Tackform Jeep Phone Mounts That Actually Stay Put | Full Interview
https://youtu.be/8srIKPIy6nw
**Tony sits down with Nick from Tackform** (tackform.com) to dig into the world of rugged, vehicle-specific phone, tablet, radio, and device mounts built for Jeeps and serious off-road use.
Nick has been designing and producing phone and device mounts since 2012. The company started in the consumer space, expanded into motorcycles and commercial trucks, then pivoted hard into pickup trucks and SUVs—especially the Jeep community. They specialize in modular, all-metal systems using 20 mm (and larger 26-series) ball-and-socket arms, slim track and Assault Track (Picatinny-style) dash brackets, MagSafe/magnetic holders, spring cradles, and wireless charging options.
### Key Topics Covered
– Why vent mounts and suction cups fail hard on Jeeps (and why solid, no-drill OEM-hole solutions matter)
– Building custom dash kits for Gladiator, JL, JK, and working backward toward TJ/YJ/XJ
– Wireless inductive charging cradles (including their new 25-watt version with Peltier cooling plate to fight heat)
– Magnetic mounts for GMRS handhelds and Midland MXT series mics
– Starlink mounting options (and why the 26-series ball is better for the heavier load)
– Load ratings, vibration control, billet CNC aluminum vs. injection-molded parts, and why they constantly iterate
– Funny customer requests and the realities of scanning new vehicles for perfect fitment
– The modular “Lego” ecosystem that lets you mix phone holders, radios, switch panels, and cameras
Nick walks through how Tackform approaches engineering for real-world abuse, why they prefer billet for many Jeep brackets (easier to iterate), and the challenges of getting hands on brand-new vehicles for scanning and prototyping.
**Check out the full lineup and build your own kit at:**
**https://www.tackform.com**
Find them on Instagram (tackform.systems / @tackform), Facebook, and their YouTube channel for install videos.
### Chapters
00:00 Show Opening and Guest Introduction
01:17 Phone Mount Market and CarPlay Subscription Issues
03:03 Developing Wireless Charging Phone Mounts
04:29 Configurable Dash Kit Builder Overview
05:34 Custom Power Wiring and Hidden Installation
06:39 OEM Mounting Points and Integrated Power Ports
08:13 Jeep Modification Culture and Device Mounting Trends
09:13 Starlink Mount Solutions for Jeeps
11:01 Ball-and-Socket Mount Architecture and Load Limits
13:53 GMRS/CB Radio Mounts and Magnetic Attachments
15:43 Product Development Process and Continuous Innovation
17:17 Gathering and Evaluating Unusual Product Ideas
17:49 Creative and Quirky Mount Ideas
18:45 Safety Limits for Mount Extensions and Airbag Zones
19:19 Vehicle Acquisition, Scanning, and Prototype Timeline
21:51 Vibration Management and Material Rigidity in Mount Design
22:56 Testing Deflection and Vibration on Plastic Tray Mounts
24:04 Engineering Specificity and Design Optimization
24:44 Balancing Design Complexity and User Needs
25:22 Material Choice: Billet vs Injection Molding and Iterative Design
26:49 CNC Machining vs Tooling: Cost and Volume Trade‑offs
28:44 Aesthetic Design and Billet Manufacturing Appeal
29:40 Adapting to New Vehicle Models and Resource Constraints
32:10 Vehicle Scanning Process and Development Cycle
34:20 Community Involvement and Simplified Kit Options
35:09 Customer Commitment and Apology
35:57 Highlighting Best‑Selling Phone Holder Products
37:23 Wireless Charging Cradle with Peltier Cooling
39:08 Phone Overheating, Wireless Charging, and Shade Solutions
40:53 Inductive Charging in Autonomous Vehicles and Future Outlook
42:27 Future of Vehicle Mounts, Subscriptions, and Emerging Technologies
43:46 Tech Evolution and Subscription Model Critique
44:16 Overview of Best‑Selling Products and Product Range
44:55 Grab Handle Mounts and Product Variety
45:26 Manufacturing Capabilities and Equipment Flexibility
46:17 Managing Overseas Suppliers and Quality Control
47:05 Automation Costs and Custom Manufacturing in the US
49:14 US Manufacturing Facilities and Automation Examples
50:03 Plans for Behind‑the‑Scenes Video Content
54:54 Closing Remarks and Appreciation
### Featured Products
– **Tackform All Metal Dash Mount Phone Holder** – Compatible with 2024–2025 Jeep Wrangler JL, 4xe & Gladiator JT
– **Tackform TRAXX Slim Track / Assault Track Dash Mounts** (MagSafe options) for JL & Gladiator
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tackform+TRAXX+Jeep
– **Tackform Link Grab Handle / A-Pillar Mount** with Magnetic Phone Holder for JL & Gladiator
– **Tackform Magnetic CB / GMRS Microphone Holders** and related Jeep dash kits
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tackform+Jeep+mount
—
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00:00 – 00:00:02:29]
(Music)
[00:00:02:29 – 00:00:11:15]
hope boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep talk show interview. We’re going to be talking with Nick, Nick with tack form.com. I know you’ve
[00:00:11:15 – 00:00:14:15]
(Music)
[00:00:14:15 – 00:00:24:20]
designing and producing phone and device mounts since 2012. Uh, he started in 2012. Wasn’t
[00:00:24:20 – 00:02:40:08]
well, no, it’s Sern, Sern turned on their thing. And we, we jumped into another universe. Uh, so we jumped into one. Yeah. So I see this stuff on tape. We jumped into another universe. So that old intro universe ended like it was supposed to anyway. Uh, he started in the consumer space and later moved into device mounting for motorcycles and commercial trucks. Then from there pivoted into pickup trucks and SUVs. I’m assuming that would be the, the, the Jeeps, uh, that, that part would be the Jeeps. Yeah. So you can go over to tack form.com. That’s T a C K form.com and see all the goodies, uh, that, uh, that Nick and his team have over there. Nick, thanks a lot for joining us. Cool, man. Thanks for having me. Sure. Thanks for having me. So I would think, I think the space is probably pretty crowded now, but I would think that that’s an easy thing to, um, if you’re going to be making something, phone holders is a, is an easy thing. A no brainer as far as this should be a good selling product. Everybody, nobody wants to have their phone in their lap or in the cup holder and get stuff spilled on or it’s cracked or something like that. And you want to have it up in front of you, especially if you’re using, uh, the Google maps to navigate places. You got to have it up there in or in front of you, right? Oh yeah. A hundred percent. And you know, it’s a, it’s a good market. I mean, there’s everyone with a vehicle wants to mount their phone, even with the new car plays, sometimes people, you know, just don’t want to have their device in their pocket. And, um, you know, of course what makes like the Jeep community and off-road community different is they’re mounting switch panels, radios, um, you know, GoPro cameras, phones, tablets for on X and just, just about everything. So, so. And I think they’re a little bit more abusive, you know, on, on the parts like if you were driving a, you know, a Camry, you could just use a suction cup mountain in the windshield, but when you’re, uh, and no offense, if you do this too, but those vents for the AC vents, the little holders for the AC vents. I think that’s a horrible idea on a Jeep that’s bouncing. Yeah.
