. The Tmac and the desert Beaver are rear wheel drive only and the roughly two horsepower motor is mounted directly to the live axle, which is under a leaf sprung suspension in the front uses a McPherson strut. So it’s cool. And I could see a, if you own a ranch or something, it would be great for that. Cause it’s looks like it’s a little bit more utility than say, you

Lightning (1h 57m 12s):

Know, I was thinking of a, a Kubota.

Holman (1h 57m 15s):

Oh, Kubota. Yeah. That’s, that’s totally different than the thing that you are

Lightning (1h 57m 18s):

About. Of course I yeah. But but that’s, if you’ve

Holman (1h 57m 20s):

Said it something with a k I probably would’ve figured that out. Yeah. My uncle has a Kubota tractor. They live driving around his ranch. I wish you’d get one of these desert beavers though, because I would be all over

Lightning (1h 57m 28s):

That. So it looks better than it sounds, meaning.

Holman (1h 57m 30s):

Yeah, yeah. No,

Lightning (1h 57m 31s):

It’s sounds like it’s got no performance, but it looks cool.

Holman (1h 57m 34s):

Yeah, sure. The Standard Team act is supposed to be begin production in Q1 at Centrals Jacksonville, Florida facility. Figure 1500, 2000 a year. And it’ll go on sale starting to add $20,000 if you’re looking to replicate this desert Beaver, which is like all off roaded out. 20

Lightning (1h 57m 52s):

Grand for that.

Holman (1h 57m 53s):

30 grand for the desert.

Lightning (1h 57m 54s):

$30,000. Yeah. Forget that noise.

Holman (1h 57m 59s):

You’re you’re not on board. I am

Lightning (1h 58m 1s):

Out.

Holman (1h 58m 1s):

All right, one last piece of news for you. If you’ve heard,

Lightning (1h 58m 6s):

No, wait, no

Holman (1h 58m 9s):

Ring just announced their new car

Lightning (1h 58m 11s):

Cam ring as in ring cameras on your door.

Holman (1h 58m 14s):

Doorbell car cam for cars. Doorbell car. Car doorbell. Anyway,

Lightning (1h 58m 19s):

The company was called Door Bought before they were Ring

Holman (1h 58m 22s):

And they got door bought by Amazon. Yeah. Hello.

Lightning (1h 58m 25s):

So well is that true? Was it I I don’t know that

Holman (1h 58m 29s):

I knew known. Yeah, they’ve been known by Amazon for

Lightning (1h 58m 32s):

Wow

Holman (1h 58m 32s):

Years now. Holy Mac. That dude was on Shark Tank and

Lightning (1h 58m 35s):

Sold and then they didn’t, yeah, they didn’t invest.

Holman (1h 58m 37s):

So the reason I’m interested in the story is it’s this really simple setup that mounts, I guess to your dash has a forward looking and a rearward looking at the cabin, you know, just mounts right there, center of the dash looking forward and back. And unlike the doorbell cam, that might be gracing your entryway, there’s a flap that you can lower for privacy, but it’s motion triggered notifications. It has a speaker, there’s a hey Alexa thing going on there cuz obviously owned by Amazon. And a white l e d ring will illuminate in during conversations or other colors, indicate what it’s doing. It’s kind of a cute little camera. It’ll work with your ring devices.

Holman (1h 59m 18s):

Again, the reason that I’m interested in this is I just installed a dash cam on the 3 92. Well, and so I’ve been going through this whole thing of researching dash cams. So,

Lightning (1h 59m 26s):

So I’m glad you said that because I picked up a customer’s derex today for some testing and I’m gonna open my photos cuz I took a photograph of his camera because it looked pretty neat. It was like a tube about the size of a, a roll of quarters. Yep.

Holman (1h 59m 43s):

So this is probably a black view, which is what I got for my car.

Lightning (1h 59m 46s):

And it was, I don’t think it’s a black view. Hold on a second. On the end it said N two Pro N two Pro. Any idea what that is?

Holman (1h 59m 55s):

I don’t know which camera that is. It’s, that looks similar to the, to the Black View, which I’ve done a ton of research. Everybody says that’s the black, that’s the one to have Blackview. It’s a South Korean company and they have all sorts of, I This is, this one is 4k supposed to be? I just got a one channel supposed to be great.

