w/ Brandon Horoho, Montana Knife Company
What if your side hustle turned into an 8-figure brand selling out every week?
Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DxGxZ20rfQI
Montana Knife Company’s Brandon Horoho shares the journey from launching during COVID to building a global brand rooted in American manufacturing. Discover how MKC redefined success with transparency, customer engagement, and relentless marketing.
Episode Highlights:
About Brandon Horoho:
Brandon Horoho is the co-founder and CMO of Montana Knife Company, an American-made knife brand that has taken the DTC world by storm. With weekly product drops and an obsessive focus on quality, MKC has grown from a garage startup to an 8-figure powerhouse in just four years.
Show Links
Montana Knife Company: https://montanaknifecompany.com
Follow MKC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/montanaknifecompany
Work with Kurt: https://ethercycle.com/
Sponsors:
Cleverific: https://cleverific.com/unofficial
Zipify: http://zipify.com/KURT
Address Validator: https://www.addressvalidator.com/
Work with Kurt:
Grow your Shopify store with me: https://ethercycle.com/apply
See our recent client successes: https://ethercycle.com/work
Kurt Elster
This episode is sponsored in part by Boost Commerce. Looking to boost conversion rates? Of course you are. With Boost AI Search and Filter, turning more visitors into buyers is as easy as flipping a switch. Imagine a search bar that's actually helpful where shoppers find what they want in a snap. With Boost, you get advanced product filters so customers can sort by size, price, color, and more. Plus, AI-powered search results mean no more endless scrolling. Need to highlight your bestsellers or new arrivals? Boost merchandising tools make that easy. You'll get personalized, frequently bought together, and related items recommendations to help increase cart size. And the best part, no coating required. If you need a hand, Boost Support Team is always there to help. New customers can use the code Kurt, that's K-U-R-T, to get 30% off for their first six months. Valid only for first-time customers. Start your 14-day free trial today by heading to the Shopify App Store and downloading Boost AI Search and Filter. Turn browsers into buyers with Smarter Search. My friends, today on the unofficial Shopify Podcast, we get to feature a a wonderful brand with an incredible product, bringing American manufacturing back, and uh one I'm exceptionally proud of. Because my team helped build their Shopify theme, helped get them going on Shopify theme. And so we you know I do I feel exceptional pride in their success because I know I was um the team and I were were helpful in doing it with our our theme services work at Ethercycle. Yes, I I love podcasting while podcast hosts, but you know that's not actually my day job, right guys? Right. We do uh Shopify support and theme services. And so it's it's nice to be able to have those worlds very much cross over today. And to do that, I am joined by Montana Knife Company's Brandon Harahoo. Brandon, how you doing? Thanks for being here.
Brandon Horoho
Ah, Kurt, dude, I am doing great. Absolutely great. And I'm stoked to be on the podcast because this is full circle. Because I was a listener when I was trying to set up my very first Shopify website. Um and then like I said, like you said in the intro, you know, we actually got to work together on my current project. And like I said, this is cool. I'm I'm glad to rough with you for for a bit.
Kurt Elster
To refer to what Montana Knife Company has become as my current project, wow, does that undersell it? This is an eight-figure brand.
Brandon Horoho
It it it is. I mean and and and this is my entire life too. Like I I don't want to undersell it either, but I mean this is this is you know, this project has become something so much bigger. Um, it started as a, you know, I had this small agency where I was just, you know, connecting Shopify with Clavio and and I wanted to work with, you know, honestly American made makers and try to help them get onto the digital platform. And, you know, that's where I met Josh, you know, and we started talking and Um you know, so it it it started as a project that turned into an entire life. And I always kind of, you know, uh I warn people, watch watch those side hustles, because those side hustles might turn into 80 employees. a massive mortgage and you know six CNC machines downstairs.
Kurt Elster
So is that you got do you have eighty employees today?
Brandon Horoho
Yes, yep, yep. So a um as of this week we just broke eighty employees.
Kurt Elster
Congrats. How long has MKC been around?
Brandon Horoho
So MKC, you know, uh like officially has been around for four years. So January 1st is kind of like our our jumping point, but it's been around for four years. But it's also it's it started 30 years ago um with Josh Smith, my business partner. Um he started making knives at the age of eleven, became the youngest master bladesmith at the age of nineteen. Um, him and his mother actually had the hindsight to register the name Montana Knife Company in I believe like 1999 or like 2001. Um and he actually they registered the name and they actually they actually purchased the URL too. So if it wasn't for Josh and his mom, like MKC might not actually be the brand it is today.
Kurt Elster
That is some serious foresight. Impressive. Montana Knife Company, you guys sell spoons or forks?
Brandon Horoho
Uh we prefer to uh sell spoons or knives that identify as spoons, if Facebook is asking.
Kurt Elster
So it but MKC is it it's all knives or there other product offerings?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, so you know MKC you know it started off as you know a hunting knife brand and I honestly thought You know, this is probably one of the the most wrong I've ever been in my business career of, you know, I thought, you know, we're gonna set this company up and we're gonna sell one knife. You to every person. And it was kind of gonna be like the yeti of the knife world. I couldn't been more wrong. So now you know our average customer owns anywhere between three and four knives. Um and then you Extrapolate that over all the other branded material that we sell, you know, hats, t-shirts, cutting boards, razors, you know, and MKC is almost becoming an incubator too for other American-made companies.
