Just Pull: The Spring-Loaded Cargo Strap That Beats Ratchet Straps | Jeep Talk Show

 

**Grant from TorkStrap – The Real Origin Story & Why Self-Tensioning Straps Actually Work**

Grant shares the real origin story—growing up around dirt bikes and construction with his dad, the moment a tensioned bungee cord sunk into his father’s hand, and how that gap in the market stuck with him for years. After becoming a dad himself and feeling limited in the trades, he dug the old “Grant Strap” idea out of his phone notes during COVID and decided to actually build it.

They dig into the messy reality of inventing and launching a physical product: the prototype phase with Home Depot parts and Alibaba springs, finding the right tension (about 120 lbs on the first model), avoiding the “mailbox money” invention scammers, making and selling the first ugly versions yourself, and why “people don’t buy ideas—they buy products.”

Grant explains how the spring-loaded design works, the continuous polyester limiter band for safety and load rating, why it stays tight when loads shift or compress (coolers, cardboard, UTVs, Jeeps), and the three models (1″, 1.5″, and the 2″ Pro with ratchet) that cover everything from college moves to Moab trailers.

The conversation also covers the less glamorous side of business—patent threats that turned into nothing, copycats, why building a strong brand and customer service is better protection than a patent alone, working-load math that goes beyond just vehicle weight, all-weather durability, proper care for lifetime performance, pack sizes, lengths, and extensions.

Grant talks about his *Invent With Me* podcast (helping inventors avoid the same pitfalls he hit) and what’s next for TorkStrap: more trade shows, social content, and partnerships rather than diluting the core product.

If you’ve ever cursed a ratchet strap in the rain, watched a load loosen on the highway, or thought about turning a simple idea into a real business, this one’s for you.

**Timestamps**
00:00 – AI Sign Language for Deaf Viewers
00:41 – Early Inspiration for Better Cargo Straps
02:36 – Childhood Prototypes Reveal Market Gap
04:10 – COVID Motivation to Launch Business
07:04 – Inventor Licensing Pitfalls and DIY Sales
09:48 – Prototyping, Sampling, and First Customers
11:52 – Designing the Spring-Loaded Torque Strap
14:06 – How Torque Straps Work and Their Benefits
22:48 – Creative Branding Ideas for Torque Straps
24:05 – Facing Competition and Patent Infringement
27:33 – Defending the Product Against Patent Claims
28:12 – Commitment to Quality and Customer Support
29:10 – Competing with Copycats and Maintaining Reputation
30:05 – Encouraging Ethical Purchasing
30:58 – Patent Vulnerabilities and Enforcement Challenges
35:53 – Introducing the Invent With Me Podcast
37:17 – Calculating Load Ratings and Strap Sizing
44:28 – All-Weather Durability and Maintenance
45:30 – Spring Longevity and Packaging Options
47:02 – Pricing Packs and Managing Expectations
48:04 – Customizing Strap Lengths for Use
49:01 – Strap Longevity and Care Guidelines
50:50 – Subscription Idea Mentioned
51:04 – Social Media Presence and Promotion
54:35 – Upcoming Marketing Focus for Torque Strap
56:09 – Shift from Engineering to Marketing
56:40 – Humorous Product Concepts and April Fools
57:08 – Closing Remarks and Podcast Promotion
57:42 – Final Thoughts and Gratitude

**Key Takeaways**
– Just pull—spring tension adapts to load shift or compression so you rarely (or never) have to stop and re-tighten.
– Continuous polyester strap carries the actual load rating; the spring is the adaptive element with a limiter.
– Three models cover light-to-heavy needs, including a 2″ Pro with ratchet for vehicles and heavier cargo.
– Lifetime warranty when treated with respect; average “cheap strap” life is ~2 years because people leave them in the bed.
– Best protection in business isn’t always the patent—it’s being the guy who answers the phone, honors the warranty, and shows up every day.

**Check out TorkStrap**
Website: https://torkstrap.com
Social (all platforms): @tork_strap
Invent With Me podcast: Search “Invent With Me” on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple

**Shop TorkStrap**
• TorkStrap M500 14′ x 1” Self-Tensioning Tie Down Straps (4-Pack)

• TorkStrap HD750 14′ x 1.5” Self-Tensioning Tie Down Straps

• TorkStrap PRO 25′ x 2” Self-Tensioning Ratchet Straps

• TorkStrap HD750 Bundle with Carry Bag

Every purchase through these links helps support the Jeep Talk Show at no extra cost to you.
For more recommended Jeep gear, tools, and show favorites: https://jeeptalkshow.com/amazon

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00:00 – 00:00:02:25]
(Music)

[00:00:02:25 – 00:01:24:20]
do boys and girls. It’s time for another Jeep talk show interview. And if I’m just running words together, it’s normal because I’ve, I’ve done these interviews many times. So I, I just kind of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah to there. So you, we, I actually, I was looking for a AI, um, uh, sign language person. So that I could actually have a little thing appear at the bottom and they would do the sign language for me and say something completely different, you know, maybe something offensive really makes the, right. Really make the, the people that are deaf that are watching this show, they could, they could enjoy a different, a whole different show. So Grant grew up with an obsession for dirt bikes and, uh, in the outdoors, but after years of fun in the sun and working construction, he noticed a huge gap in the market and created a solution for faster, easier, and safer cargo. Uh, securing now was it construction that, uh, made you want to get something that was easier to secure loads? It was all the above. I mean, mainly it was my father. So I started working with dad was a cop. Then he opened a small construction company when I was about 12. Uh, so I started working with him and I noticed a pattern pretty quickly between him and grandpa. They didn’t like ratchet straps. They didn’t really know how to use them. And so they were only,

[00:01:24:20 – 00:03:15:29]
well, they’re a giant pain and not a lot of guys like to admit it, but I’ve run the numbers and one in five of us don’t know how to use them. Uh, if you, if we can all figure it out eventually, but then you take a break from it, you come back to one, four months later and your buddies are looking at you and you’re trying to pretend, you know what you’re doing, but you, none of us do. And dad was in that category too. So he would only use bungee cords. Now we all know the dangers of bungee cords. And I witnessed it firsthand. Uh, he was going to let go of attention bungee cord, uh, so that it wouldn’t fly across the bed and hit me on the other side and he let go while it still had, I don’t know, 30 pounds of tension on it. And just boom, that hook sunk into the palm of his hand, just like lightning, you know, and look, dad’s rough and tough construction worker. It wasn’t a big deal to him, but to me, it was that moment when you’re a kid. I’m 15, 16. It was that moment where you’re like, man, there’s a gap in the market. There’s gotta be a better way. But I was a 15, 16 year old kid. You know, what am I going to do with this idea? So it kind of, I built a couple of prototypes when I was a kid. Um, it worked. I was just kind of scrapping bungees with the straps I found at Menards, which was our store in the Midwest. And, uh, it worked. You know, everybody thought it was cool. Mom thinks it’s cool. Dad thinks it’s cool. But, but again, this isn’t, this isn’t enough to validate a product and, you know, turn 18, then you get jobs and then the girls, girls come along and you get distracted. So I didn’t do anything. Girls never understand why you got a strap with you, uh, if you’re going out on a date so that you, there’s no testing there. No, no, it’s not a solid icebreaker. No, not at all.