[00:02:41:10 – 00:02:49:05]
No, they’re no good, especially with the Jeep. Like a lot of the way those vent blades are configured, they just, you know, they swivel and twist. It just doesn’t work good for anybody.
[00:02:50:11 – 00:03:27:11]
Yeah. So, um, the, um, yeah, the car play, man, don’t even get me started on that. I guess you’ve been hearing about the subscriptions that all the calm car manufacturers were talking about coming out with. And yeah, I haven’t had to deal with it yet. I just use my phone, you know, but. Well, they were charged. They want to charge for the car play or the Android play. They want to charge for using that. It’s not, I think the GM, it doesn’t come in there anymore. You, unless you pay for it. And I never, I never use it because in the gladiator, I have a 2021 gladiator and it’s not wireless after run a USB cord and the
[00:03:27:11 – 00:04:42:12]
that. I don’t have a cord all moved, moved around and stuff. Oh, that was what I was going to ask you. So I could not find whenever I was setting my gladiator up in 2021. When we got it, I wanted to set it up for two phone holders. Uh, and I wanted to be able to, uh, put the phone up to the thing and it grab it. You know, it senses it and it grabs it. And I didn’t want to have to plug a cable into it. Cause you know, those, those USB C’s or any of the USBs, they’ll wear out over time. Uh, especially if you’re plugging it in and plugging it, plugging it, plug it. So, uh, I, uh, made mine wireless. So it’s an inductive charger, both of them are. So it grabs it and charges it. And I could not find that I had to piece it together. Uh, from stuff on Amazon. Do you have something that does inductive charging and grabs the phone automatically and you guys a little thing and on, on, cause if that was, that was a, apparently a year 3000 engineering that I was doing, cause it wasn’t available anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. No, we have it. It exists. It’s like, uh, what’s, uh, what’s interesting about like our website or building these kinds of dash kits is for instance, we have, you have a certain year, make and model Jeep, so you need to select a dashboard bracket.
[00:04:43:25 – 00:06:37:03]
Then we have two different types. We have like a slim track, we call it, which is just a minimalist track. And then we have our assault track, which is like a picatinny rail. And then you can select arm type carbon or black, and then you could select your color. And then there’s a whole array of holders. So it could be some people just want a spring cradle. You might want wireless charging. Some people want mag safe or magnetic or tech. So when you’re, when you’re trying to find these parts, like it’s hard to just hit add to cart and have a kit that has everything you need. Really. There’s like some, there’s like a builder. So you have to go through and, you know, select what you want and continue to add on your accessories. So sometimes like for us at a glance, you might look and be like, oh, I don’t think they have this specific thing. But if you go and build the kit from scratch, we have just about everything covered, but I think you were way ahead of your time back then, you know, I just wanted what I want. And also too, I didn’t run any of the power stuff outside the, outside the dash. I pulled the dash out and ran it down to the cigarette lighter and got the 12, got the 12 volt off of that and then put it into the, what is it? Five volt that for the USB, whatever the, the adapter is from 12 to five or 12 to three or whatever it is and put that on there. So it’s all hidden. It all looks great. I do not have the tack form mounting set up. I have another manufacturers that was popular at that time. Uh, but I understand what you’re talking about with a little carbon tubes. Sure. Get the thing out there where you want it and adjust it. It’s wonderful. And if, if, uh, if you take the time to run the wiring where it’s out of sight, it looks factory. Uh, and, uh, I mean, not everybody cares about their Jeep doing that, but this is the first new Jeep I’ve had in 25 years. So, uh, and I did it rough in the, the XJ. I didn’t want to do it rough in the Gladiator. It looks really nice. And that’s the nice thing about products. Like what you guys have is you can make it look professional.
[00:06:38:12 – 00:11:41:03]
Yeah, it’s nice. One thing I’d like to see with, I mean, with your, uh, Gladiator 2021, you’re able to mount without drilling any holes, just tapping into some of the OEM mounting holes and then in 2024, they had like actual mounting provisions. Really? In the dash. That’s nice. Yeah. So there’s already like mounting holes up there ready to go. But what I’d like to see is power up top, you know, like it’s, it’s running the powers is fine, but it’d be nice if they had like high powered type C charging ports. Cause a lot of times in the dash, they’ll put, you know, a USB plug, but it’s typically to plug into CarPlay. It doesn’t put out enough power to, you know, properly power a wireless charger. Right. But, um, but that’s cool that you want out of the way to get, get it, uh, wired up and dialed in, you know? Well, and also too, it’s nice for, for folks like you at Tacform, you come up with a solution where people don’t have to understand, uh, basic electricity, basic electronics and, uh, having a relays and, uh, having it, uh, having it protected with fuses and all the, and even the size of the wire, uh, can play into it. I mean, they’re in the dash, it’s all really close. So it’s not that, that, not that important, but a lot of people don’t understand you can’t take a 16 gauge wire and run it 30 feet and actually get 12 volts at the end because they’re saying, going to get there. And the amperage certainly isn’t going to get there. So, um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, when you put a kit together, uh, for people, it really makes a big difference. And you’re right. If there was power up top there, it’d make it even, even easier for the end user. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It’s been, it’s a cool market too, because over the past few years, there’s so much competition in the space. It actually makes it better, you know, because there’s more, there’s more innovation, you know, you get a lot of like replication too that exists, you know? Um, which is fine. Um, but yeah, there’s just so much innovation, so many, you know, especially in the Jeep, like if you have, um, I don’t know, we’ll say like a Ford F 150. Sometimes there’s a couple options, like you’ll mount your phone or tablet off the dash, but with Jeep guys are putting devices everywhere. You know, they’re mounting on grab handles on the sound bar, uh, you know, off the dash off the center console. So it’s cool. And, and people, and there’s like enough different devices and comms and things that people want to mount where you can, you know, it actually makes sense. You know, they’re not just like accessorizing their truck. Like, well, I think some of that stuff is they’re bored and this is a lot cheaper than buying a bigger tires and a new axle and gears and all that stuff. But Hey, I can put another mountain on the dash. That’ll be cool. So you get into the modification, a fever of modifying the, uh, modifying Jeep speaking amounts. Uh, are y’all doing anything for star link mounts? Cause I mean, Jeep is great for that with the fiberglass tops or. Yeah, we do. Well, so we, we, uh, we basically have the parts and components to build the kit. So what we’ve seen a lot of people doing on our website is grabbing, um, like a 20 millimeter ball and arm, and then a star link kit and mounting it, you know, in the rear, uh, right up through the fiberglass top. Yeah. And it seems to be pretty bolt on and plug and play. Um, but nothing on the dash. I mean, we have guys that ask, you know, like, Hey, can you, yeah, can you, can we mount the star link up there? I’m like, it doesn’t really work, but people try it. I think they’re thinking the glass, getting the signal back and forth through the glass and they don’t know about the fiberglass portion, which the fiberglass is, is probably better than glass as far as getting the radio signal back and forth. Oh yeah. And on the dash, like it’s hard to angle the, you know, the star linked way you need it, you know, it says you should have it on like, I think a 15 degree angle or something, but I don’t know. I don’t think it’s necessary. We have guys that just pin it up to the top and it works. You got to have, I mean, especially mobile, you have to have some leverage there. I mean, especially if you’re going off road, I think it’d be so much fun. And I’m sure people have already done it, but have the, uh, the star link set up and you’re out there at a Moab or, uh, on the other root con trail and you’re just lights, uh, doing streaming live on YouTube and the, you, I’m doing the rubicon trail, follow me for the next 45 hours and then watch the trip. For sure. Yeah. Well, it’s a game changer. Yeah. Internet. Um, so, um, I don’t know. I mean, you know, the, you know, your market better than I do, but I would think that a ready made kit for installing star links would probably increase the amount of star links that go out there. Everybody likes it easy. You know, we were talking about power up on the, on the dash. Everybody likes it easy. And then when you just have to really start thinking about it, it’s not as interesting. So yeah, yeah, they need like just an add to cart option, you know, like, oh, this will work for my Jeep right here. Yeah. Well, you know, most, oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. That’s all right. It was, yeah, this has already been thought through. All I have to do is install it. Uh, and I think it’s more likely to happen.