Kurt Elster
How so? By selling, by sourcing these other accessory items?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, it it ex exactly. So, you know, one of our biggest things that we know that we've been doing to help like grow this brand and grow other brands is thro is through collaborations. Um so you know we've been doing collaborations with you know big you know apparel brands. We've been doing you know collaborations with local you know companies like there's a razor company. um that sells like you know face shaving razors um out of Bozeman and you know we you know we came up with the MKC version of that you know it was a high ticket item it was a hundred and twenty five dollar razor which is not typical Um and it absolutely crushed. So, you know, it's cool to build this brand around a solid product of, you know, like we do make the best hunting knives. You know, we can plant our flag and we can say that. But then like, you know, the brand is known for its quality. So we're able to go and find other brands that kind of live the same ethos as we do and put them on a platform, do a collaboration and you know, almost springboard them at the same time.
Kurt Elster
That's really that must be very satisfying.
Brandon Horoho
It it it really is. I I just got off a call with our um the the actual the the wood shop that makes all of our cutting boards. So culinary is probably like our second largest um division in, you know, in Montana Knight Company. We sell a lot of chef knives. So cause, you know, our our one of our motto is first blood the last bite So the goal is to have a knife from when you're in the hunting field the whole way down to your steak knives at your dinner, yeah, at your dinner table. Um and we know we were meeting with them, it's Montana Blockco out of buildings. And it's just amazing to meet with them because like, you know, we, you know, we had our entire meeting forecasting how many cutting boards we're gonna need for this year, plus some other fun accessory items. And they're like, they looked at us, you could tell they're almost starting to tear up because they're like, we can hire now. Like with that PO, like I can actually go out and hire, you know, a couple more people to help us, you know, in our new shop and stuff like that. And like I have goosebumps. Like that's what I want to, like, that's what I love doing. It's like Not only is our company growing, you know we're hiring 80 people, but then we're also a you know stimulate the economy in another town in Montana at the same time.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, you're able to you're reinvesting in very real ways in your local economy. It's quite incredible. Um one of the The in the things I think is so powerful about what you've built with Montana Knife Company is the brand itself. I mean you have an exceptional product and it is a premium product, and then we've got but With it is the brand storytelling. The brand storytelling is exceptional and I think it it is a big part of your success. Tell me about that that narrative and its impact on your audience.
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, you know, and and and that's like one thing we get credit about is like a lot of you know, we get credited for having like a really good brand, a really good story, and and and it's uh it's more about like our ability to tell about and then also like Josh and I are living this brand. So, you know, Josh is the CEO. I am technically the vice president or CMO. Like, so, you know We're figuring this out in real time. You know, Josh, you know, Josh was a lineman before this. You know, I had a small marketing agency. You know, never do everything be running, you know, an eight-figure business with this many employees, you know, within three to four years. So You know, our brand and our story is honestly just like the transparency behind the scenes. Like that's the biggest thing is, you know, since day one, you know, we we launched this business doing during the peak of COVID. Like I'm talking during lockdowns. We launched this, you know, this brand. And, you know, the first year of our brand was literally me on Instagram just complaining that like you know, the US government and other foreign you know entities have gone and bought up all this all the tool steel you know that we can use to make knives. And we literally couldn't find steel in 2020 to make knives. And I it even got to the point where some of our early fans and adopters were like, hey, I got this old car in the back of the yard that has some springs in it. Like I could send you springs and I got these old saws and I got like We're like w we appreciate it, but we need a specific type of stale that's not already like heat treated. And you know, but like I so like the first year was literally just us explaining how we're building this company. You know, being extremely fully transparent, probably almost too transparent at some points. Um, but that's what I think, you know, people like adopted us so quick. And then, you know, it it is the true underdog story because, you know, we're Everyone told us that we couldn't do American made knives. It is at scale because it's very, very hard. Um and then you know the companies that have already doing it, you know, they've been they've been around for you know some 30 years, some 60 years, you know, and some of the you know the real big guys you know they've been around for over a hundred years they have a hundred year head start on us um you know so the the deck was definitely stacked against us but We we said that you know we didn't really have another option than to try. And now, you know, four years later, you know, we're starting to you know rub elbows with those guys, and it's it's just absolutely wild.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, it it is incredible. And what you know, had someone told me, if you had told me what you're trying to do and where it would go in four years, I would not have bet money on it. Because growing to mid eight figures in four years in a hyper competitive space with what is a premium product that has cheaper alternatives and It has been zero issue. You have sold out weekly, haven't you? For what, 120 consecutive weeks?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, it's it's well over a hundred weeks of straight drops every single Thursday night.
Kurt Elster
Tell me about this drop model. Because like during the pandemic, especially, that was like peak drop model. We saw a lot of that. And it kind of fell out of favor with marketers. I still like it. Clearly it's working for you.