[00:03:18:14 – 00:05:35:26]
So, so yeah, I mean, to answer your question, it started with construction and throughout my life, I was a dirt bike kid, you know, obsessed with dirt bikes since I was five. And by the time I was 15, I think I bought my first one. I scraped up 750 bucks and bought a complete turd. And from there, it was just your weekends were defined by getting the bike to the track and spending the day at the track. But here we are again, getting the bike to the track and straps were always like, no one wanted to spend a lot of money on them. There was, there were never really readily available. People were always stealing them and they’re always jammed in the corner of the bed of the truck, kind of filled with dirt and grime and sand. So there’s, there’s, there’s no premium straps. Nobody’s respecting these things. There’s no carry bags. And worst of all, they’re all ratchet straps and we’re all fumbling around with them and usually we do it wrong or put a giant knot in them. Yada, yada, yada. So fast forward in life. I’m 30. This is around COVID time. And I had my first daughter and I was a lineman working construction. And I, I just decided when I had my first daughter that I wanted to buy her a Mercedes when she turned 16, but I was looking at my life and my income. I kind of felt like a phony when I made that, you know, little silent promise to her when I was rocking her in bed. And I said, if I’m going to do that, I need to change this up. I need to, I need to figure out something besides what I’m doing. Not that there’s anything wrong with the trades. And sometimes I miss that lineman paycheck. Don’t get me wrong. But I knew that I was kind of, I was feeling kind of creatively limited and I wanted to expand and start to multiply my, my income. And I thought the only way to do that was with a new invention idea, a new product. And that’s when I went back to that notepad we all have in our phone and I found the, what I used to call the grant strap and I said, maybe, maybe I’ll just try this and I had never even run a lemonade stand, man, you know, so right there at COVID we’re all picking up new hobbies. My hobby was try to start a business with no experience.

[00:05:37:28 – 00:05:47:07]
So, I think a lot of us like the idea of starting a business and I think a lot of people really get excited about doing it until they actually try to start one.

[00:05:48:14 – 00:06:00:28]
What was the most, I mean, you had, you had your dad that ran a business. So that probably helped. Would you have started the business? Do you think if you, if you didn’t have your dad to either watch how he was doing it or ask him questions?

[00:06:02:03 – 00:06:09:21]
I wouldn’t say that was really a factor one way or another, because I think because dad actually told me, don’t ever start a business.

[00:06:11:09 – 00:06:16:11]
As you’re alluding to that meant that you had to at that point, it’s like, I’ll show him.

[00:06:19:15 – 00:08:18:01]
So yeah, like, like a obedient son. I didn’t listen, but it wasn’t right away. You know, dad said, Hey, business is tough. Just get into the trades, get a good job, put your head down, put in the work, go home at night, kiss your wife, go to bed. Okay. And I did that and I tried that and that worked fine for 10 years, 12 years. That worked fine. But eventually I just hit a point where I’m like, I know it’s going to be tough. I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve listened to all the shows. I’ve, you know, we’ve all watched shark tank at that point. I know it’s going to be tough, but I think not knowing is more painful than any pain that I’ll, that I’ll go through in this business. And that’s fairly true. I mean, I think we should all try to hit our potential. And, um, that’s what I was trying to do. I think not knowing, uh, would, would bother a lot of people. And again, this is if you have that, that mind, that entrepreneurial mind, um, or even just an inclination to, to try something new, but yeah, no, I mean, what I experienced in construction, watching dad was he ran it as a solo operation. He was the guy on the ladder. Um, very hard to keep good, good people. And so to him, it was kind of like a job that you also have to be the president of. I’m trying to run my company. I’m trying to work on my business, not in my business, which was, you know, uh, I hit a rude awakening, you know, at one point in business, I tried to pull myself too much out of it. And here we are in 2026 and I’m trying to put myself back into it. 120%. Part of the reason why we’re here today, because at the end of the day, I’m the CEO, I got to champion the product. I have to own every element of, of every aspect. I don’t have to be the expert in it, but I have to know enough about it to be dangerous.

[00:08:19:15 – 00:08:34:02]
Um, so what was, I think you may have already included this on what you just let me point it out or get you to point it out. What was the most difficult, this difficult part about starting a business?

[00:08:36:04 – 00:10:30:01]
The most difficult parts, especially with a product business or, or God forbid, you have an invention idea because you can, you can call torque strap, whatever you want, new product and innovation invention. I don’t really care. But when I thought of this product, I thought this is an invention. So I need to start Googling how to invent something. And the biggest issue I ran into was the snakes in the grass, the leeches, uh, they’re, they’re showing up at the top of Google or their YouTube videos are at the tippy top and they’re teaching you, Oh, you have an invention idea. Just call us and sign up for the growth program and we’ll help you get licensed. Don’t do all that hard work. Just go after licensing deals and collect royalty, mailbox money, right? While you bounce your kids on your lap. And man, that sounds great, but I don’t know any other industry where the idea of don’t do any work and get paid actually works. I guess I’m going to start a roofing company. People don’t come up to me. They’ll go, go start a roofing company, take my course on how to license your roof. No, that doesn’t exist. And it makes a lot of sense because at the end of the day, you have to make a product and you have to sell it. Customers want to know two things. How much does it cost and when can I get it? And if you don’t know those two things, you can’t create a good business. Therefore you can’t license this idea to people. So anyway, you can tell I’m passionate about that. So I went down a whole rabbit hole of just getting derailed from the plans. And once I realized I was probably going to get scammed, I’m wasting a lot of time. Luckily I didn’t buy any growth courses. I, uh, that’s when I buckled down and said, okay, just, just forget all that noise, forget all this dream about passive income. Um, you got to buckle down. You got to do the hard work and you got to sell it yourself.

[00:10:31:04 – 00:10:38:04]
That’s, I think the hardest part when you have an invention, uh, business is sifting through the weeds.

[00:10:39:09 – 00:10:47:00]
Yeah. So you just said something, uh, key. Um, and, and I hear you guys out there. I know what you’re thinking. What the

[00:10:47:00 – 00:11:30:09]
is it? You haven’t got to the point of what it, what is it that we’re talking about? And we’re going to do that next. So hang in there. So when you say you had to sell it, did you have anything at that time? Or did you just have an idea? Are you talking about selling the idea and is the selling the idea part to get financing? What is it? What is it that you’re selling? If you haven’t invented it yet. You’re not, people do not buy ideas. That’s that’s, that’s, I guess what I’m alluding to. Oh yeah. That’s why I was confused. I mean, can you, can you actually sell nothing? Uh, I mean, to, to, to degree you have to, if you’re going to get money to finance your product, because it’s not, it’s not cheap to have a product, to have a product made a prototype.