[00:11:42:07 – 00:13:02:26]
Yeah. With, you know, with a lot of our parts, um, most of what we have for phone and Jeep or tablet or, you know, CB radio, it revolves around a 20 millimeter ball and socket and certain ball sizes have like load capacities or thresholds that you don’t want to go over because you, you know, like a 20 millimeter ball, we say you can put an arm up to seven inches long with a device up to two pounds in a mobile environment. But when it starts getting like more aggressive than that, or there’s heavier loads, the ball and socket can slip. It’s like designed to have a breakaway point, you know? So for the star link, it’s really better to go up to like the 20, what we have is called a 26 series, which is a little bit bigger of a ball and you can put a much heavier load on it. And if you’re like hammering it through trails, even with a longer arm, it’s not going to slip or move, you know? So yeah, but the hard part is once people, you know, you buy a dash kit for your vehicle, you’re mounting your phone, your CB, this, that you want to stay within that 20 millimeter ecosystem because you’re like, you know, collecting parts like Lego, so you have them for, you know, for down the road. So I don’t know. Yeah. It’s like buying a one DeWalt drill or something. And now you’re married to the batteries.
[00:13:03:29 – 00:13:05:01]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:06:23 – 00:15:23:00]
So, so for us, like with commercial trucking, we have a bigger ball system because it just takes so much more abuse over time. And even though the metal, the ball and socket is metal. If you, if it slips, like if you’re repositioning the mount without loosening the ball and socket and it starts to wear, you know, you just don’t want that. You want the ball and socket to be locked out. So like in commercial trucking, we have a bigger ball. Um, but in vehicles, mostly 20 millimeter, but with the star link, really 20 six is kind of like the way to go. I didn’t realize that. I mean, you can get away with 20. It’s fine. You just have to like, torque the heck out of the ball and socket joint. And it works, but it’s kind of at the. The max of what we would say, like is the recommended load on the 20 millimeter. You know, now you mentioned CBs. I think that the big thing now, at least in the, the Jeep community is GMRS. Uh, especially when you just look at it at antenna size, uh, and a lot less noise. Um, so that was the other thing I put on my mount was I put a place where I could put the face cause I had a removal removable face, uh, for the, uh, the GMRS. So I had another mount where I’ve got the face in between the two phone, uh, holders, and so I’ve got the thing, you know, pointing towards me and then I can move it around and so on and so forth. Do you guys have anything for, uh, like GMRS or I guess with the CB, I don’t know of any CB that has a removable face. And I just don’t think there’s enough room for a full size CB on the dad. Yeah. Well, even just like the, the GMRS handhelds are like a Midland, you know, like one of the MXTs or the, the, um, GME radio or whatever, but they, so a lot of those come with like a U bracket. So in, in the kit to hold like the radio portion itself. So that can be mounted to any of our dash tracks, like pretty easily. But what’s cool that we’ve been doing is we launched a new line of magnetic attachments for like the handheld. So if you have a walkie talkie or the microphone and it typically has either a clip or that hanger button where you have to go and hang it up, uh, you can remove that button and install a magnet or remove the clip and install a magnet.
[00:15:24:06 – 00:16:19:22]
So we just launched that family of product like a month ago and it’s been, it’s been great. We’ve been doing it for Midland, like for the MXT two seven five and five seven five, we’ve had a magnetic option for, you know, a couple of years now. Um, but now that we’re rolling it out to everything, it’s nice. Cause we have a whole, we’re like starting to build the ecosystem out. So yeah, I don’t know. That’s kind of, it’s one of our cooler, um, projects that we’ve been wrapped up. Where do you come up with your ideas? Is it just by use and you think of things, you get feedback from people and say that it would be nice that if we could do so on and so forth, because you have to, you plan ahead, you can’t just say, well, okay. And build it, you know, like you said, you’re coming up with a full line of things, so that requires some planning, uh, the whole nine yards. Yeah, definitely. Customers are big. Um, competition, you know, you look to see what other people are doing, but really the bigger part of it is just, I think when you’re in the mindset of,
[00:16:20:23 – 00:17:50:03]
um, developing products every day, you’re just what, like, that’s all you think about, you know, so every day you’re, we’re coming in and sitting with engineering and design saying like, what can we do that’s new and different? Like it’s good to, if, if an, if a new vehicle comes out, you have to make a solution for it, like you have to have a amount, right? And there’s always like that race, like who’s first to market, you know, and you’re like playing that game, but for like holders and, uh, you know, phone holders and CB radio holders and switch panel mounts, like a lot of that stuff. We try to take a new approach, you know, we just, we look at everything and say, how can we make it, we make it better. And there’s definitely not a shortage of, of ideas. Like if we had more engineers and more time, like we would probably be pumping out way more than we have, but there’s like, there’s like a laundry list of new ideas and new things we want to tackle. And then it’s just, uh, you know, you put the hammer down every day, try to get it, try to get everything done, you know, so, but yeah, like customers are great. You know, customer feedback is huge. Um, but yeah, I think it’s just when you’re in the mindset of innovating and developing and improving, it just kind of, it’s like, you haven’t, I don’t know. The ideas just keep flowing to be honest. So this has to be, you must get a lot of suggestions and you have to have a dumb one. What is the dumbest idea that you’ve ever heard? Uh, and of course you didn’t make it, but what’s the dumbest idea that you’ve heard? Oh man.