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, and you know it it's wild like because you know like we'll do it and then like you know we'll sell out real quick and you know and obviously the trolls hop in our comments and like oh they're only selling five knives, they're building scarcity, like all that stuff, like You know, Josh and I literally just signed our houses over to cover the mortgage on the next facility. Trust me, I am not holding knives back from anybody. We need all the help and support we can get you know, for funding, you know, the next facility to help us like grow our business. So like the idea of us manufacturing scarcity is just so wild for us because literally we have we're hiring at the rate of like almost like one or two people a week downstairs in the manufacturing side just to build that. But it all started, you know, four years ago where, you know, Josh and I literally put the very first, you know, order of you know, Montana Knife Company knives like on credit cards. And we, you know, so but it, you know, back then, you know, it'd take, you know, three or four months to go through the entire process to build a couple hundred knives. And we didn't know we were gonna sell the first batch. So we only ordered enough that first batch. They sold out in 14 minutes and we're like Okay. So then we put another rush order in. So there was another you know, it was almost another like three or four months before we had another drop. And, you know, me being a marketer, like I still needed something to talk about in those three to four months. So I never stopped marketing. And we couldn't, and and the other thing too is like we never wanted to take pre-orders because we still were refining our process of like how to make these knives. And I never and we never wanted to take money from somebody that we didn't know we couldn't deliver that knife. And that was the hindsight that Josh and I had on that like was so incredible that I'm so glad we stuck to that. Cause like everybody, every business suit that we could talk to is like Take pre-orders, take pre-orders. You can lever that leverage that against banknotes and do all this stuff. And we're like, no, no, it's not the right thing to do because like, you know, yeah, we ordered another couple hundred knives, but we don't know if some of those are gonna get messed up in the process or the we're gonna sharpen it or you know like like there's a bunch of things that can go wrong. So we never took a pre-order, but with in between those drops, it gave me three months to sell these knives. So I mean I was posting every single day, building our email list, our text message list. And like and and then even like year, I'm talking month one or two in like 2020, you know, we start I started as like, okay, well, I'll start doing collabs. I went down to the local coffee roaster in Bazoula. I was like, hey, like You know, because I had a client that did coffee and I was like, I could sell coffees. I was like, hey, can we private label a bunch of bags of coffee? We'll do it as a local collab. You And that was one of our first collabs. You know, and then I did it with, you know, one of our mutual friends, Kurt, you know, Casey Bard at Tactic Calories. You know, I went to college with I went to college with him. I was like, Hey, can you just make a seasoning that's based around knives? And I think it's like fire salt or something like that. And we've launched that. So so so we did a bunch of things to kind of just fill the space in between, you know, we had the knife launch. And then you so You know, with all the energy we were putting into it, you know, the knife, you know, we would have our second drop and you know they sold out even faster, four minutes. And then we started getting into the pace where we're like, okay, we'll start ordering, you know, mid you know, we got some confidence in the brand and what we were doing. So we started ordering more frequently, but we still weren't going, we still weren't betting our houses on it yet. So it took us uh you know, almost a year or two to actually get to the point where we were having knives available once a month or twice a month. And then year three you know, we started, you know, making enough knives to go every single Thursday. And then the then we were starting like, okay, we can start trying to put some stuff in stock. And I mean we're four years in. We've been trying to put something in stock every single day for the past two years. Um we can keep stuff in stock for maybe a week on some of our older models, but they're usually gone before we can replenish them. The
Kurt Elster
You know that there's too much winning here. Have you like when have you had a failure? Have you ever had one of these product drops just not go as planned, just fall flat?
Brandon Horoho
Uh just completely bust on the product drops. I mean, you know, more probably on like the apparel side, but not on not not so far on the knife side. You know, we we we we definitely had a couple of knives that I wouldn't say they were a failure, but they were just either too close to an existing model where like the customer doesn't need two of them, uh, where the sell-through is just a little bit slower, but I can't say we've had any major, just absolute fails. Um, we're very, very calculated. Um and the thing is too is like we know our customer base. Um like that is like one thing I have to say is like you know, we're constantly in like our Facebook, you know, um seeker group. We're You know, I'm still running our social media personally myself. So I'm still posting. You know, I have help with the comments and DMs, but I'm still posting. I'm still interacting. I'm still we're still really tapped in. So for us to make bets, you know, I I think we're doing pretty good so far.
Kurt Elster
Ever wake up to customers canceling orders? Maybe they said, I shouldn't shop when I'm high. This was a gift we broke up. Those are all real customer quotes, and they're all a real hassle for your customer and you. Why should the customer have to ask you to edit their order for them? What if they could do it themselves? Enter Cleverific! With Cleverific, you can empower your customers to make their own changes through a self-service portal. Cleverific is designed to reduce customer support tickets, ship orders faster, and even reduce returns and lost packages. Don't just take our word for it. Menswear retailer Peter Manning New York cut their order support queries by 99% with Cleverific. And they're not alone. Exclusively For listeners of the unofficial Shopify podcast, get 50% off Cleverific's Pro Plan, now just $49 a month, giving you full access to everything Cleverific has to offer. Just go to cleverific. com slash unofficial and use the promo code Kurt50, that's K-R-U-T-50, at checkout to claim your discount. Take control with Clever Effic and watch your customer support tickets plummet, shipping speeds increase, and package returns decrease. And all of that means happier customers. Tell me about your email and SMS list. It's it's huge. I'm guessing this is a big part of your sales success in addition to the social media channel, but uh tell me a little bit about your approach to to having a well, having a big ass newsletter.