[00:11:31:16 – 00:13:14:04]
Right. To yeah, you’re, you’re right. In some cases you have to go after financing, but I would never recommend a new inventor, new business owner. Try to invent something so complex that they can’t make it themselves in their garage. You’re already barking up the wrong tree. You need to get your feet wet with something simple. I invented a spring loaded cargo strap, something so easy to use. You just pull, right? This is something that does not require heavy tooling. This is something that does not require extreme engineering between multiple different engineers in different facets, you know, design, electrical, mechanical. No, no, no, no, no. This is something you go to Home Depot, you cut up what is working. You implement other parts and pieces that you source from Amazon or Alibaba, and you make a prototype that doesn’t look good, but it gets your wife on your side or it gets your buddy on your side. It gets your peers on your side. You can get some feedback. So when I say you have to sell it, what I mean is you have to go through those phases. Okay. We’re prototyping. We’re making the quick, the ugly version. And that works. Now we need to make samples. Now we need to make something so good that as we used to say, when we’re linemen, something you would take to the fair, right? If we, if we tied a bad knot, you know, the foreman would give you a hard time and say, well, it’ll work. It’s not something you take to the fair, but it’ll work. And so you get your, your samples, something you would take to the fair. And then you, you sell them. However, however you connect with people, whether you’re big on Facebook and love your community, whether you’re in a church group, I don’t care. Find those crazy first 30 customers and sell it to them.

[00:13:15:05 – 00:13:45:00]
And then it’s just rinse and repeat, but do it smarter and more efficient and on bigger scales over and over again until, you know, one day you’re, you’re on Amazon, you’re in Walmart.com. You’re, you have a very robust website. Eventually you’ll get there, you know, in chapter three or four, but yeah, to answer your question, selling it means, I mean, make it and sell it. Just like a lot of us have side hustles, we make cornhole boards or we make custom pool tables or custom cabinets, whatever.

[00:13:46:06 – 00:14:06:29]
No one’s buying the idea of your cabinet. No one’s, no one really wants to invest in your cabinet making, but if you’ve made a hundred and you’ve turned quite a bit of profit and you can share that profit with somebody who buys 10% of the company, yeah, then it’s easy to get funding. But that comes next. All right. So, uh, as I promised, what the, what the

[00:14:06:29 – 00:15:25:24]
is a torque strap? It sounds like to me, it’s, it’s a bungee cord ratchet strap combined. Oh, and there’s a spring throw thrown in there for good measure. Right. Yeah. Just mix that all up and imagine the product for our audio listeners. Uh, okay. So to tell you what it, I mean, it’s very simple. It’s a spring loaded cargo strap. That’s so easy to use. You just pull that’s the tagline. Uh, to expand on that further, we talked about it in the beginning for strapping solutions, you have ratchet straps, which are confusing and you have bungee cords, which are dangerous and made out of rubber. I filled in the gap. I made something in between. So to tell you the logic of it, when I was strapping down the dirt bike, when I was 17, 18, 19, all my childhood, I noticed that cam straps are regular they work on dirt bikes just fine because dirt bikes have a suspension. You scrunch down the front end and the straps hold that tension. They work great. Brilliant. But when you take that same strap and you try to move your help, move your sister into college and you use that pole, that cam pole strap to strap down a nightstand. It does not work at all. That nightstand will shimmy and vibrate and it’s, it’s loose before you even leave.

[00:15:26:27 – 00:15:54:06]
So then you go to ratchet straps and the ratchet strap destroys that cheap IKEA furniture because every click is 60 pounds. So you either under or over tighten it. And I’m like, son of a gun. So what I did was I implemented a robust, thick zinc coated steel spring into the line of the pole strap. So you essentially have that dirt bike suspension effect everywhere you go.

[00:15:55:22 – 00:16:12:05]
So how difficult was it to get the spring with the right tension to it? Because I can well imagine that you can get some that are so tight that you’re going to have that same issue of crushing things. So I guess the sweet spot is less than 60.

[00:16:13:22 – 00:17:18:21]
Yes, exactly. So that’s a good question. So sourcing the spring, that’s the right tension. I mean, that took a lot of experimenting. With bungees, as you, as you kind of implied, which that’s a no, no word in my vocabulary now, there’s nothing rubber or oxidizable about my product. My product has a lifetime warranty. It will outlast any strap that you pick up. Your buddy’s going to steal it long before the strap rusts out or fails or gets sun damage, right? But it did start with bungees because that was, that was what was at the hardware store for my samples, for my prototypes that we talked about. And I noticed that if you put two bungees side by side on it, that, that, and I was using scales, that’s about 90 pounds. And I thought, well, 90 pounds is good, but needs to be a little tighter. But I started making them anyway with bungees. And then my buddy says, man, you know, it’d be bad ass if, if this thing had a spring in it. And I was like, ah, you’re crazy spring. And then of course, like 30 seconds later, I was like, that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

[00:17:20:17 – 00:17:48:16]
So I start looking at springs and you’re right. It’s like, what spring do I get? What, what metal or springs even made of, how do I find the right tension? I got on Alibaba and I sourced, I found a spring manufacturer and I said, Hey, can you just send me a whole bunch of springs so I can do a bunch of testing. And luckily Chinese suppliers, they’re very giddy and excited to get business. So they’ll bend over backwards. They’ll charge you, you know, the shipping, but they’ll, they’ll, they’ll put together a kit and help you out.

[00:17:49:17 – 00:18:31:04]
So I got my 30 springs and I start doing my tests. And it turned out 120 pounds was the perfect tension for my first model, my one inch strap. Um, now that’s just the maximum tension. You really select how much tension by grabbing a hold of the tail end and pulling like we’re all familiar with. You pull 30 pounds. It’s going to hold that 30 pounds, no matter if the load shifts or sinks. You throw your shoulders into it. You’re going to get that whole 120 pounds and it’s going to stay there. Even if the boxes, your crush, even if your tent pieces, uh, kind of, kind of chicane and shrink and slide, it’s going to hug that cargo and keep that tension on there so that you never have to ratchet and it never comes loose.

[00:18:32:22 – 00:19:18:14]
Um, so, uh, I haven’t looked in detail on the, uh, the torque straps, which by the way, I forgot, I always liked after the interview, uh, I mean, after the intro, I like to tell the people where the website is that’s a torque strap.com. Uh, torque strap.com go over there now and, uh, and look at this stuff. Um, so, uh, I looked at it briefly. Uh, I, so this is a guess that I might ask you about. I would assume that on the torque strap, it’s not just the spring between, uh, a couple of, uh, high strength nylon straps. You actually have like a safety nylon strap that connects it. So if the spring should fail for some reason, your, your strap is still be, uh, consistent. Is there going to show I have something there?