[00:17:51:27 – 00:19:14:26]
I don’t know. I, we have funny ones. I don’t know if they’re dumb ones, but they’re funny. Yeah. So like we had a guy today, a buddy of mine, he got, he went through, uh, like the drive-through and wanted to mount his dipping sauce. So he’s like, you need to make a bill, little aluminum, you know, a little holder for my dipping sauce or, um, you know, I dunno, we had, we had a guy that took, uh, he had a can of peanuts and he bought our mag safe charger, you know, and he threw the can of peanuts up there. Right. You know, so yeah, that’s, it’s funny. We get all types of goofy stuff. A lot of the, a lot of it is where you see like, I don’t want to say bad ideas, but where things start to get crazy is we have a ball and socket system. We have connectors so you can make the arms like longer. And it’s like where it starts to stretch is where people want to mount like cameras, like like a dab, what you’re talking about where you can put a dab. Yeah. I gotcha. Yeah. They want to daisy chain parts, but like, of course, because you have like a load capacity, you have to like be careful. And then there’s airbag deployment zones and things like you have like keep out zones, you have to make sure people are not, or they know better to like not put things there. Yeah. Like, like a little rhinestones and stuff that the women will put on the air. You know, ma’am, that’s a claymore that you’re building. Yeah. That’s a good example. Like we have guys like, Oh, it’d be cool if he had an adhesive thing you could put on the steering wheel. So my, you know, phone is right in front of me. Like, I don’t know about that.
[00:19:16:12 – 00:22:24:18]
So yeah, we get some crazy, we get some crazy ideas, but, um, so you mentioned, uh, when vehicles come out, I can imagine that that’s a pivotal moment because there may be people that don’t have any phone holders or they’ve got those vent holder ones or something slacky type stuff. But if they get like a brand new, uh, F two 50 and, and, uh, and you got them ready to go, generally speaking, when people get a product that they like, they’re going to stick with that company. So yeah, to be the, like you said, to be the first on it. So my question to you is what do you do with all the vehicles that you buy so that you can build product for? Oh man. Stockpile them. No, we, we, uh, use a bag and bump for vehicles. That’s the hardest part. You know, sometimes we get like, uh, like OEM CAD files, which is super nice. Yeah. You can build, you can build things perfect. You know, sometimes, you know, like for Bronco Tacoma, Sprinter, like their vehicles, we needed anyway. So like we bought them. Um, but usually it’s like, you know, you build a relationship with a dealership and they, but you come in and scan, but it’s still hard, you know, like a brand new Sierra comes out, right? They change the dash style. Of course. And it’s a, it’s a real expensive truck. And then you, you find a guy that has one and invite him over to the office. You know, even if you pay, like you could pay him or what, you know, whatever. You cook him a big Turkey dinner. So he falls asleep and then you can go molest his truck. Yeah. That’s what I should do. But their eyes, like when you walk out there with the pry tool and the scanner, you know, they’re like, you know, they don’t, they don’t like that. You know, so yeah, it’s hard because you have to know what’s under the dash to and what you’re mounting to. Like some, some guys build dash brackets and they’ll just bolt it to pla- like here’s a plastic tray. Let’s bolt it to it. Um, but you really have to know what’s under there, you know, and what you’re mounting it to and how thick the material is. And if, if that vehicle has different trim levels with different size monitors, the available space behind the tray could be more or less. So really it’s, it’s rough, you know, like we’ll get a car here. We’ll scan it. Inspect it. If they let us pop off panels, we do that. And then we go through the design process, which can take a week or two or a few days. It just depends with some iterations, but then we have to get the vehicle back to test like a 3d printed or, you know, prototype part. So we might not get the vehicle back for another month, month and a half, you know, finally it comes in, it might fit. It might not fit, you know, if it doesn’t fit, you make some changes and like that can drag on for a long time, you know, sometimes it can take six months to knock something out, you know, it’s really short stints of work, but over a long period of time. Right. And then there’s other times where you just hit the mark, you know, like on the first shot, you, I don’t know, it’s just obvious, like how to, uh, how to attach, you know, and because our system’s all metal, like we want to make sure that we’re maintaining,
[00:22:25:25 – 00:25:28:17]
uh, the integrity of the ball and sot, like the load capacity and integrity of the ball and socket system from the base to the holder. Like we would never in certain scenarios we do it, but we try to stay away from mounting like a heavy metal plate onto plastic with all these metal parts, because then what good is it? Like you’re only, it’s only as stable as like, it’s only as good as the weakest link, you know? So if you’re mounting a heavy solid platform on a piece of plastic that just flexes and the whole arms moving, it’s like we’ve, we’ve failed, you know, I bet you guys have a lot, you have to go through a lot to make sure things don’t vibrate. Uh, because I would think that, uh, objects vibrating can get really irritating, uh, especially if it’s like a tablet and you’re trying to look at it. Uh, now, you know, your, your drive train may need and your tires may need to be balanced and so forth, but in a pristine vehicle, it shouldn’t vibrate. Is, is, do you find that difficult to keep things stationary, especially whenever you have a long arm? Yeah. It’s, it’s super like dependent on the vehicle. You know, um, and we do stuff like in the Jeep and like your gladiator, we have a test where, so there’s different types of different ways to approach building a mount. So a lot of the gladiator mounts that you see, they sit in the tray. I imagine yours sits inside. Yes. The plastic tray, right? Yeah. So when you put a long arm on it and pull the cradle down, the, there’s a little bit of deflection, like it’ll flex a little bit because the tray itself is flexing. Right. Cause I mean, the plastic that it’s attached to isn’t rigid, like a metal or something, right? Yeah. So what we did is like, instead of having our sit in the tray, it sits on top of the tray and around the perimeter of it. So it basically like, um, spreads out the load. So, and then what we’ll do is we’ll take a suction cup and stick it to the shield. Um, and you could, you could measure, like you just pull, like, you know, pull with five pounds of load to see how much deflection there is on a seven inch arm. So we can compare to see, you know, uh, you can kind of see it in advance. Like you can just grab it and pull. You don’t need to do all that, but it’s like, that’s what the engineers like to do. You don’t really see. No, having specifics so that you can engineer specifically what you need. Don’t over engineer it. Yeah. And you want to stay away from long arms. We in certain scenarios like Bronco put their accessory ready mounting hole. I shouldn’t say that on the Jeep talk show, but they put the accessory ready mounting hole very far back. So if you want to mount devices and you build a bracket in the back, you have to have long arms. And when you do that, you just want to come up with a way to try to rest them. You know, so they’re sitting on the dash, like you can make them float, but you get like, it’s not huge vibration you get, but when you’re driving down the street and there’s just a little bit of vibration. It depends on the individual. It, you know, some people won’t care. Other people will care. And then, you know, it’s hard to, when they call in or text you, it’s hard to say live with it.