Brandon Horoho
Yeah. So this is, you know This is 15 to 20 years in the making. So I know I've been doing email marketing since, you know, early 2010s. Um, you know, I got into it, you know, with with another very heavily advertising restricted business, which was the supplement world. So, you know, like I've never had these massive budgets and I've never had, you know, the ability to go do paid ads and stuff like that. So You know, and I've always been like one-man marketing teams for all the businesses I've worked for. So, you know, all the responsibility has been on me. And the one thing I learned is that like you cannot mess when you own you mess around when you own your own data. Like that is the secret to running a successful business and being completely, you know, self self you know efficient or self-reliant on you know your own business versus like you know relying on Facebook and meta and all the other stuff. So I I got to literally, you know, you know, almost like 15 years of making mistakes, I got to put into MKC. You know, and I got to start MKC fresh with fresh data, fresh everything. I mean, zero emails. It was amazing. So so we so we built that list extremely you know healthy from the ground up. Um, you know, and then again, like I always say, like our email and text message, like that's the nail, I'm the hammer, that's my go-to. Um so so so we started building that list from the ground up and we did it very, very slowly but meticul meticulously at the same time. Um we've never given an offer away to anybody. We've never given a discount on a knife. So if you sign up, the only way you can sign up for our email is like, hey, do you want this knife? Yes or no? And we'll and we'll email it to you when you're when you're available. You know, it's so it's been at the very beginning, it was very hard to start getting those emails, but I was getting very, very hot customers who actually wanted to help support the brand. And the one thing too is like we never We aver we email very heavy. Very heavy. And we have a very, very, very, very small unsubscribe rate compared to other brands that I've you know helped grow and work for and stuff like that. So But and the reason why I think that is so true is because, you know, we put so much effort into our emails. Like every so we send out at least Five emails a week, three of them on Thursday. We send out three emails to our entire list every Thursday. But every single email has its own dedicated creative, its own dedicated photo shoot. Like it is to me like we put more effort into our emails than most brands put into their TV commercials.
Kurt Elster
And so those emails, like all that effort into those emails, those are what lead up to these recurring wonderfully successful Thursday product drops, right?
Brandon Horoho
Right.
Kurt Elster
Like that's the the tip of the iceberg is the product drop and go, yeah, you know, we always sell out, sells out instantly. But the thing everyone's not seeing is the amount of effort you're putting leading up to that, is my my guess.
Brandon Horoho
Right. And and that's and and whenever you know people come to me for advice, especially, you know, you know, like marketers that are not owners of the business, you know, they come to me and they're like, hey, like how are you doing email lists? Like how are you doing this? Like how's And I explained it to him and I tell him like listen, we send out all of our marketing the week before and there's zero conversion. Like it makes people shake because like they're because they're so they're so used to like basing all their stuff off of these like you know these marketing metrics. When you're the when you're the marketing director and you own the company and you're spending your own money like on things like you're like you're what the numbers you care about completely change. So like conversion rate, it's funny because like, you know, from from Sunday until that Thursday night, like we have a zero conversion rate. Our click-through rate is not that great, you know, but the second that thing hits on Thursday night all those metrics completely change that week. You know, and obviously because again, the bat, you know, the analytics backfill those emails. But um like I said, it we we try to sell, we tr we try to pre-market so hard that we sell through everything that we ever launch.
Kurt Elster
It's that that pre-marketing. And you know, the other thing that's counterintuitive, so many people will say, Oh, I I only make data-driven decisions, right? And they become obsessed with I can only do things that some KPI agreed with at some point. And in your case, you're saying like that would talk people out of the approach you're taking because you send so many emails that A majority of the emails you send by KPI, if we're going, oh, this is data driven, you would go, well, those didn't work. And the reality is they do work, but it is part of a longer funnel, a bigger picture.
Brandon Horoho
Exactly. And that's the you know and that's the thing too, is like you like you said, like you have to trust the the main metrics. Like the the three things that I'm like absolutely obsessed with. Like these are the three numbers that like They cannot go down year over year is A is how many individual people own a Montana knife company knife? Like I track that Metris like almost on a daily. if not like weekly. And then um the other one is too is, you know, how many people are visiting our website? And then the third is how many people are in our data poll, you know, with email and SMS. You know, like those are the three things that like you can't really fake. Like I can't manipulate my segment to have a better open rate. I can manipulate my you know segments to have better conversion rates. Like I could obviously when I was in agency world, like I could make all my numbers look amazing if I, you know, if I turn certain knobs and stuff like that. But when you're But when you're when you're marketing like an owner, like those numbers don't really matter because you know you can manipulate them. But they're still, and don't get me wrong, I'm still looking at them. I'm still making sure they're healthy. I'm still making sure like You know, we're we're not going down, we're watching our open rates, we're watching deliverability, like all that stuff. But those three metrics website traffic, how many people own a knife, and how big is our data poll, like Those are the three things like if you if you watch those three metrics, like your business is going to be successful.
Kurt Elster
That's really good advice. And it I appreciate that it is it's counterintuitive um to what we normally hear. The other thing. You're so good at customer engagement. Like we heard about it a little bit with how the authenticity with which you approach your social media. The other thing you really do quite exceptionally well is reward your best customers. I heard Yeah, you mentioned earlier a uh a private Facebook group. I'm thinking there's a secret Facebook group. And I know you have um quite incredible customer loyalty program, the VIP program. Tell me about those efforts to like just really capture and engage and know those best customers.