[00:19:19:16 – 00:21:40:12]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that’s a good call because yeah, a spring itself does not have a weight rating. So it has what’s called a limiter band. That’s what limits you when you pull it at 120 pounds, it’s not going to expand more than about three inches, it’s going to limit it. And that limiter band is one continuous piece of polyester that, that is, that is the strap. So the strap is all one solid piece. All of your load rating comes from the strap itself. The spring adds you the bonus tension that won’t come loose. That allows, allows the strap to, uh, to, to change with, uh, whatever’s going on. If you’re going down the road or whatever, keep, it keeps that tension on there. It’s not getting loose. Yeah. I mean, the most common example is the cardboard box, right? I know we’re all hauling things heavier and bigger than cardboard boxes, but that’s a quintessential scenario. You cinch down a cardboard box, the cardboard compresses, maybe it starts to get moist, uh, and pretty soon all the tension is lost. The torque strap will hug that box and hold it and follow with it and keep it tight, no matter what happens to it. Now, when you scale that up and you look at your UTV on the flatbed trailer that hops from one side to the other. Now, now one side is loose and one side is tight. Or you look at your cooler that was sitting right on top of a ridge in your bed, in the bed of your truck, and it slipped down into a different groove. And now that ratchet strap is completely loose and it’s a matter of time before the Yeti tumbles down the highway. So in any cargo scenario, there is cargo shift and cargo shrinkage. It’s a matter of when you have two choices. You can either tighten it to all heck, uh, which is dangerous and, uh, generally results in scratches or damage. Uh, or you can run the risk of it falling off or you can use a torque strap. So that was, uh, that was kind of my next question. Uh, how quickly can you readjust or adjust, uh, the torque straps during a load shift or something? I mean, you know, you got to pull over, you got to jump out. Um, you’re not trying to figure out how to work the ratchet strap. Is it really quick and easy to tighten up that, uh, that strap? Maybe shift the load back, or if that’s where it wants to be, let it be there. But now we’re going to take the, uh, uh, the, the, the looseness out of that strap.

[00:21:41:21 – 00:23:33:14]
Yeah. I mean, the, the idea is you never have to pull over again and tighten the load. Uh, obviously loads are very subjective to the user. Uh, but most of us guys, especially your Jeep audience, we know our cargo pretty well. We know our straps pretty well. We know what’s going to happen. We know where to put the cooler, where to put the box, where to put the dirt bike, how to lean it. We, we, we know those variables enough. But even if you get it perfect, your ratchet strap, you will, a standard ratchet strap, you have to go out and you’re right. You have to retention it with our straps. You do not now in the case that you did a terrible job loading it. There we go. Stuff shifted beyond, you know, repair. Then you go out there, you grab the tail and then you pull it one more time. That’s it. I mean, you could literally go out and with one hand in 10 seconds, you could send the wife out one hand, 10 seconds. Boom. Go, go, go. Slam that, that torque strap and cinch that back up. So not only is it easy to use getting it set up, you can quickly make adjustments, uh, making it easy to get it back, uh, tight, uh, and then get back on the road. Now I don’t know. Uh, I don’t know that I’ve done this to Tyler or not, but, uh, the Jeep talk show, we often have million dollar ideas and I thought of a million dollar idea for your product, it’s a cheap talk show. Okay. Another idea. So, uh, and I’ll be, I’ll, I’ll think it’s really funny if you already have this. So on the strap itself, you need to have a little, like a strap, but you know, something covered so that you can write on it, uh, something that will last. And it’s right there where you’re pulling the strap. This may not make sense though, for your product, but I’ll follow along with me here and on that strap, it says in very clear, uh, large letters, uh, that’s not going anywhere because now they tighten the thing. It’s right there to remind you. You got to say, Oh, I ain’t going nowhere.

[00:23:34:23 – 00:23:57:18]
See, that’s it. You got to say that ain’t, if you’re in the Midwest, it’s that ain’t. If you’re over in the West, you can say that’s not, but you’re right. That’s the regional, you could have regional straps. That’s perfect. Yeah. Higher regional sales guides to cover the proper lingo at the trade shows. Uh, well, you’re right. Certified load, unless you say something to that effect. So I think I’m going to write that one down. Thank you.

[00:23:59:05 – 00:25:04:11]
Well, it’s probably not a million dollars, but it’s close. All right. All right. So we were talking about getting into business. Um, so, uh, I recently found out that business is ugly, that people aren’t friendly, they’re not singing, you know, holding hands and singing kumbaya. They they’re, they’re going in and want to buy your business. And if you don’t sell it to them, they say, that’s fine. We’ll make our own and run you out of business. And I admit I was very naive. Uh, I don’t know how long you’ve been making this product, but have you had any, uh, nasty situations where either people were saying that’s mine, you copied it, uh, or, uh, worse they won’t, I mean, it’s nice that they want to buy your company. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s very, uh, pleasant to feel that way. But then again, if you love your company and you’re, you haven’t taken it where you want it to go yet, you want to, you’re not ready to get off the, uh, the enjoyment ladder, then you don’t want to sell it and you will say, thank you kind sir, but no, our kind madam, but no, have you, have you had any of that nastiness?

[00:25:05:12 – 00:27:03:16]
Yeah, uh, I have, and I want to preface this because I don’t like to scare anybody away from business, but I do want them to be prepared if they choose to do it. Exactly. In business, nothing is ever as good as it seems and nothing is ever as bad as it seems. So Tyler story that he told you the story that I’m about to tell you, they’re going to sound, you know, very scary. They’re going to sound like they would keep you awake at night. And some, in some cases they do, uh, when you’re that entrepreneur, but it almost never comes out to be as bad as you think the lawsuits and the infringements and, uh, I’m going to buy you out or force you out or, or kick your button competition. Um, usually those are signals that you’re doing the right thing. So my story is, um, there’s a company out there that I won’t mention them by name, but they approached me and they said, and this was, I was still a rhyme in. I was like a year into selling this thing just on my own website and marketplace, you know, stuff like that. Anyway, somebody found the website and they said, Hey, uh, we think you’re infringing on our product. We, we are the owners of the patent. We distribute through Polaris and this and that and the other. I don’t think they would really like to know that what you’re doing. So we need to have a talk. And of course my heart sunk, my gut dropped. This was my, this was my baby. This was what was going to get me out of the trades and get the Mercedes like, and I’d been working on it for a year. And I read that email and I was crushed. I called my wife and I said, honey, it’s over. What are you talking about? Well, did you even talk to your lawyer? Did you this, did you that? Well, no, I just, it just seemed we’re, we’re, we’re in that teacher student mentality when we’re new entrepreneurs. We’re always waiting for a teacher to come up and tell us we’re doing something wrong and for some reason, there’s a feeling of being in an imposter. The, how can I do this? It’s so hard to do business.