Lightning (2h 0m 12s):

One channel. We just facing forward,

Holman (2h 0m 14s):

Just facing forward.

Lightning (2h 0m 15s):

So I, I picked up this guys and he’s a, he’s a great guy. We’ve brought his truck before. He is very gracious and, but the whole time I’m in his truck, I’m like, I know he is watching me. Yeah, probably so. I’m just chilling.

Holman (2h 0m 25s):

Was there one facing you? Yep. Yeah, he

Lightning (2h 0m 26s):

Was totally watching me. I’m just like,

Holman (2h 0m 27s):

Chilling. Did you pick your nose? Nope. You wanted to though, didn’t you? Nope.

Lightning (2h 0m 30s):

Didn’t

Holman (2h 0m 31s):

You itched and you’re like crazy. You’re like, I

Lightning (2h 0m 32s):

Didn’t,

Holman (2h 0m 34s):

You’re like trying to reach it with your elbow.

Lightning (2h 0m 36s):

I didn’t do anything. I don’t even listen to the radio. You just, I just Nope, I just, I just make sure I’m checking my blind spots. I’m not getting an accident.

Holman (2h 0m 43s):

You’re you’re in some dude’s spank bank for sure. Yeah.

Lightning (2h 0m 46s):

Nah, I, I’m, I’m saying no. All

Holman (2h 0m 48s):

Right, let’s get back to the, the ring car cam. And so this one will also sync with your wifi at home and you can check the recordings in the Ring app and all the things that you love to do.

Lightning (2h 0m 58s):

Hmm. What’s the monthly fee? Since Ring charges me for everything. Oh,

Holman (2h 1m 2s):

My monthly fee isn’t very, isn’t bad. I think I pay a yearly one and it’s less than like 10 bucks a month or something like that. Okay. I’ve got three cameras. I’ll have four soon. But the ring car cam will retail for 250 bucks. You can pre-order it for a little while prior to the launch for I guess 200 bucks. Ring Protect Go subscription is six bucks a month or 60 bucks a year. That’s not bad. Can I

Lightning (2h 1m 22s):

See it? What does it look like?

Holman (2h 1m 23s):

It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s just like a little arm that comes off the center and

Lightning (2h 1m 26s):

It’s very, it’s kinda cute ring-Like Yeah, it’s, if you’re familiar with ring devices, it’s very, it’s

Holman (2h 1m 33s):

Curvy. It wouldn’t surprise you that it’s a ring if you saw it. Yeah. But it’s, you know, so anyway, the ring car cam won’t work on every car. You have to have a O B D two port and you have

Lightning (2h 1m 43s):

To Oh

Holman (2h 1m 45s):

Really? And it must be accessible for the adapter plug in the s BBC cable. So

Lightning (2h 1m 48s):

Another, they’re tiny in o bt I get it for power. But like, dude, I already got, I got two Dons hanging off from what we do already. You know what I’m saying? I got a, I got a Derringer or I got an eye dash I got, so

Holman (2h 1m 59s):

I got a that on black view. I, I wired it directly to the fuse box with fuse taps and it’s good to go. And now the black view one is nice. So just like the black view, you have to add a battery to it to keep it. So park mode works and it has a jiggle sensor if somebody backs into in a parking lot and it’ll do up to 30 hours the battery pack. I didn’t do any of that. I’m just doing the, while I’m driving right. Grabs off-road videos, see any wacky things that happen in front of me, whatever, like those kind of dash cameras. This one also will start recording in a parking lot if somebody bumps into you and all that good stuff. So anyway, if you’re looking for what seems to be a more simple approach to a dash cam, you might want to go to, to ring and check out their, their new ring car cam.

Holman (2h 2m 39s):

And if you go to amazon.com, it’s 1 99 9 9 right now. Just type in ring car cams.

Lightning (2h 2m 46s):

I am interested, I actually have been looking for something like that for the tx, but I, I can’t give up. I’ve already got a splitter.

Holman (2h 2m 53s):

Yeah. I didn’t wanna go through my

Lightning (2h 2m 54s):

ODT for Yeah. So I, I wanted, I think they’re discounting how many people actually have any truck. He’s got amp steps, you know. Yeah.

Holman (2h 3m 0s):

But they’re not looking for enthusiasts. They’re looking for the, you know, I

Lightning (2h 3m 4s):

Know the

Holman (2h 3m 5s):

People that

Lightning (2h 3m 6s):

Drive the Camry. Yeah.