Brandon Horoho
Right, right. So this all goes back to almost like day one. You know, day one, you know, obviously like Josh and I, like, you know, we've gotten so much like unsolicited marketing and business advice. And the first thing is is like, you know, we got was like, hey, D to C is awesome. It's a flash in a pan. I I knew that was wrong. But like, you know, just so many of the traditional people inside, especially our hunting industry. Our in our hunting industry I always feel is like a little bit about 10 years behind. Like you like I say mass consumerism. So it's just, you know, they're like, hey, like your goal is to get in a wholesale. Like you want to get into big box stores and you want to do all this, but we're like, we don't want to give up that forty to fifty percent margin. So we're like, let's hold off as long as humanly possible. And you know, and I'm watching other brands, you know, they're spending all this money taking the sales rep out the dinner or taking the sales rep on these like expensive hunts, these you know fifty thousand dollar, hundred thousand dollar hunts. Um and I'm just like we should be giving that back to our customers. So what what Josh and I decided, you know, we sat down with pen and paper, we looked at you know we looked at our data and we're like, okay, you know, we have we have people that have spent, you know, you know, $300 with us the whole way up to tens of thousands of dollars. I don't even want to mention because I don't want someone's wife finding out. Um and like so so it's like how do we reward these guys like how we would reward, you know, Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop for placing a $20,000 order. Like We should be giving that much back to our our big customers. So we set up these tiers. And the beautiful thing is is you can opt into this and it's completely secret. No one knows the different tiers when the different breakdowns are. It's it's completely we have it on our lock and key. And we want to do it that way too, because we don't want people gamifying it. It's not it's not meant to be gamified and it's not meant for us to use as a marketing lever. to get people to keep on trying to buy and buy and buy. So like the so the tiers are set up so that they're random, they're in different places and no one knows what they're gonna get. And then also too like Depending on, you know, when we send stuff out, you know, tier six might get a bow this month. tier six next year might get like a rifle. Like we don't know. Like when we give away big prizes, you know, big stuff like that. Um and in the end, like I think that's like like the idea is like the whole the whole the whole time we started MKC was like how would we want to be treated? You know, because we were massive fans of these big brands in the hunting industry. And They wouldn't even reply to our stories. Like and we know we're spending thousands of dollars on their camo and like all that stuff. So it's like, how do we just make sure that we're always responding to our customers? How are we always sharing their stories, their successes, and like How does how do we like make sure that the touch points with MKC continue after they buy, not before they buy?
Kurt Elster
The tell me about the that secret Facebook group.
Brandon Horoho
Yeah. So this is completely set up organically. Um, I can't take any credit for it. Uh we have a couple MKC super fans. Um, I believe the page is up over like six or seven thousand people right now. Um, and they buy, sell, trade MKC knives. I mean, there's I cannot believe the rate of engagement in that Facebook group. If you go in there, I mean there's almost a new post every three or four minutes. 24 hours a day. It is super engaging. Um and Josh and I um they they did make us admins, but we try not to like, I try not to like I've never like we we don't touch posts, we don't manipulate posts, we just we just like the we want this to stay as organic as possible. We're just in there to answer questions, answer customer service issues. Um and then, you know, obviously like I like to go and then reward those guys. So like I'll give them like they'll be the first people to know about, you know, new knives or You know, if there's ever like a secret batch ad ISP on the website, usually go in there like, hey guys, just heads up, I'd go check out this URL or throw something cryptic in there. Um but like it's it's called the it's called like the MKC User Society. Um, you know, and we've and I was I even put some time in, I branded it for them. We have we have a t-shirt you can buy on our website if you're a member of that Facebook group. But And it's all for those guys. Like I said, it it that's all set up by our fans.
Kurt Elster
The and you mentioned um it stuff they can buy on your website. It's a Shopify store, of course. Has has MKC been on Shopify for the full run?
Brandon Horoho
Yes, that is so like you said, with me doing e-commerce for you know almost 20 years, you know, I've was on every single platform, depending on what the client was. So, you know, WordPress and Magento and There's some other weird ones I got thrown on. Um I I just Shopify was just the clear answer. And it's not even to sound like a Shopify commercial, but it's just like There's not even another option right now for what we're doing, especially when you're a hundred percent direct to consumer. It's just the the best fit.
Kurt Elster
Are there are there any apps, features, tools in Shopify that like you just can't live without? These are your favorites, these are your go-to's?
Brandon Horoho
Oh, absolutely. So Right now, what's what's working really well for us is rebuy. Like that is just I I I say that's our that's what that's one of our best employees, is the rebuy app. Because it just works all day long, 24 hours a day. So the rebuy app is doing absolutely amazing. Um, you know, we've had a lot of success with retention. com, that app. It's crazy because you talk to some people and they're like, it's not working. And then I then for us, like, I would I you like that's one of our like best producing apps. Um, you know, almost to the point, you know, and then we also stack BlackCrow on top of retention. So we're kind of doubling the same thing.
Kurt Elster
BlackCrow retention do similar things, right?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, they do very similar things, but the but there are some deviating points on how they you know help you know manage data and stuff like that. So Um, you know, for us, it's it's actually makes sense to run both. I wouldn't recommend that. It took a lot of customization and you know, flow segmenting and like stuff like that to make sure it runs smoothly. But um Like to us, like, you know, new customers are is is all that we care about. So any way that we can get, you know, get them to sign up for an email or be able to like tell them our story better than just like hearing it from a friend, like that's like we're gonna invest as much as we can into that.