[00:27:04:28 – 00:27:27:21]
Somebody’s going to find me out type thing. I completely understand. Yeah. I’m sure it happened even with the podcasts, you know, you have that, who am I to type of feeling? Uh, it’s very normal, but you got to remember everybody’s walking around without imposter syndrome. And after some pep talk from my wife and some pep talk from my lawyer, I say, yeah, yeah, you’re right. Maybe I should just kind

[00:27:27:21 – 00:27:48:07]
back at this. Damn it. Yeah, I am somebody. So I, I, I went back to him and I said, look, man, I don’t use those materials that you guys use, frankly, I never would. I use these materials. And if you want to find out more, you’re welcome to buy one at Torxstrap.com. And I left it at that and he just disappeared. Yeah.

[00:27:49:09 – 00:29:31:05]
Low hanging fruit. Yeah, exactly. So it’s kind of, it’s kind of like, um, you know, in prison, they size you up. I’ve never been, but I’ve watched all the jail shows. Oh yeah. I’ve seen it on TV. Yeah. They size you up, right? They want to see what you’re made of. And generally if you fight back, they just don’t mess with you. They don’t try to take your bunk. They don’t try to take your lunch. They just leave you be. So, um, and obviously it could go further. It could go worse. That company could have pushed back a lot harder. Tyler’s case. Um, I would love to be in his shoes because I’ve been doing this for six years. And you know, I’m the only one crazy enough to do it. Torx straps are incredibly hard to make. It is really, I mean, these are like handcrafted straps. We don’t make them ourselves in the U S anymore. We can’t, I can’t, um, but they are handcrafted. I’ve trained the factories. It’s bone breaking work, but we make a really quality product. Our price reflects that no other company is willing to do what I’m willing to do to market it, to sell it, to post on social media every day, to, uh, engage with customers, I’ll take custom calls. I’ll say, I’ll sit down with you for 30 minutes. You tell me everything you’re strapping down. I’ll solve all your problems. We’ll make a custom solution for you. I’m the only person crazy enough to do that. Tyler has a product that makes so much sense that other companies are like, yeah, we want to manufacture that and we want to sell it and we know how to market it and we know we’ll make good margins. So, Hey, Tyler, how about we just buy your business for X amount? He says no. And they say, okay, well, we’re going to push you out. Tyler there’s, I know entrepreneurs and I know Tyler, there was a big part of him that said, okay, game on.

[00:29:32:24 – 00:29:45:05]
He’s very, uh, he’s very calm. And I won’t say that he’s, uh, he’s timid, but he’s very much a gentleman in the way he presents himself and does things. He doesn’t look like, uh, you want to

[00:29:45:05 – 00:30:45:20]
with me. Come on. But that’s really, that’s really his, his thing was, it’s like, if you, if you look at his business and his actions, he’s a, he’s a savvy business person and he’s willing to do the work. So yeah, I challenge whoever that was to try to go toe to toe with him in business. Good luck. Yeah. Uh, well, uh, the, uh, the last interview Tyler and I did, uh, he didn’t tell me directly, but I kind of figured it out based on what he was telling me while we’re talking, I’m looking up stuff on, on Amazon and I outed the company. Uh, that, uh, was the one that, uh, contacted him and they got a product looks just like his same color, which I mean, come on, man, same color scheme. And I think it was like maybe $20, $30 less. So obviously they’re pricing it. And they’re able probably able because of who they are able to buy in such bulk, uh, or, uh, leverage their other business that they do with these people in China where they can get a better deal. And, uh, it, the way I look at it is, uh,

[00:30:45:20 – 00:31:20:19]
you guys. You want to steal from somebody else? I’m going to pay the extra 20, 30 bucks and get it from the guy who, whose idea it was, and I’m, I’m hoping there’s a lot more people like that. Uh, so. Yeah. And that’s, that’s admirable. Business owners like me, we appreciate the Patreon of customers like you. Uh, that goes a long way. Um, but also, you know, we’re not crying boo-hoo either when stuff like that happens. I know Tyler’s part of business and guess what? They have a brand name now, you know, what let’s call it, uh, Boorfly. I don’t know.

[00:31:22:01 – 00:32:45:13]
Now people are searching for that. Now Tyler can run ads competing against their name and he can show up above them and he can show that, well, we have a lifetime warranty and we have this many customer reviews and we have a 4.8 as opposed to their 4.2, you know, so you can step on other people’s accomplishments or, or rip off whatever, however you want to phrase it, you can use that to boost yourself and make a slam dunk. Yeah. Um, so, uh, let me, I’m a, I really love talking to people that have started businesses because I, I think, and I think this is true. I probably run across this just day to day, uh, people calling in and stuff that they’re, they’re curious about it. Cause I think we all want to start a Microsoft and, and be that person or, uh, um, it was so funny. I was thinking earlier whenever you said, uh, why don’t you use a spring in there? And you went, ah, that makes so much sense. I was thinking about, uh, when Facebook was started and, uh, Zuckerberg had to do that, uh, that trial, that, uh, that court thing where the three other guys that helped build Facebook that he was getting rid of. I went, you just screwed yourself whenever you have the trial on this guy that says I’m the heart of torque strap. Cause I came up with the spring. No, there’s no evidence of that. They’re going to go back to the Jeep talk show podcast where you, where you admit it.