[00:25:29:28 – 00:26:10:22]
No, you can’t. Right. Yeah. You can say that. Well, I think a lot of people don’t consider this. She’s like, I got a great idea. I can make this. I got a 3d printer. I can just make this. And then it’s like, yeah, there’s so much more to it because there’s, you want a lot of customers and a lot of customers are going to have a lot of different opinions. Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. It’s true. I mean, you have to, uh, for us, it’s about being patient. Like we’re not trying to rush into the market, like with the new, uh, solution for every vehicle, like we really try to take our time to make sure it’s flushed out and what’s cool too, because we’re small. We, we iterate on every shipment. So like our Jeep, JL or gladiator Mount.
[00:26:11:26 – 00:28:28:21]
Um, we’re probably on our fourth iteration, you know, like the first one we did was sheet metal, and then it went from sheet metal to billet. And then we changed the way that it attached to the dash to just make the installation a little bit easier on the customer. And then like on the last shipment, you know, we, we moved the slot where our track ball goes in, because the location where you could drop the track ball in was in a location that a lot of people wanted to mount their device. Like, yeah, we’re constantly iterating, you know, and when you make parts out of billet, instead of a like injection molded composite parts, those changes are easier. Like we’re not, we’re not married to tooling, like where we have a big tooling investment and we don’t want to make a change, you know, so for certain, for certain things we have tooling, of course, but for certain parts, uh, we’ll just continue to iterate for the life of the product. I mean, hopefully we hit the mark on the first time and don’t have to, but you always look a new vehicle launches. We have to build a part based on what we think the customer wants, but then when they start using it and give you real world feedback, you want to try to accommodate or make it better. Right. Well, it’s just that, that fewer, uh, amount of, uh, customer quests or customer complaints. So when you say billet, uh, I mean, I understand what billet is, but I don’t know that I initially understand how it’s made. Is that all CNC? So you literally take a big hug of metal and CNC it into the shape that you want it. Yeah. So they’ll take a block and then they’ll, yeah, just take a milling bit and kind of mill out the parts, note, you know, put the track versus like if it’s cast or injection molded, like you’ll have a mold or two or a buddy of mine that makes door pockets, uh, for the, uh, the JL and the JT. And, uh, he spent 120 grand on having the, the, uh, the mold, uh, made so they could injected a mold. They’re really, really nice, but I couldn’t believe that that, you know, that the cost that much, cause it’s a huge chunk of metal that they’re injecting stuff into and makes changes very difficult. But, um, I just, the CNC, I would think that that would be slower and more expensive in the long run. It’s not.
[00:28:30:03 – 00:29:25:26]
It depends on volume. So like, if you have high volume parts, if you invest in tooling, the unit cost could be much lower, but you have to produce a higher volume to amortize the tooling costs. Sure. If you have got to pay for the CNC. Yeah. When you have a CNC machined, like say we make a dash bracket out of a billet slab, you don’t need to make a lot of them. We can make a couple hundred, see how it works out. You know, and when you make making changes, you’re not changing the, you know, the tool you’re just changing the programming and the drill bit, you know, I can certainly understand 3d printing something and you test it. You have an actual physical item that you can, you know, move around and touch, put it up there. Is it going to fit like it’s supposed to, and then maybe doing the CNC for some runs, but I would think, I guess, like you say, it just really depends on how many you’re selling and I don’t know how far it goes before you go,
[00:29:25:26 – 00:29:38:05]
we should have done a tool for that. We should have done an injected molding for that. I like the idea of the billet. The billet looks cool. I mean, it looks high quality, which it is, you know, but, uh, yeah,
[00:29:39:10 – 00:32:40:10]
it is cool. You know, like, I like that. I mean, it’s, it’s not, for me, it’s not just about function. Like function is super important. But even in our, our like arms or couplers, we call them and knobs, like we put a lot of design intent into it to make it look good, not just, not just function. It needs to function, but I don’t know. I just, I like, uh, really every vehicle is different, you know? And if, if a new, say Jeep changes their, uh, interior for 2027, and we want to make a grab handle mount, like something unique, that’s kind of oddly shaped and it would cost a lot to machine, then tooling it up would be great because there, we might have four or five or six years of that vehicle in production where we can continue to sell. But sometimes like we got a lot of requests for a TJ mount, you know, which is an older vehicle, but there’s still a lot of them on the road and there’s like a cult following around the TJ and people love it. Yeah. We got two in the driveway. Yeah. So it, um, something like that. It’s like, we question, do we, do we do billet or do we, you know, it just depends on the part, you know, like what’s the shape? The parts that they’ve been out of, out of production for so long that, you know, you really don’t want to make a bunch of them. Cause I would imagine, uh, there’s not a lot of people going to buy them. Uh, and that was the only thing I was going to ask you, um, is, uh, I’m glad you mentioned TJ. Um, so I’m sure you do, you handle the JLs and the JTs and I’m talking about specific, specific fitting parts. I’m sure you have a, like a universal, uh, kit, uh, that you, that you can make work. But what do you have that specifically fits the various Jeeps like the TJ, the YJ, the XJ, do you have anything for those specific Jeeps? No, we’re working our way backwards. So we have like the, you know, obviously the, the new, uh, gladiators and jails, the previous version where the dash was a little bit different. And then JK we have, um, And then like the earlier JK, like the new, the, I don’t want to call them newer JKs, but there’s JKs with two different interiors. You know, some have like a pocket at the top, some are flat. Um, so the one with the pocket, we have a good solution for. And then behind that we did the TJ. So we’re kind of like working our way backwards. It’s just, it’s based on what vehicle we can get our hands on and how much bandwidth we have. Like any vehicle that’ll pull up into our shop and let us scan it. We’ll, we’ll try to make something, you know? But just getting your hand on the vehicle is, uh, you know, is sometimes the harder, the harder part. And how long do you need the vehicle? Cause I would imagine it’s not just a, let me take a quick couple of snaps and you can go on going your way. Do you need it for like a day or something? A scan takes a couple hours, you know, so like you, someone pulls in.