Kurt Elster
Hey, aren't you forgetting something? If you're not using OneClick Upsell, you're leaving 10-15% of your total Shopify revenue on the table. OneClick Upsell is the number one upsell app. for over 15,000 Shopify stores. Listen to these brands. Tushy, Dr. Squatch, Buffy and Victoria Beckham, and guess what? It's already made sellers just like you an extra $750 million in upsell revenue. With one click upsell, you can add AI-powered upsell funnels to every product on your store, including upsells on your product pages, shopping cart, checkout. And thank you page. Even on the shop app. So you increase your average order value automatically. And getting started is a breeze. You can install the app Launch your first upsell and start making 10-15% more cash from every customer beginning on day one, as in today. Don't leave behind another dollar in free upsell revenue. Go to zipify. com slash curt and try one click upsell free for 30 days. That's zipify. com slash K-U-R T. You have these drop the these product drops weekly. You're sending a lot of people to the site, and potentially you're sending them all at once and they're all trying to buy. Everybody's trying to rush through the door. Does that's a fear for some merchants. It's like, well, if you know if I have that level of success, will the site stay up? Have you has this ever been an issue where the site like it couldn't handle the traffic?
Brandon Horoho
No. Shopify. I mean, like I said, like we're doing, you know, like it like I said, we we always try to like avoid how many orders we're doing because we always have this saying in Montana that it's rude to ask a rancher how many head of cattle he has. And it's also rude to ask a farmer how many acres he, you know, he farms. But like, you know, like we're we're our our site is getting flooded every single Thursday night. Um I mean there's you know Thousands and thousands of people hitting that at one time. It in that Shopify site never shudders for that. And like you can see that over the weekend, you know, Kanye West just did what $2. 3 million and the first couple hours of his drop and I believe he's on a Shopify site. So I don't think there's like like I said, if if Kanye is fine, I think MKC is gonna do okay.
Kurt Elster
Is that that's our is that our our our marketing role model for what Key does?
Brandon Horoho
I mean he has been he I mean but like it said like just volume wise I I know I can I can guess by that volume how many people actually would visit his site and I was like I said if he's if he's fine he's he's doing pretty good. But but I will say, but there are, you know, for people that are doing this, like there are headaches to this style of marketing, especially if you and I and I and I say not even style marketing. This is our only way to do business, because like we don't have another option. We can't do pre-orders. And if we just Slowly just in and see so that's the thing too. So we do pre-orders, we can only take a pre-order for as many knives as we're gonna sell. be able to sell them. So it's either the pre-order sells out instantly or the actual knife sell out instantly and we're able to ship them the next day within 24 hours. Be I rather take their money and then ship their pra ship their package literally like eight hours later. That to me is a much better customer experience. But when you do send that many people to your website and you only have, you know, a couple thousand knives. There are gonna people who are not gonna be able to get your knife or they're gonna land on your website after they're sold out. You know, because that's the thing with Shopify is that you know it's their system is set up so that if you put the knife in the cart, you go through checkout And if that knife sells out before you finish your credit card information, it it pulls it out of your cart and tells you you can't you can't finish your order. So that causes a lot of disgruntled, you know, customers and But that's also why we double down on our customer service. You know, we have one of the a couple of the best customer service people to help handle those nights. And they're all they all have to be online at seven o'clock every single drop to help mediate some of the chaos.
Kurt Elster
Well, all right. So one of the things that's interesting about MKC is, you know, for people who aren't into knives, they may think like, oh, you know, knives, pocket knives, it's just, you know, it's just dudes is the audience. And the reality is that within knives, you could really break that up even more, right? Like hunting knife is different than like a tool or utility knife, different than cutlery. um, etc. , is and like based on MKC's branding, your posts, your interests is very much hunting focused, is that Yeah, is is does that represent in your head opportunity or liability that you have like, you know, this a a niche within a niche?
Brandon Horoho
I I I I I think it's full opportunity. Um, you know, cause like we're selling the hardest knife to sell when you go talk to any of our peers. A fixed blade hunting knife, uh, you know, is probably their smallest, you know, any of our any of our real peers that are, you know, the in the game doing, you know, big volume and stuff like that, like You know, their probably smallest demo are hunters, because only two percent of the United States has a hunting, you know, tag in their pocket at any time in the year. So you take two percent of the your country, like those are the people who are actually using the knife. You know, obviously like our knives are being adopted for everyday carry and stuff like that. But you know, in the knife world the the two biggest markets are you know culinary you know for cutlery and then pocket knives you know most of our most of our you know peers they're probably selling you know eight pocket knives to every one fixed blade You know, and we're growing this this business, you know, just selling fixed blades right now. Um, we do have a plan for a pocket knife, but we want to do it the way that we did with the fixed blade. Like when we confidently say like this is the best fixed blade knife for a hunter. You could take this going on any hunt anywhere in the world like for d any duration of time. Like That's our promise. We want to make sure we're doing that with a pocket knife too. Because a pocket knife, you know, comes with its own layer of complexities when you start adding in mechanisms that lock the knife and move and stuff like that. So and to do it 100% in the United States. You know, and not only do we want to just do in the cause like we had the opportunity to go do some like white label stuff from like other companies. We're like, no. We're one thing we will always do is if it has a sharp edge on it and it's it it's gonna get made in-house. We want our fingerprints on that. Um, so that's so that's what we're building our next facility for is to like get into the pocket knife game.
Kurt Elster
You know, would mailing Folding knives to people, wipe your fingerprints off before you send it to them. I never thought about that.
Brandon Horoho
Like I think we're gonna But I know but I but it's funny because that's we're always like waiting for one of our knives to pop up on a police report.
Kurt Elster
So all right, I want to talk about the future of MKC. You recently broke ground on a a new facility, a 50,000 square foot facility. Tell me about it.