[00:32:47:00 – 00:38:11:04]
Yeah. And in the Facebook case that has tremendous, uh, implications, you know, thought of what first, uh, in the torque strap space. Yeah. Like I said, that buddy is not going to come back and say, Hey, I thought of that. And I’m gonna say, well, yeah, you did. Thanks. But I’m the one who filed the patent and I’m the one who’s worked my butt off for six years. So you did do the patent. Nothing. See, that was a problem with Tyler, though, whenever they threatened Tyler, he’s he, they told him, you don’t have patents on any of this stuff. We’ll just make it and sell it. So in that, that same interview that we did, and I apologize guys. I don’t have the information for the interview, just the search for, for Tyler or more flight, um, it was recent. I mean, it was like a couple of months ago. Um, he now has the patents, but this is the other nasty part of it. Uh, it doesn’t matter. A patent isn’t a get out of jail free card, or you need to stop doing this or I’ll suit you because that’s the other part. Which you have to sue them. You can’t just threaten. I mean, obviously you threaten seasoned assist and whatever it is, but you have to threaten and according to Tyler, 50 K the start, right? And it, the, the, the, the, the U S government, no, but nobody protects your patent, you have to do it. No patent police. You’re absolutely right. Yeah. That’s the, the, the big misnomer with it is the first thing I run an inventors podcast invent with me because I got screwed, as I told you in the beginning by all these, all this false information. Um, a patent is not a right to sell a patent is the opportunity to stop others from selling if they infringe an opportunity. There is no patent police. There’s no one that has your back and you have to file a suit and have the confidence that they have infringed on your claims clearly enough. And not only that, you have to be sure that your patent is strong enough to uphold that lawsuit because. Frankly, the patent office is composed of government workers who are trying to push too many patents through in a short amount of time, they could miss something. Oh, yeah. They could have, they could have issued me the torque strap patent, uh, as a, it, by mistake or, or, or with, with errors, right? Um, they’re not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. This is all subject to human error. So there are so many variables in the patent game. So it always comes back to kick their butt in business. That’s your best protection. Build a strong name. Be known as the guy who will take your calls because that Chinese company will not do that. Be known as the guy with the lifetime warranty who honors it because the Chinese company is not going to do that. That is your best protection. No one can replicate that. I think you can lose your patent. Can’t you? If you’re, if you’re fighting the patent case and the other side argues that this isn’t a patentable, uh, that you could, so you could actually lose the patent that you spent a great deal of time and money. All right. I’m going to get back to the straps, but real quick, um, it sounded like you started your business on a show, a shoestring. Uh, and, and, oh, by the way, mention the name of your podcast, because your podcast sounds like a lot of what I’m doing here, asking you how you started business and stuff, what’s, what’s the name of your podcast? It is definitely. It’s invent with me. Uh, you can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, uh, about to hit episode a hundred. We have like 4,000 subs on YouTube. Uh, it’s gaining some traction, but really I just open up the whole entire path of inventing and anything I don’t have expertise in, you know, I’m not, I’d never invented something electrical. I’ve never invented something, um, in, in the kitchen, whatever, uh, whatever tools, whatever niche you’re in. I’ve brought on a guest and I don’t pull any punches. Like we really get down to the nitty gritty. So yeah, that’s invent with me, um, podcast. Thank you for that opportunity. Oh, no, of course. I think, like I told you, I think everybody likes to know what the true things are, and this is better than some of those, uh, uh, fly by night, uh, individuals that you ran across about selling without having an actual product and this collecting money you’re, you’re out there sharing this information. Uh, and, uh, encouraging people to invent things. And I think the more small businesses and the more things that are invented are better in the long run. All right. So getting back to the, the torque strap, uh, and I apologize. I get really excited about getting this background information stuff that you’ve gone through because, um, uh, it’s, uh, to me, it’s, it’s real interesting. And I think people find it interesting. Maybe not, but that’s, that’s what I find really interesting. Now the torque strap themselves, I’m, uh, I’m guessing that, uh, uh, people use straps for one or two thing. Like you said, moving stuff. Uh, well, it’s always moving stuff, but moving small stuff, like on a flat bed or the back, some even in the back of a pickup truck. Uh, and then the other thing would be like when you’re towing your Jeep out to go off-roading, you got your tow rig, you got your, uh, your trailer and you want to strap down your, uh, your Jeep. And I’m thinking that this would be a pretty good way of strapping down your Jeep. My question for you is, do you make tow straps big enough to tie a vehicle to a flat bed?

[00:38:12:11 – 00:39:25:12]
Yes, absolutely. So yeah, I mean, I quickly learned that if I want to capture, um, a lot of customers, I need to cover the whole gambit from small, you know, I’m moving my daughter to college too. I’m taking the Jeep to Moab. Right. And we definitely cover all that. So we sell a medium sized strap that the original I told you about, that’s a one incher, we sell a one and a half incher, which operates the same way, just more robust, and then I had to invent the torque strap pro, which has its own patent, which is probably worthless. Uh, and that one is a two inch strap, 3,333 pounds safe workload. So, uh, I kinda, I don’t nerd out about it, but I think it’s important to understand working loads and it’s always some value I can give people with, you know, my expertise and maybe it’s interesting, maybe not, but when you look at working load, um, a lot of people think I need a strap that’s rated for what my car weighs and that’s not really technically right. Um, ratings are very subjective.

[00:39:26:13 – 00:40:36:11]
Obviously more is better, but if you look at like the FMCA rules, federal motor com care, um, motor carriage association, they’re going to tell you, Hey, you just need straps that have a safe working load that is totaled half of the way of the object you’re hauling. Interesting. But that’s only the weight scenario. Like that will get you out of trouble if you’re hauling something low and flat. But a, a 400 pound refrigerator acts much different than a 400 pound slab of steel on a flatbed trailer with walls. Right. So the, there’s kind of like a three factor formula, and I don’t even like to call it a formula because there’s no formulas for this stuff. It is so dynamic. There are so many variables, but generally speaking, if you take the weight of the vehicle, you’re towing, let’s say it’s a thousand pound ATV, then you ask yourself, okay, um, what is the stability of this? You can give it a one, two, or three. Three is refrigerator, like teeter totter, and a one is perfectly square cube.

[00:40:37:12 – 00:40:56:01]
Uh, an ATV is going to get about a one because it’s, it’s a very wide base firm object. And then you take another factor, which is how am I going to be driving? Am I doing 75 down a desert highway with a 30 mile an hour crosswind? Okay. That’s a, that’s a level three type of drive. That’s intense.

[00:40:57:06 – 00:41:53:05]
Uh, no, I’m just going to be towing around town, a little windy out, but I’m not going on the freeway. Okay. So that’s a two. So you take the thousand pound ATV. You times it by one because you rated it a one for stability and you times it by two for the conditions because it’s windy outside, you need 2000 pounds of strap working load. Now how you divvy that up is up to you. Again, this should be all four corners for best stability. You can take two 1000 pound straps or you can take four or 500 pounds safe workload straps, right? So anyway, um, I always like to shout that out because people always look at weight ratings and they say, Oh, my car weighs more than that. Well, you’re looking at the sum of how many straps you’re going to use. So in other words, if you’re using three of my big straps, you are just north of 10,000 pounds of safe working load.

[00:41:54:10 – 00:42:59:27]
A Jeep weighs, I don’t know, you would know better than me. Tony was about 3,700 pounds. When you buy them, they weigh about 3000 pounds and after you modify them, they, they go up to like 6,000. Okay. Well, so either way, we’re far past that half the weight of the Jeep rating put out by FMCA. So you’re putting 10,000 pounds of safe workload on, let’s say a 5,000 pound vehicle, you’re overkill at that point. You’re well held down. So yes, we make them for any vehicle. Uh, just know, you know, no tanks and, um, and yeah, consider more than just the weight, consider how you’re going to be driving it and the conditions outside and the center of gravity. Well, wait a minute. You can, you could tow a tank. I mean, you could tie a tank down. You just need more straps. If, if I understand more straps, come on, buy more straps. Exactly. That’s my tagline. You need to, you know, if you don’t think it’s enough, buy more straps. You need to get with the army and do it. So that I get them to get an M1 Abrams up and you tie, and you tie that thing down with 3,700 straps.