[00:32:41:14 – 00:35:49:08]
You can, uh, if it’s a part that we can remove from the dash and bring inside, we’ll bring it in, spray it, apply stickers, scan it. Uh, sometimes we don’t have that luxury of doing that. So we have to do it all in the car and then you’re, it’s like weather dependent. You know, you can’t do that in the winter. You don’t want to do it when it’s a hundred degrees out. If the sun’s beating down, it makes getting a scan a little bit more difficult. So, um, I’m anticipating, I’m anticipating people going, Hey, I got it. You want to scan, scan this from me and give me a, give me a little discount, a little something, something, but they need to understand. It’s not going to be in there a snap snap and they’re done. It’s a commitment. And like, if you start taking the thing apart, that’s an even deeper commitment. Yeah, but it’s cool. We have a bar here and a pool table in the front office so we could keep everybody occupied. You know, they like, Hey, we, yeah, we like to hang out. So if somebody would like to do that, I mean, I don’t want to, uh, to, to inundate you with requests, but, uh, do they just go to your website, call the support number, uh, get told a polite, uh, Oh no, we, we have the JL, we have the JT, we have the Bronco. Uh, Oh yeah. They could always request it, you know, like, in fact, people just do the hard part is just proximity, you know, like, how do you find the guy that’s local enough to where, cause again, like some, it’s a few trips. It’s not one trip. It’s like the first time we could scan and, and look at some maybe critical dimensions or like what’s under the, what we’re working with, but then that vehicle has got to come back in a month or two weeks and then again, and again. So you want to find some, I think it’d be fun to actually be part of the process and you don’t, it’s not even like you’re having a work. You’re just, you know, you’re part of the process, but just by, uh, letting people, uh, you know, scan stuff and make stuff to fit it, I just think it’d be really cool. Yeah, they like it. And it’s cool. You build a lot of friends actually like a lot of our, you know, we’ll call them like our ambassadors or friends or people that are just super supportive. Like, you know, they, you know, I don’t know, they come in all the time. Now I need to, anytime someone’s brought a vehicle in here to scan, they’re like, well, what do you mean? They come in anytime. You got a bar, you got a pool table. Yeah, I love it. It’s cool. That’s, that’s kind of like the best part, you know, it’s easier on vehicles where people are, you know, I worry again, like if it’s a new vehicle and you have to pop off a piece of paneling, I don’t really like that because you never, you know, clips break. Yeah. Um, once you do it a lot, you kind of have it figured out where you’re not, but you never know, you know, and you don’t never want to, um, usually the driver’s going to be trapped in. They’re okay with it. They’re people that are upfitting their truck anyway, you know, so they don’t mind. There’s a rattle starts and it’s, it’s in the rear bumper, you know, 10 feet from where you were doing something, but it didn’t start doing it until you took this panel off, uh, in, in the dash area. And you go, they’re not, they’re not connected. It’s just rattling for another reason. People don’t understand that problems occur all the time and it, and sometimes they close, uh, occurring in close proximity. Many years in it, you can’t install an update without that being the problem because they can’t remember their password. Yeah.
[00:35:50:10 – 00:36:20:29]
So, uh, but you have to treat it like they, uh, you know, they have an honest, uh, uh, uh, response there. All right. So I’m sorry, I get all excited about asking these questions and there was some other stuff that I needed to talk to you about because I’m not covering the products that you have, which is the thing we want people here to know. They want to know why they should go over there. Of course, you just go to tack form.com and have a look for yourself. Uh, what would you say is the biggest, uh, selling product that you have? Because that’s what people are going to go to your site first for.
[00:36:22:04 – 00:38:35:23]
Well, so in short, it’s phone holders, right? And it’s very, it’s very vehicle specific. So like with, with Jeep in particular, it’s just the dashboard brackets, like a dash mount with a phone holder, like a spring loaded cradle or mag safe is going to be the most reliable. And then a lot of guys are going with, uh, CB radio or not CD. I call them CD, but just like the, you know, Mikes or GMRS handheld mounts. Yeah. Um, that’s like the best combo because it’s most common. People are mounting one to two phones and then they’re mounting their handheld. Sometimes a tablet, but tablets can be a little bit invasive. Like the idea of a tablet is great. And so you have it mounted up and you’re like, man, it’s just, it’s big. And it’s kind of in the way. So some people, you know, uh, like you see a lot of tablets mounted in trucks and vehicles for, um, but they’re not, they’re not common. There’s not always a tablet in them. You know what I mean? So with, with our parts, what’s nice is because we have the integrated track. You can pretty easily like remove the whole tablet assembly. And when you need it, you’re going, you know, you can hook it back up. Simply so it doesn’t get your, your vehicle doesn’t get broken into, uh, because that’s a large item and easy to see. Yeah. And GPS like garments, you know, GoPro, like all the action cameras are pretty, pretty common to have a solution up there. But yeah, those are, those are pretty, you know, I’d say the most, the most common is just phone and a lot of people like wireless charging is great. So a lot of people want wireless charging, but it just doesn’t last. I mean, even if you have really nice, a really nice product, the technology moves quick, like we just launched a new wireless charging cradle. It’s 25 watt. It has what’s called a Peltier plate in it. So it, it actually cools the face of the, uh, crazy. That’s a great idea. Cause those inductive chargers get quite hot. The phone gets quite hot. Yeah, they get hot. But so then the front of the Peltier plate, you know, it gets cold. It’ll be 50 to 60 degrees, but then the back cooks, you know, cause it has to separate that hot and cold. So the fan blowing out of the back of the cradle is blowing out like hot, hot air.
[00:38:36:25 – 00:40:41:05]
So it’s cool technology, but when people buy it, they’ll, you know, they don’t know that you have to use like our included plug in cable, because when you plug into the USB C port in the dashboard of your Jeep, it doesn’t put out enough power. To power the device. So the power requirements are high. And then if your case is too thick, it doesn’t charge as fast. When they go to grab the phone, their fingers are hot because it’s blowing hot air out the back, but they don’t realize that the front face is cooling the back of the device. So with, I like all the new technology with wireless charging, but I just feel like it’s not there yet, like just plugging in is so fast, you know, with like a high powered, you know, USB or a PD charger, like, you know, in 20 minutes you get so much, you know, I don’t know. I can’t, I can’t believe you guys are doing the Peltier cooler. That’s, that’s, that’s pretty cool. I mean, pardon the pun, but to actually go to that level and put a fan on it to remove the heat. So I often give Jeep talk show million dollar ideas. They’re never worth a dollar, but anyway, cheap talk show million dollar idea, that I thought about, I haven’t done it because on our way to and from EJS, a 19 hour trip for down here in Southeast Texas, certainly during the day, the phone, which is inductive charging, the phone gets quite hot. And it’s a combination of the inductive charging and the sunlight coming through the windshield. So I thought it would be nice to build a shade, just a cover. Cool. So that the sun doesn’t go directly onto the phone and you have a little air gap in there, it wouldn’t be touching a straight onto the cover. So that’s your Jeep talk show million dollar idea, make little, little covers. Or maybe, maybe you could get one of those little umbrellas. Are you, oh, are you writing it down? I thought you already had one. Oh no, come on. I’m writing this one down though. It’s going right to the end. Okay. Here’s a secondary. Uh, you can get one of those little, those, uh, get a bunch of those little umbrellas that they put in drinks and this mounted over the thing that would be. Yeah.