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, so this is something we were not expecting to do this early on. So, you know, four years ago we started in a two-car garage, um, you know, and we had six or seven employees in there. Um, and then literally right behind that two-car garage on Josh's property, you know, we built a 10,000 square foot just kind of like you know manufacturing facility. Um, you know, it just has some offices and a lot of open space for manufacturing. And that was supposed to be like our five-year fix from that two-year point. So we're we weren't even supposed to even talk about the next facility. for at least seven years. Um literally we moved in and within months we're like so we've and we've outgrew the space, you know, almost instantly. And Right now, like even my own personal office, we just I just filled it full the creative content team, the video editors, because they can at least put headphones on when I'm on meetings. So we've we're cramming peop we're cramming three or four people in every single office. Um and we're just all gonna get a little personal until we have our new facility built.
Kurt Elster
What what is it that gave you the confidence to say, we just built this facility, now we're gonna turn around and do it again?
Brandon Horoho
You know, honestly, it's it's okay, it it it's the constant sell-throughs, the c the um um, you know, also to just knowing that we own the data. So there's no There's like I'm not relying on anybody else. And there's no niche. This isn't like a flash in the pan. This isn't there isn't like some loophole. It's not a giving away. Yeah, they're not going away and there's and and there's also no like you know, like Amazon loophole attached to this you know, this growth or something like that. This is I mean This is as grassroots, as organic as it gets. And like that's a big thing. And then also too, the one thing we take pride in is like our MPS score, our net promoter score. Like that's the one thing you can't like fake too. So You know, a lot of brands, you know, will do this and you know are really good scores in the 50s, unheard of is in the 80s. For the past three years, we have scored a 91 or higher. Um, and that's for you know somebody who you know is absolutely a brand advocate for you. So all of our customers like love our brand. That's the confidence that we have. to go and do this. Um and then also too, like he had one life. And I I don't want to sound, you know, motivationally or like, you know, just hustle harder kind of feeling, but it's like We we we get one shot at this, you know, and it's like it's the the momentum's there to do this, but then also too, we're building a manufacturing facility. At the end of the day, if somehow knives dry up, we can turn that manufacturing facility into something else and retain those employees. You know, like we're training all these employees on how to use the machines and stuff like that. So That's the uh that's the thing that people don't realize, but when you when you build American-made business and you own the process of manufacturing your own product. Nine times out of ten, you could probably pivot and manufacture something else. Um, so like there's you know, we have confidence in the MKC brand, but you know There's also we have confidence us being resilient if if things do do change. I mean I I graduated college in 2008 when the world was collapsing. We launched this company during yeah, yeah. So so you know so we launched this company during COVID. So You know, I know like like I I have enough trust in myself. I have enough trust in Josh, in our leadership team that like if anything happens, like we're good. We'll figure it out.
Kurt Elster
I'm happy to hear it. And I also love, you know, you're putting your money where your mouth is, but one of the things I I've heard you say before is you gotta as a brand, you need to be more excited about the product than the customer could ever be. And You're you it's absolutely true that is that is your approach here and you could hear it and see it in in your actions. Um looking back, what's one thing you would have done differently?
Brandon Horoho
Uh looking back, so this this is a really good question. So one thing I wish I would have done differently is that you know we leaned really hard on contractors when we started this company. Um, so let's just say for like the financial side or legal or stuff like that, like we always when we started this company, we always worked with contractors that could handle our current size. I wish someone would have told us like, hey, it's going to cost more, but try to find like so say for like accounting firm or you know a CPA or any of those like stuff that's kind of like outside the marketing world, but like Go work with an agency or a contractor that is where you want to be, not where you're currently at right now. Um, because that definitely caused a bunch of hiccups, um, especially in the D2C world. You know, we're in Montana. Not a lot of our CPAs and accounting firms in the state of Montana has ever dealt with a you know a D2C company hitting nexus in all 50 states. Like they didn't even they didn't even know what the word nexus meant. Um and I, you know, so so like so obviously the taxes and all that stuff is like I wish we would have just got ahead of that better. Like it didn't bite us too bad, but it's definitely something we had to take a couple steps back and, you know, get the get the right systems in place.
Kurt Elster
It it's good advice and yeah, sales tax, always a headache. Uh you want to make sure you're you're ahead and detailed on your taxes. It's uh early in 2025. What's next for MKC? What uh what's on the horizon?
Brandon Horoho
So, you know The I mean like obviously like 2025 is pretty much all planned out. Like that is there's one thing I have to give our our team credit is that we're You know, a lot of it seems chaotic because a lot of times we don't have knives. Like literally the Cam Haynes knife that we dropped last week, we didn't have a physical sample ten days before it dropped. Like that's how close work some of our manufacturing to launch dates are. But that's what that's what makes this fun. We know the process. We just have to do the cool creative. So we have the next 52 weeks literally planned out. We know exactly what we're dropping every single Thursday. And But going into 2026, this is where it starts to get real fun. Because like I said, we're going to start introducing the possibility of a folder. That folder is going to introduce, you know, many different manufacturing um changes that we have to make, you know, because we go from assembly to like some major manufacturing that's very, very pro you know, precise engineering and movements and like how things get installed. So It's going to push our engineering team. It's going to push our ops team. It's going to push our hiring. It's going to push a lot of us. And then at the same time, we still have to run this the fixed blade, you know, business itself at the same exact time as we're tooling up. for a completely different, almost you know, completely different business.
Kurt Elster
There is so much opportunity ahead of you. And I'm also so excited and desperate for an MKC folding knife. How cool would that be?