Holman (2h 3m 7s):

Yeah. So, so anyway. Well that’s, that’s it for news this week. I would like to regale you now with some emails.

4 (2h 3m 15s):

You email? Yeah, I emailed do it. We email. That’s right. Every email type it up. You email proofread. I email send it. We email, click it every email.

Lightning (2h 3m 30s):

All right. Who’s going first? I’ll

Holman (2h 3m 32s):

Go. Got one.

Lightning (2h 3m 33s):

Oh, hold on. I gotta turn this down. No,

Holman (2h 3m 35s):

You’re good. Let it go.

4 (2h 3m 40s):

Yeah, yeah.

Lightning (2h 3m 44s):

It’s over. All right.

Holman (2h 3m 45s):

It’s over. Go. Our buddy Lars wrote in and he said, Hey fellas, podcast app says unable to play. Same thing as the last one. And he was talking about the Google podcast app. So I went on there and I was able to play it off Google. But we need to hear these things. If you guys are go your regular deal, like Spotify or Google, sometimes it’s an upload error. We’ve had file corruptions in the past. Just hit us up truck show podcast gmail.com and we’ll get on it and, and check it out right away cuz we’re always on top of that kind of stuff. So if you guys are, are there first Monday morning, it’s not working, just shoot us an email or call us on the five star hotline, 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 and we’ll, we’ll check it out for you. So thanks Lars for for checking in and thanks for having, having her back.

Lightning (2h 4m 28s):

New name for a studio subject line from Brent Clarkson. Guys, it’s simple. New studio. Should be called the Pod. Pod as always five stars. Does it leave this reviewer cold?

Holman (2h 4m 45s):

It’s, it’s clever.

Lightning (2h 4m 47s):

It’s clever. Pod. Pod. It’s clever. Yeah. All I’ll give, I’ll give him five stars.

Holman (2h 4m 51s):

All

4 (2h 4m 52s):

Review. Five stars.

Lightning (2h 4m 54s):

Don’t smash Emmy.

Holman (2h 4m 57s):

Easy. All right. Got one here from our buddy rb. He says, Frank Nay. Nay Ram’s. Upcoming ev pickup truck will have a Fargo front cargo Ray says, as I recently posed and reply to a comment on the steal power website, Ram should coin a new phrase instead of funk because Frank is Tesla speak, which is old hat and weak sauce. He’s been listening to too much of you clearly. Yeah. I propose Fargo, which stands for Front Cargo, which is also in keeping with the legacy series of trucks. If it resonates with you two, feel free to pass on to Mike Coval, Jim Morrison, or any of your other pals at Ram. If it’s dorky, just let it die. All right Ray, appreciate that.

Lightning (2h 5m 38s):

This one is titled Jingles from Eric Stevens. Please play the Worky Work Works Jingle. Thank you. I think he’s referring to the original Inside job

Holman (2h 5m 52s):

Because we have 50 of ’em and we didn’t like any of ’em that

Lightning (2h 5m 54s):

I, I labeled that one Joy division because it reminded me of the eighties

Holman (2h 5m 58s):

Band but division. But now I kind of like it. Maybe bring it

Lightning (2h 6m 1s):

Back. You’ve

Holman (2h 6m 2s):

Full circle. Let’s play it and find out

4 (2h 6m 4s):

The truck. Show The truck show. The truck show room. Room. The show. The show. It’s for the inside job. Be inside the inside. Be inside Job. We’ll talk to one industry expert about how things are working. Work. Work. Be inside. Job is on now. All of our guests, they have the knowhow on the truck show.

4 (2h 6m 45s):

The truck show. The truck show the, the inside job.

Lightning (2h 7m 8s):

Yeah,

Holman (2h 7m 8s):

We, yeah, that was really long.

Lightning (2h 7m 9s):

We stopped playing that cuz if it’s length. But

Holman (2h 7m 12s):

Didn’t I ask you to just cut that down? Don’t have a short

Lightning (2h 7m 14s):

Version. Yeah. I decided that I couldn’t and I didn’t. Oh,

Holman (2h 7m 16s):

Interesting. Nope. I mean cuz I don’t hate it. I just hate the length. That’s what she said.