[00:40:42:10 – 00:41:12:19]
It looked good next to the ducks. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Get a little duck sunshade for the doc in your phone and the combination of the Peltier cooler, actually the cover would be a lot cheaper, but I bet you that would work very well, uh, cause I, I get the feeling that it’s the, uh, especially have the, I actually, uh, adjusted my, one of my events to kind of go up underneath the phone, uh, so that it actually is blowing AC on the phone, keeping it cool, uh, which you can do, but I’d much rather have it pointing at me.
[00:41:13:20 – 00:42:35:08]
Yeah. And the only problem with that is if you’re on a call and it’s not connected to your vehicles, like Bluetooth, then whoever’s on the other end, it sounds like you’re a wind tunnel. Cause there’s air blowing over the microphone, you know? Yeah. Very true. Um, yeah, that’s cool though. It’s you gotta keep the phone cool. You know, they, they cook, they overheat, but in wireless charging, I think most people don’t know it just, it just generates heat. It’s like, there’s no, there’s no way around it. Like they, you know, if you’re, I don’t know, it’s just the nature of wireless charging, you know, your phones, phones get hot, you know, so when you’re, when you’re driving, wirelessly charging your phone, running GPS or maps, your phone’s cooking, you know, so you remember the old cell phones, the first cell phones that came out and you, and we’ll back when we actually used to use the cell phones for making phone calls and you have it up in your head. And after a 15, 20 minute call, your head started to get hot because the phone’s getting hot and that RF energy coming in and out of the phone, even though it’s low wattage, it’s heating up. So it’s heating up your head. You know, that was the whole thing about you’re going to get cancer by the cell phones. So that, that is akin to the inductive charging. It’s not RF energy, but it is electromagnetic energy. Yeah. Moving back and forth. Um, unrelated to this conversation, uh, pretty much, but do you know that the, the new Tesla robotaxis are going to use inductive charging?
[00:42:36:13 – 00:43:12:23]
No, they charge them. Yeah. They purchased a company out of Germany that had this, basically it’s a big plate, uh, in the ground and then you roll over the, the, I mean, the batteries are already there, so you just need a way to be able to receive the power. So the robotaxis that they’re coming out with, they don’t have to have somebody plug them in. All they have to have is the car drive over the inductive charger and it’ll charge them and then it can go forward or back out and go on. So, uh, we’re going to see more wireless technology and, uh, people are not going to understand how that thing can just sit there and nothing happened. You know, you don’t have to play it in.
[00:43:14:01 – 00:44:01:16]
Yeah. No, that’s crazy. It’s, I hope, I hope it’s more efficient than the phone ones though. I think it is. I mean, that was the other, my other concern and, uh, not to go too far down Tesla train here, but, uh, it was, it was in the nineties, uh, nineties, like 92, 93% efficient, which I was very surprised. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. It is not, it’s not very efficient and I’m thinking they’re going to have to have a pacemaker warning, you know, do not be in this, in this car while charging. Oh yeah. How about that? You know, technology is moving fast. It’s crazy. Yeah. You know, I, I worry about the future of a vehicle mounts and, you know, with, with all the technology that they’re putting in dashboards and I guess like for off-road and stuff, that’s not going to change, you know, right.
[00:44:03:07 – 00:44:41:20]
But I’m worried the GM’s going to require you to come in and have a dealer installed phone mount, uh, and pay a subscription for it. That was a bad. Yeah. They should just get rid of all everything altogether. You know, just get rid of the whole display, just put it on your phone. Well, you probably, you probably don’t remember this, but I remember when PCs first came out and they were $10,000 for a 10, uh, megabyte hard drive. Uh, and then they started coming out with, uh, there was IBM stuff and then they started coming out with a pieces so that you could make, you know, you get the motherboard, you get the hard drive, you get all that stuff, you just buy it in pieces and put it together yourself. I think that’s what’s going to happen to automobiles.
[00:44:42:23 – 00:45:09:20]
Yeah. The only way you’re going to be able to afford one, not have all the subscriptions. And I blame, I blame Adobe for everybody doing the subscriptions. They ruined it. They ruined it. Ruined it for all of us. All right. So, uh, we, I asked you about your, your most, your best selling one. Uh, what are, give me a rundown on what you sell. Cause it’s not just phone mounts. You’ve got a bunch of other stuff you mentioned handles earlier. So it’s not like you’re, you’re just holding the phones.
[00:45:10:23 – 00:45:29:12]
No. Well, so for grab handle, what I was referring to is kind of a mount. That attaches to the grab handle. So then from there you can put maybe a switch panel or, you know, but in turn, in terms of holders, yeah. Yeah. No, I thought you actually were making grab handles. Like what we call the old
[00:45:29:12 – 00:47:19:28]
handles. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I’d love to, you know, we, we have some, like, we have products like that that we make that we don’t sell that we just make. Oh yeah. You got a CNC machine. Of course you’ve got all kinds of crap. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have, like here it’s very light prototype. So we have a CNC lathe, a CNC mill, just a small, like small one. And then we have a few 3d printers, you know, all of our manufacturing. I say unfortunately, but I don’t know if it’s unfortunately or fortunately is happening overseas. It’s, it’s hard for us to make these parts here because they, there’s so many processes we use, you know, we do injection molding, extrusion, CNC machining, um, like metal forming, you know, laser. You’re not working, you’re playing. I mean, I know it’s hard, but you’re, you’re, you’re playing with stuff. I love it. Yeah. And I don’t want to be constrained with equipment. Like some, some I like, I love and really respect us manufacturing. I think it’s amazing. But what it became is 3d printed parts or sheet metal fabrication, which I’m also in supportive. Like I love that, but I just want to make things the way I want to make. I don’t want to be constrained to certain ideas based on the equipment that I have in the back room. We just want to make whatever we want to make and we go wherever we have to go to make it in order to get it at a price where someone’s willing to buy it so we can continue to like operate and innovate. You know, yeah, you can make everything in the United States. If you want to, you may not be able to sell it for a profit. Uh, absolutely. You have to do, uh, what allows you to continue doing it. Um, the only, the only thing that, and I’ve never dealt with this before, but I would imagine it’s, it’s interesting. Having to deal with people overseas, especially, uh, whenever it’s a different language and how you deal with quality issues. And it’s always, it’s just like,
[00:47:19:28 – 00:47:25:06]
it. I told you this, I sent you the specs. You got the drawing. It’s like, why?
[00:47:26:08 – 00:47:38:15]
Yeah, that’s, that’s a whole nother. Like, you know, the reality is if you have good suppliers with good processes, you got to find them and then there’s that’s a hard part.
[00:47:39:16 – 00:47:59:17]
It’s like, yeah, when you talk to people and if they’re a competitor, they may not be telling you good stuff, you know? So it’s a lot of trial and error to find them. Uh, so yeah, I can, the people don’t understand this. They think, Oh, it’s, you just send it off to China and they do it. No. And just because you send it off to China, doesn’t mean they’re not going to give it to a bunch of other people. That’s going to copy it.