Brandon Horoho
I know. I I am too, trust me.
Kurt Elster
That's you know, because that you're right. You've of the knife market, you pick the small one, right? Like And you like you've got the chef knives now, but man, f if I go in a big box store and you go look at their knife section, you're gonna see majority folding knives. That's You know, that that's the big consumer product, right? And man, those make good gifts too. So it really I could see where that hugely expands things. But also you're right. I mean the cob the difference in complexity between folding knife and fixed blade, massive.
Brandon Horoho
Right, right. And and and and and that's the difference is you know, like, you know, someone you know wearing a suit to work and still have a small pocket knife in their pocket. They can't really carry a fixed blade on their hip, you know, into a bank. you know, or into the boardroom or anything like that. I mean you can. I mean that's total I mean that's a sign of grit that I've never seen before, but you know, the it like you said, most like That that that pocket knife side of our business is gonna open enough from like two percent of the United States to like honestly, you know, fifty percent, you know, of every male with a pocket. Um and I'm not saying females won't carry them, but we just we just lean very heavy on the male side. So I'm just gonna I'm not gonna assume any any other new demographics.
Kurt Elster
What's your advice for other Shopify merchants who are seeing your success and saying, man, I wish I had a little bit of that too?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah. Um, invest in your website. invest in your website more than you invest in anything else because at the end of the day that is your first and last contact with most of your customers Um, that is one thing that we have done from day one. Um, you know, I got to see it with previous clients, previous agencies, stuff like that. And that's one thing that, you know, we, you know, do really, really well. We invest heavily in our own content creation. So we have you know, three full-time content creators. Um we have a full graphic designer on staff. We have an e-commerce you know director who handles our entire stack. But the biggest thing is is what I have to tell people is like If you can't hire for it, go find the right agency to partner with and don't go cheap on it. Like, and that's you know where you know where you and I got to spend a lot of time last year together is you know, we completely redesigned the MKC website. And what was amazing working with you guys is that like, you know, we're we're we like hold our content so close to our chest and like we want to make sure it's our voice and all of that stuff. But we're not coders and like we're not dev people and we're not like like that's not our thing and we knew that and we like that's why we actually like partnering with you the best is like Hey, we have some wild ideas, and you're like, Oh yeah, we could do that. But you're but you're like, hey, we need content for it. It's like we got that. We have literally a Dropbox folder of thousands of images. Um, so that's one piece of advice I give is like invest in that website, constantly invest with that website, listen to these podcasts, listen to these ads, um, you know, about new apps and stuff like that. I know it sounds crazy, but like There's you know like if you can get you if you can be one of the first people on new apps, like sometimes those app companies will actually like adopt you and help you more than most companies and you know try to use you as a set you know set example of like, hey, this app works, which has happened with us a couple times. So always be testing new apps, always be investing in the website.
Kurt Elster
God, that is I am thrilled with that advice. And you know, I wish we had we had more projects of clients like Montana Knife Company because that is When you can marry that energy plus the content to the, you know, our ability to create a theme, build a layout, and get something very functional. But like you know, we can't be excited about your product for you and you have to be able to create that content for us for it to really sing. Like we can only take it so far. And so when you compare that Or when you compare that, I mean you really could get an incredible result out of it. And that's why I've always been so proud of our work together with Montana Knife Company. Man, Brandon, thank you so much. Yeah. Where all right, what's the website? Where can we go learn more?
Brandon Horoho
Yeah, so you know, Montana Knife Company. com, you know, um, or on Instagram, you know, at Montana Knife Company. After four years, we finally got our blue check mark. Um very proud of that moment for a knife company receiving a blue check mark. Um so like th those are the biggest things, you know, and then You know, also too, I just want to leave, you know, your listeners with this. You know, there's a lot of marketers who are listening to this podcast. And, you know, I grew up in the Tim Ferris generation of the four-hour work week and try to make it as lean as possible and minimal as possible, but If you're a really, really, really good marketer, I just ask you at for one of your projects, for one of your businesses, go support American Made Company. See like try to like try to work with American made company, you know, see how much you can build it, how many employees you can hire, help hire, and all that stuff. Like I I just I just want to kind of push all marketers to at least try to do that. Try not to always just chase like the biggest return, but like how much change can you make in your community, in your country, um, especially moving forward, like we're gonna We're gonna need that more often, I think.
Kurt Elster
I I agree. Brandon, you're the best. Thank you so much. Uh Brandon, Montana Knife Company. Thank you.
Brandon Horoho
Awesome, Kurt. I appreciate it.
Kurt Elster
Crowdfunding campaigns are great. You can add social proof and urgency to your product pre-orders while reducing risk of failure. But with traditional crowdfunding platforms, you're paying high fees. and giving away control, all while your campaign is lost in a sea of similar offers. It can be frustrating. That's why we built Crowdfunder, the Shopify app that turns your Shopify product pages into your own independent crowdfunding campaigns. We originally created Crowdfunder for our private clients, and it was so successful, we turned it into an app that anyone can use. Today Merchants using Crowdfunder have raised millions collectively. With Crowdfund, you'll enjoy real-time tracking, full campaign control, and direct customer engagement. And it's part of the Built for Shopify program, so you know it's easy to use. So say goodbye to high fees and hello to successful store-based crowdfunding. Start your free trial and transform your Shopify store into a pre-order powerhouse today. Search Crowdfunder in the Shopify App Store to get started.