My side of the BlackOvis/Camofire story - Podcast and Q&A

[TheTone]

Honestly that MF response is truly disappointing. He cheated multiple times but hey because he has passion, we had other supplier issues and he moves product, oh well…. His crying act at his Utah license revocation hearing was puke endorsing. The world needs ditch diggers more than it needs people like him peddling Chinese merch and hunting videos

 

[The hoodoos]

The support for MF is why I never bought anything from BO and judging by the response I am glad I didn’t.

 

[wapitibob]

Honestly that MF response is truly disappointing. He cheated multiple times but hey because he has passion, we had other supplier issues and he moves product, oh well…. His crying act at his Utah license revocation hearing was puke endorsing. The world needs ditch diggers more than it needs people like him peddling Chinese merch and hunting videos

I have no issue with a guy screwing up, paying his dues, and getting another shot but MF has no remorse and why should he, vendors eat up his bs, then buy more merch.

 

[Invisiblecreek]

San Juan gloves - high demand. I'm half motivated to start a new brand selling 4 or 5 pieces of gear, and San Juan gloves would be top of the list! There are about 1400 of them left in the inventory, and none of those have been sold yet to anyone. I for one am watching to find out where these end up to buy some. The factory that built them for BlackOvis has a shipment that arrived in November which they tried to unload to Midway USA or somewhere like that. To my knowledge, they haven't sold them either.

Speaking of factory, the down Glomits (Palisades Glassing Mitten/Glomits) were sold out and the refill shipment was on the water. They too are yet to be sold somewhere. If I catch wind of where, I'll pass it along.

Perfectly fine to ask. I think I covered this in the 4th episode, but after the bankruptcy filing the PE firm let me know that since the lease had never been transferred to the new entity from the former entity that my co-founder and I had set up the lease under, we were the proud owners of the lease on a 50,000 sq ft building, for another 16 months. (I should have known better and taken care of that vs assume that it would have been taken care of - school of hard knocks) I worked with the court to consolidate all the inventory, leased a small 4000 sq ft space and had the inventory moved there so I could lease the building to a new tenant.

Most of the inventory is still in that holding facility awaiting the liquidation sale.

Any info on the liquidation sale? Will it be a package sale of all the inventory or would you be able to buy certain specific things like normal?
An update on the sale would be awesome!

I was a consistent buyer on cf/bo and loved
all the Bo clothes especially the merino !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ktowncamo]

Could you have kept CF/BO small and humble?

Seems like a fast paced industry that doesn’t allow for that mentality if you want to be successful at or have any longevity.

Very interesting question, and one I know that I contemplated at 2 very certain points over the time of growing the business. Men are builders, growers by nature. When we get into a business situation, it takes real maturity and self examination to set and stick to a high water mark before getting too deep into the thick of it when it comes to building a business. So when considering a small or big business, most men will think a bigger business is better unless a high level of maturity exists to reign in growth for higher priorities. (family, life balance, etc)

As for humble, we always tried to stay that way, but small wasn't part of the recipe, until we were big and then small started to seem more simple and satisfying in a lot of ways. Grass is greener dreaming perhaps?

It kind of comes back to the "why grow" which I spoke about in the podcast. Once I replaced my prior income with building CF/BO, I didn't really reset my "why" and found myself engulfed in the grind of growth. By that time, an offramp to small and humble would have seemed like "giving up" vs something better. Kinda sad actually. I hope that makes sense.

I recall a time when I was thinking about being small again, as the growth started to feel like it was running faster than I was able to or wanted to keep up with. This was somewhere around 2018. My original Co-Founder and I had been growing Camofire/BlackOvis as fast as we could, fighting and grinding, but there came a point for me around 2018 when I had the real thought of "when is enough, enough?" Mind you we were growing Crispi at that point in time as well, 2 years into that adventure. This thought of "when is enough, enough" was not only as it pertained to my own business exploits, but introspectively about general life pursuits of "more is better" and also on a broader society level as I looked around. Even if I wanted to slow down, I wasn't courageous enough to confront my business partner because he was very much of the growth at all costs mindset. I suppose I just shrugged and strapped in for the ride.

Once Private Equity is part of any business equation, small and humble is not any part of any equation, and it is growth at all costs.

After the bankruptcy, I had a friend suggest that I buy CF/BO out of bankruptcy and re-start it but with a small team, smaller goals, and enjoy the ride vs trying to conquer the world. I have to admit, that idea of CF/BO as a small and humble operation has its appeal, but if CF/BO does rise from the ashes, I doubt I have the stomach to be a part of it. Unlike Lot's wife, I don't think I will be looking back longingly for what is behind me.

Sorry for the book. You got me into some deep thought on the topic.

 

[ktowncamo]

I have no issue with a guy screwing up, paying his dues, and getting another shot but MF has no remorse and why should he, vendors eat up his bs, then buy more merch.

Hard to disagree with you on this. I hope I came across not as defending MF or defending the decision we made. I was trying to cite the reason at the time that we continued to offer MF product.

Honestly that MF response is truly disappointing. He cheated multiple times but hey because he has passion, we had other supplier issues and he moves product, oh well…. His crying act at his Utah license revocation hearing was puke endorsing. The world needs ditch diggers more than it needs people like him peddling Chinese merch and hunting videos

The support for MF is why I never bought anything from BO and judging by the response I am glad I didn’t.

Both posts and the likes are enlightening for sure. Did this lead to BO declining in sales? Perhaps in some ways. Numbers we tracked showed new customer acquisition was still quite strong up until the end. That said, replacing lost customers comes at a much higher cost, one we likely overlooked. Lesson learned.

 

[dirtshooter]

Hoping for that liquidation sale. Need a bunch more merino and puffy pants haha

 

[tony]

Kendall, those underwire that guy was peddling
Dude

 

[HairyScandinavian]

Both posts and the likes are enlightening for sure. Did this lead to BO declining in sales? Perhaps in some ways. Numbers we tracked showed new customer acquisition was still quite strong up until the end. That said, replacing lost customers comes at a much higher cost, one we likely overlooked. Lesson learned.

Whether it was enough to matter or not, it absolutely did cost some sales. I for one used to order a decent amount of stuff being a gear whore and the only thing I ever bought after the MF thing was Peak meals on sale. I have a pretty big list of charges on my CCs from Camofire as well prior to the MF stuff and completely quit visiting the site afterwards. There's enough online vendors out there to choose from that a couple clicks elsewhere isn't difficult enough to challenge me purchasing elsewhere.