[00:48:00:18 – 00:48:39:27]
Yeah. And they’re pretty, you know, for the most part, our factories, like we’ve had them pretty well, we make sure that they’re just factories and not competitors, like selling products on Amazon because, or else you’re, I don’t know, then you worry about competing with them, but when you have good factories, there’s like, how do I put this? We make a ball, it’s called an AMPS mount. So it’s a metal plate with four holes and then there’s a ball connected to it. And it’s probably what you use to attach your devices to your mount and your Jeep. It’s like an AMPS base. So to make that part, to design it is super simple, right?
[00:48:41:05 – 00:49:19:11]
But when, because of the volume that we buy, like our factory produced a machine just to like place the plates, add thread lock to the screws and use it. So they basically built automation equipment for our basic part. So sometimes like the part, you might have a simple part, but the machine that’s being used, there’s like a custom piece of equipment being used to produce that part in high volume, that’s more innovative than the part itself. That’s kind of the cool part. And so in the US, like that type of automation equipment costs a fortune.
[00:49:20:16 – 00:51:04:00]
So we’re going to shops and then relying on, you know, maybe like hand labor where mistakes can happen. They can apply too much glue, not enough glue. And I’m not saying there isn’t like awesome manufacturing and automation equipment in the US, but a lot of the people that are like manufacturing in the US, they have their own equipment. Like I went to see Diode Dynamics last week. Have you heard of Diode? They’re a LED like a lighting company. Yeah. They’re awesome. They’re in, I think it’s in St. St. Charles, Missouri. They had a car show. They have an awesome facility. They make everything in the US like lighting. Um, and it’s all state of the art stuff, you know, I would love to I mean, I’d love to do that. It’s just a, it’s a major, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to be honest with you. Do you know, but when you’re coming up with things to do, because I can tell you’re, you’re kind of like me to think of this would be neat. This would be neat. This is being neat. Um, but at some point you have to say, that’s not really my business. There’s no, there’s no good tie-in to this other than I think it’d be fun to have. Do you have to not do things all the time? Yeah. Yeah. All the time. You know, like, when you have the tools, you can imagine things, other things that you can make with those tools. Well, if I can do this, then I can do this and this had to be really cool. So yeah, I would go nuts. Yeah. You’d go nuts. You got to come by sometime and check it out here. It’s really cool. Love to. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a fun, it’s a fun shot. We’re a small team. We have like, I think 18 people now. Um, a lot of talent, you know, and everyone’s cool. Like it’s just a good, it’s just a good place to be. Do you have an HR person?
[00:51:05:07 – 00:52:12:15]
No, no, we probably need one, but no, we all get along, you know, we all get along. There’s no, no, no drama. HR is this, this is really rough. You never know why they want to talk to you. You’re not sure. Yeah. You’re never sure. All right. Well, I, uh, I screwed this one up again. I talked too much about stuff that, uh, that I find really interesting and we didn’t get to cover the products, but the good news is that you can go over to tackform.com. T a C K form.com and look for yourself. Uh, but you did get to know, uh, Nick a little better. And I, to me, that’s an important thing because everybody can make something. But who’s the individual that is that’s building it? How do they care about the product and how do they care about you being a customer? And Nick, I think that you, you care a lot and you certainly enjoy, uh, making this stuff and, uh, I would, I don’t want somebody that’s just, uh, stamping stuff out and going by it and shut up. Uh, you know, so, uh, you’re not like that at all. So I really appreciate that. And as I warned you, you know how the kids love the social media. They like looking at the pictures and making a rash comments because they’re not with, uh, within
[00:52:12:15 – 00:54:27:04]
slap distance, you know, say it to my face, you know, I’m not going to hit you, but I mean, just the, be a, be an upfront person that, you know, you’re willing to take that chance. Uh, you know, cause I think close proximity often softens, uh, the, uh, the criticism. Uh, anyway, where can we, where can we find out that you would do that? Of course. I’m just talking about myself, but, uh, where do, where do people find you on the social media? Yeah. You can find us on Facebook. We’re on Instagram, tech form dot systems. Um, you can connect with us with us through, you know, that’s probably the best place Instagram. Yeah. I think, you know, we, yeah, we do a little bit of Tik TOK, but it’s, you know, it’s like the red headed stepchild of our content, but yeah, Instagram is really where we, where we network and Facebook. Good pictures. You said you had a YouTube channel as well, right? Yeah, it’s sort of, uh, you, the YouTube channel, isn’t much of a, it’s more of a place where we’re dropping instruction videos, you know, or from your site or something. And so it’s more of a, that type of, the type of deal. Yeah. It’s, it’s informational. We don’t, we don’t really, uh, it’s just for instructions. Like we’ll, we’ll post an Instagram, we’ll do like an Instagram real or something. And then we post it to YouTube shorts, you know, it’s another social platform, but we don’t, we don’t do enough. It would be cool to do some videos just on behind the scenes, like how everything works, like how we operate. Um, just to have people see what, you know, what kind of goes on and what the development process looks like. But I’m sure we’ll, I’m sure we’ll get to it sometime. Well, uh, actually I’ve, I’ve spoken with several, uh, uh, past, uh, interviewees companies about doing that. Cause we have the ability where you could walk around with your phone and we’re doing the interview, but in the phone and then you just show the phone on the various things and you discuss it. So it’s more, much more of a, uh, an action interview than it is a talking heads interview, which I always think would be a lot more interesting, especially when you can go behind the scenes. I did have one other, one other idea for you though. Um, on that, uh, for that YouTube thing, it might be fun to put the, not initially the what ifs, but, uh, what’s Nick messing with today and, and showing those things that you create that aren’t for sale. And I think it would be really interesting. A lot of people going, Oh man, I got to have one of those.
[00:54:28:09 – 00:54:46:03]
Yeah, it’ll be cool. I’ll do, I’ll do a walkthrough of my, uh, my truck one, one day soon. And you’ll see a lot of our, you know, crazy, crazy ideas that never made it, but are bolted on my vehicle. I bet you they’re interesting. All right, Nick, I really appreciate you being here today. Uh, sorry, we ran a little long, but it’s an interesting
[00:54:46:03 – 00:54:49:09]
(Music)
[00:54:49:09 – 00:54:59:08]
if you’ve got new products coming out. Uh, so, uh, uh, again, thank you very much and have a great day. Yeah, I
[00:55:01:08 – 00:55:03:05]
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.
[00:55:03:05 – 00:55:50:02]
XJTalk.com LLC and the Jeep Talk Show podcast is attended for entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts, guests and contributors are their own and do not represent professional advice, endorsements or recommendations. We strongly advise consulting a licensed or certified mechanic or automotive professional for any repairs, modifications or maintenance to your vehicle. By listening to or using any information provided on this show, you assume full responsibility for your actions and any resulting consequences, including potential risks to safety, property or legal compliance. The Jeep Talk Show and its affiliates disclaim all liability for any damages or losses arising from the application of this content.