[00:43:01:05 – 00:43:02:01]
Exactly.

[00:43:03:03 – 00:43:20:23]
I’ve always wanted to tie down something. Yeah. I’ve always wanted to tie down something huge with my smallest strap. Just like you said, just use 60 of them. So are you ever in a situation where you need to tow something? You’re a tow strap manufacturer and you can’t find one.

[00:43:22:19 – 00:43:22:28]
Where the

[00:43:22:28 – 00:43:25:20]
are my straps? I’ll make the

[00:43:25:20 – 00:44:02:24]
things. I was going to pick up a TV for my wife. As, as us guys do Facebook marketplace situation, you get thrown into pretty precarious situations and wife is with me buying it from a female. And here I am, the owner of torque strap in front of two women helping me load this thing into the vehicle. And you have any straps? Uh, no, I don’t have any straps. But honey, you don’t understand this person called in and they needed to strap really bad. So I had to take care of the customer. Just make it up as you go. Exactly.

[00:44:04:07 – 00:44:39:05]
I have my straps on display that I don’t touch. You see them behind me. And then my warehouse is in Illinois. I’m in Miami. I have a warehouse in Illinois and a warehouse in California, because we have so many, uh, you know, customers in the West. So, so no, I, I can’t get my own straps. Unfortunately. Um, oh, that’s a good question. Cause, uh, you’re, you’re from Illinois originally, right? So that’s a lot different weather wise. Uh, how do your, do you have a, a yes and a no, uh, when you use your straps, are they for all weather? I mean, how, how do they hold up in ice and snow and all that?

[00:44:40:28 – 00:48:19:27]
Right? Yeah. They’re definitely for all weather. Everything holds the same, uh, the pole mechanism, all of that, nothing slips, everything holds up. And a lot of people ask, you know, cause we’re big with the kayak industry too. And a lot of people ask, well, how do they hold up with saltwater? And the sad fact is with any cargo strap, they’re all, they all have the same life in, in a, in a saltwater scenario, which is try to avoid it because it’s not a great lifespan, but with respect and drying them out and hanging them up or even rinsing them off, washing the, the webbing with some light dish detergent and hand soap, uh, in, in like a home Depot bucket, for example, all these things are going to last a long time if you respect them. But no strap is really prepared for saltwater. Um, do, do, how did the springs hold up in rust situations? Do they, do they hold up better than yeah, they’re coated, they’re zinc coated Springs and given that the average life of a strap is about two years, they outlast usually in the other component. Like I said, first it’s usually your buddy steals it. Next it’s going to be, um, if the, if it’s been subject to so much weather, you’re probably replacing the webbing long before your, your spring is giving out. So, uh, do you, you guys have kits like a recommended kits for what you’re doing, what you’re, what you’re going to be using the straps for, or you sell them, uh, only individually, I would think that you’d want at least two or three, uh, straps. Uh, whenever you’re, you’re getting something all down, one strap doesn’t really kind of do it. Yeah. You can’t just get one. It just won’t do it. Uh, we sell four packs at minimum and then eight packs and 12 packs. So, uh, four pack is kind of the, the quintessential going to get you covered for everything you need. And then you decide, okay, do I want to expand? Do I also want to use these on my ATV? Do I also want to use these on my UTV and then my Jeep? So, um, yeah, you’re right. You, we used to sell two packs and honestly, it was just frustrating to clients because, um, they buy a two pack, then they want to buy two more. They, but they missed out on that kind of quantity price of just buying four all at once. So now it’s kind of an awkward exchange we have to do. Okay. I’ll discount the next two. It’s just too much. So yeah, four packs definitely is the minimum you want. So on the length of the straps, is it just dictated by the width of the strap and the general length of that, uh, that you want? I mean, I know with the ratchet straps, you get like 600 feet of extra strap. Even if you, you know, even if you’re putting it around a transfer case or something, and then you have all this stuff you’re crawling around under the Jeep, uh, flopping over is I would, is there some sort of a standard length for the, the width of the strap or. That that’s a tough one. The hard part is finding it’s like politics. It’s finding a length that makes everybody happy. Exactly. And no matter what length you make it, someone’s going to tell you it fell short. And, and a lot of people are going to tell you, can you make this shorter? I’d rather have a lot of people tell me asking me, can I make this shorter? Can you make this shorter? Because then I come back and I say, just cut it. Just take a hot knife, take a lighter, just cut it down to what you’re using it for. I can’t add strap on. You just can’t do it, but you can always cut strap off. Just leave yourself extra. Think about that. And the sweet spot that I found was 14 feet. If we sell them at 14 feet, that’s enough to get over most. I mean, any truck bed from corner to corner, most trailers side to side, maybe corner to corner.

[00:48:20:28 – 00:50:14:21]
And we also sell extensions, which is a longer dumb end is what we call it. So you can go up to 20, 24 feet. But most people, they fall in that kind of six foot range. And so they say, well, I want to strap that six foot. Well, if that’s really what you want, then cut it. But I recommend just, you know, we sell, we give you Velcro ties for free. It was a nice little Velcro straps to hold down the excess. Leave the length on and just get in the habit of bundling up the excess nicely and in a secure way. Because, you know, you invested in, you know, in a lifetime strap, make it work for every application that you can. Yeah. And when you say lifetime strap, that’s really if it’s kept out of the weather and probably not used a lot. So it will last forever. But you’re saying in regular use, it’s it lasts about two years. Did I understand that correctly? In my experience, the average person is going to get two years out of any strap because they don’t respect them. Now, when you buy Torx strap, I like to think of it as more of an experience, that tool that you respect. In other words, if you buy a $600 plumbing crimper from the hardware store that comes with a kit, you’re going to keep it in that kit. You’re going to keep those pieces organized. You’re going to keep it out of the rain. I want people to treat their straps the same way because at the end of the day, this is a huge lifeline. This is a huge safety device and it’s an investment as well. Not to say it’s overly expensive, but there’s no reason to be replacing these all the time. Let’s take good care of our straps. Every strap I sell, every box, those red boxes you see behind me, it comes with a poly bag that’s water resistant. I’ve given you everything you need to keep it out of the sun, out of the dust, and safely under the seat, behind the seats, in the trailer, what have you.

[00:50:15:24 – 00:50:29:05]
Under those conditions, yes, this can be a lifetime strap, no doubt about it. If a part wears out and it’s my fault, you’re taking good care of it, but a part just wears out. I’m going to replace it. No questions asked. I’ll cover shipping too.