Lightning (2h 7m 20s):

Trick show podcast gmail.com. Truck show podcast gmail.com. That is the show. My friends wanna thank Hams up for calling in and

4 (2h 7m 30s):

He was an

Lightning (2h 7m 31s):

Amazing guest. Hopefully we’ll catch up with you. Amazing. Again, what?

Holman (2h 7m 34s):

He was amazing. Amazing. Yeah.

4 (2h 7m 37s):

Love you guys. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa.

Holman (2h 7m 44s):

All right. We gotta thank, thanks for loaning us a podcast studio, a conference room for this episode. Possibly a couple more before we fully move into our, our new space. So special shout out to Mr. Gale Banks for allowing us to hang out here and do this. And you should go buy a bunch of banks products, banks power.com. We’re slide on into lightings DM at LBC Lightning and of course a special shout out to Nissan for allowing us to have the, the privilege of driving a Nissan Titan XD Platinum Reserve. Four by four. It’s in the, you’re

Lightning (2h 8m 17s):

You’re driving me home in that, aren’t

Holman (2h 8m 19s):

You? Yeah. Been a been a great truck to drive around five year, 100,000 mile warranty. You can check out the Nissan Drive at home program. You can go check out the Nissan frontier nissan usa.com and of course you wanna reach us at LBC Lighting, at shopee hoen at Truck Show podcast. We got a lot going on. More to come. But we appreciate all of you and thanks for sticking with us here on our second episode of season two. That’s pretty amazing. I did the whole thing. I didn’t mess up once. I just kept going cause I knew if I let you, we was gonna wait. We’re gonna be done because

Lightning (2h 8m 52s):

What you guys don’t know if, if if Holman screws up and the music is playing we gotta redo it.

Holman (2h 8m 57s):

Like what do you mean? If Holden

Lightning (2h 8m 58s):

Screws up? I don’t ever screw up when I’m over the music. I don’t. Sure. No, it’s cuz it’s like my old radio days, you know, I’m just What’d you hear that music? You gotta hit the post.

Holman (2h 9m 6s):

Yeah. What you do is you like end it, fade it quicker so that it’s out so that you don’t have to do it over the bed. That’s exactly right. I know, I know. Your tricks over there, across table. Exactly what’s happening over there. Yep. Oh man. All right. Well that’s, that was a great show I think.

Lightning (2h 9m 21s):

I think without Hams that would’ve sucked.

Holman (2h 9m 23s):

Why? Because it was us. Oh well I’m ready for not Chilly Dogs. I don’t think I can do those two days in a

Lightning (2h 9m 30s):

Row. The only thing on the way at this hour. Ugh. So there is a Wendy’s an Inn Out and and announce the Out’s the wrong way. Jack in the box. Nope, the Jimmy Johns is closed. The Jersey mics is closed. It’s like, oh. And you know what else to clo Oh, bummer. The

Holman (2h 9m 50s):

Farmer Boys closed. I know. The other day when came up here to meet with Gail, I stopped at the Farmer Boys. Oh, did you? That’s

Lightning (2h 9m 55s):

All Farmer Boys is always good. Always good. And we’re, we’re booking it. There’s one up here and one down there like Yeah, we got two farmer boys within like a half mile. Lucky you. Yeah. As far as now, in and out it is. There’s a McDonald’s. Nope. No, no. Then what else we got? Nothing.

Holman (2h 10m 12s):

I mean, there’s

Lightning (2h 10m 13s):

Not even a Del Taco

Holman (2h 10m 14s):

Here. Here’s what I’m worried about. I’m worried about us withering away.

Lightning (2h 10m 18s):

Are you now? Yeah, there’s a million taco joints that are open late but Oh,

Holman (2h 10m 21s):

It is Tuesday.

Lightning (2h 10m 22s):

Yeah.

Holman (2h 10m 24s):

All right, enough the show. Let’s go eat tacos. See

Lightning (2h 10m 26s):

Ya. Tacos are always good. Goodbye. The Truck Show Podcast is a production of Truck Famous llc. This podcast was created by Sean Homan and Jay Tillis with production Elements by DJ Omar Kahn. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.

16 (2h 10m 53s):

When you love it, taco so much. You can’t stop cameras just a taco. Now you’re in cause you wear your taco. But it’s all okay though. Flavor’s so good that it.