[00:50:30:07 – 00:50:53:11]
But if you’re putting it on jagged edges with no protection, if I can tell you you’re leaving it in the bed of the truck all winter, then that’s on you. Well, I’m glad I asked, because you mentioned two years, and it gave me the feeling that your strap is two years. You need to get on the subscription plan for the torque straps.

[00:50:54:13 – 00:51:05:07]
So it’s not that case at all. It’s just like most things. If you take care of it, it lasts longer. And in your case, it should last a long, long time. All right. So let’s see.

[00:51:06:14 – 00:51:12:11]
We can tie down the Jeep. It doesn’t have to be a Jeep, but that’s my preference.

[00:51:13:16 – 00:51:26:25]
Oh, I remember what I was going to ask you. Is there ever a case– this is one of those gotcha questions. Is there ever a case that you should be using a different type of strap, like a ratchet strap instead of a torque strap? Yeah.

[00:51:29:15 – 00:51:33:04]
I would say if the item you’re strapping down

[00:51:35:17 – 00:51:40:04]
needs to have like 500 pounds of tension on the strap,

[00:51:41:14 – 00:51:51:27]
which I can’t think of a scenario where you really want to do that. That’s a lot of potential energy. So it’d only be if you’re outside the load range of the torque strap.

[00:51:52:29 – 00:52:21:19]
Well, not even because a ratchet strap off the shelf at Home Depot has a 500 pound load rating. We have a 500 pound load rating. The difference is– and again, our pro– I didn’t mention this earlier. The pro two inch, it has a ratchet on it. Right? So there’s kind of a crossover where typical loads, your dirt bike, you’re going to pull your coolers, your tables, your chairs, your camping equipment. You’re going to pull it tight. That’s plenty.

[00:52:22:21 – 00:52:57:14]
When you get into the UTV, when you get into the Jeep, you need to have a ratchet mechanism, which we do. So that’s where you want to transition to that mechanical advantage of getting something tight. But you have a ratchet on there, so you can still stay with the torque strap. I was just kind of– make it easier for people to understand that they can go over to TorqStrap.com and they can find whatever they need. They don’t need to have a ratchet strap. They can just go with TorqStrap. It’s just easier. If you have all the same company’s product, to me, it’s just easier to use. You don’t have to learn two different things.

[00:52:58:16 – 00:53:23:27]
Yeah. You have the uniform set up and you have one point of contact if you have any issues. And yes, we cover the whole– everything on your rig, we cover it. All right. I still got more questions, but we need to wrap this thing up. So as I warned you, the wrap up portion is, you know how the kids love the social media. If working people find you on social media, and especially if you’ve got a YouTube channel, please mention that one.

[00:53:25:07 – 00:53:35:10]
Yeah. So for TorqStrap, all my handles are T-O-R-K underscore strap. It’s easier to trademark things that you misspell. That’s why we spelled it that way. That’s a good idea.

[00:53:36:27 – 00:53:41:15]
Torq underscore strap anywhere you want to find us. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.

[00:53:43:12 – 00:54:53:06]
I don’t do long form YouTube videos for TorqStrap, but I post every day new tools, tips, and tricks on the TorqStrap social media. I don’t just talk about straps. You can’t. You can’t talk about straps every day for six years. You’ll lose your mind. So what actually what I do is pretty cool. I go to trade shows and I find other cool products. So if you’re just like to look at cool new tools and watch fun, quick, interactive videos, find out where to– if I get the tools, how much they cost, I go and I film other people’s booths, their products. So that’s a lot of fun. And then we mentioned if you’re interested in inventing your own product, I don’t have any ulterior motives. I just like to tell people the truth about the process. That’s the Invent With Me podcast. And that’s most popular on YouTube long form videos. Very cool. So do you have anything on the drawing board that you might want to tease or talk about for TorqStrap? I know you said that you can’t talk about TorqStrap a lot, like on YouTube and stuff like that, because how much can you do? Is there more that you could do with TorqStrap? You got anything planned?

[00:54:54:22 – 00:55:40:11]
That’s the thing about a cargo strap company is you could easily kind of get derailed. And some of my competitors have done that. I wouldn’t even call it derailed. They’ve just strategized. They’ve tried to make 10 and $20 million companies by selling shackles, selling compressors, by selling rescue ropes. And that’s all fine and dandy. That’s easy work to do. But there’s nothing inherently novel about any of those products. You can get a shackle anywhere. You paint it red and it’s a TorqStrap shackle, like whippy do. I like to sell products that I’ve really engineered that really do something differently. Now, with that being said, it took me a long time. It took me four years to kind of make this three model mix that we talked about, the medium, heavy duty and the pro.

[00:55:41:26 – 00:56:30:08]
I really am focusing on those three models, the bags to protect them, the extensions if you need them and taking care of my customers. So what’s on the horizon for me is now that everything’s online product wise, you’re going to see me at a lot more trade shows. You’re going to see me at a lot more on social media, a lot more, a lot more partnerships, things of that nature. Marketing is what’s next for TorqStrap, less engineering and developing. Sure. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just always fun to tease people with something that’s coming out. The thing, especially with what happened with your dad, now it wasn’t a TorqStrap that injured him, but any strap, if used improperly, you could injure yourself with. I was thinking maybe a TorqStrap Med Kit, but that might be a negative.

[00:56:31:25 – 00:56:34:11]
It could be perceived. Like I’m going to need a Med Kit.

[00:56:35:15 – 00:56:50:01]
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And the next thing on there is those little fingers that the little nylon fingers that you put over your nub because you lost a finger. I mean, this is probably be pretty good for April Fools though.

[00:56:51:04 – 00:56:58:29]
It would be very good for April Fools and it’d be very good social media videos. Like, Hey guys, I started selling bungee cords, but obviously I need to sell the

[00:57:00:05 – 00:57:57:04]
finger tourniquet with it. That’s right. The Israeli tourniquet. I learned about that. All right, Grant, I really appreciate your time today. A fun conversation. Good luck with the company, TorqStrap.com. You guys go check it out. And especially if you have a TorqStrap or you buy one and use it, I would like to hear what you think about it. I’m sure Grant would like to hear about it as well. Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah. Grant, have a great day. I’ll have to check out your podcast. What was it again? Invent with me. Very, very cool. And the podcast helps people sell their product without actually creating it. Just make money. Just go to the mailbox. Exactly. We sell this dream. It’s a seemingly impossible dream or just give it to you. Just give me all your money and I’ll make all your dreams come true. Sign up now and don’t

[00:57:57:04 – 00:58:02:14]
about the flavor Kool-Aid that I asked you to drink on the final day. Exactly. Just take it down.

[00:58:04:06 – 00:58:05:04]
All right, man. Thanks a lot.

[00:58:07:08 – 00:58:09:05]
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.

[00:58:09:05 – 00:58:56:02]
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