Selling Deviant Ink With The Sled Wrap Pioneer

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Sledder Cast podcast. This is going to be a phenomenal episode. One that Bruce I think I've we've been trying to make this happen for a couple years

For sure.

And finally have just been able to sync up on the calendar and so I'm stoked. I've got Bruce Sirjane here on the line and he is the original sled wrap pioneer. We'll get into his story here throughout this episode, but for those who don't who aren't familiar with Deviant Ink we I did not start Deviant Ink and this guy right here, Bruce, he's the founder. He's the one who built it in the early days.

And so I thought it'd be interesting to kind of get get a kind of a unique spin on a company and a brand that started really early, you know, in the space and then progressed and then founder sold it to another individual and that individual took the baton and kept running with it and just kind of get two different, you know, versions and outlooks on the whole process.

And so, when I was putting together this outline, you know, I know a lot I feel like I know quite a bit about Deviant Ink, also known as, and we'll get into this, SledWraps.com, from about the mid 2010s on, but I don't know much about Bruce and his story and the business way back to the early 2000s. And so, that's kind of where I wanted to start here. Bruce, why don't you maybe just give like that 60-second overview of who you are and then we'll we will dive right into like the early days of this wrap industry.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the guy that started SledWraps.com and Deviant Ink eventually. So, you know, my early days as a motocross rider, kind of evolved and then my brother got into snowmobiles. So, that's kind of he got into snowcross riding. That's where it really all started, you know, and then opportunities and ideas popped up from there. Everything kind of picked up around 2004. Between 2004 and 2006 is where it all began when the Ski-Doo Rev chassis was introduced. So that's when things started to change in the snowmobile industry. So that's when the idea popped up and we saw an opportunity.

So that's who I am and that's where we began that time.

So, I mean, motocross graphics, that's been around for a long time, right? What did you was there anything out there that you could compare snowmobiles to? Because I'm remembering when I was in high school like 1998, 1999 and like I wanted to customize my Polaris and like the only thing I remember that I could I thought was available was I could go buy like a flame or a checkered windshield and you throw that on and you thought you'd like totally

Like customized your machine. What like what was out there? Were you just comparing against, you know, the moto space or

Yeah. So, here we can get right into it. So at the time my brother was racing snowmobiles for Ski-Doo. He was racing out west for Warner Racing and they had some wraps for the Rev chassis put on from this company called BDI and they were in Canada and they were doing like literally whole wraps. They were trying to wrap the thing like you would wrap a vehicle. And they called me up and they're like, “Ah, these things are ripping off.” And at that time there was like three companies. It was like Arctic FX, it was BDI and Blown Concepts.

And each one of those companies had a little bit of the recipe and so BDI was wrapping the whole thing and they were the ones that really came up with the name sled wrap. Like we went on their website and they were calling these things sled wraps and I was like, “Oh, this is legit. That's a that's a good name. It's a catchy name. Easy to remember.” And then Arctic FX was doing I think Jordan at the time he was probably thinking the same thing. But he was only doing like kind of like these spot graphics.

I think he had some templating going on that, he could, you know, he could still tell which or, you know, you could choose a model, an Arctic Cat or Ski-Doo or whatever and get flames or a lightning bolt or whatever and put on the hood. But that was it. They weren't wraps, so to speak, or wrap kits. And then Blown Concepts had he was doing a lot of the snowcross stuff like for the number plates and the side panel number plates. And he was doing some stuff for XPS and Ski-Doo and he was using the thicker material. So like between all those companies there's the idea, right?

Like there's somebody doing some spot graphics that are kind of templated out, somebody doing some spot graphics that are templated out with thick material, and then somebody doing these wraps that, are covering the whole sled. Sled wrap. So, during that time, that's where the idea popped up in my head and my wife Shannon's head. We're like, sled wraps, that's cool. We went on bought the web domain and that's where it was birthed. So yeah that's the beginning of it. So it was three companies you know inspiration comes from all around us. It's not like the idea wasn't mine.

It was like I was just noticing things and trying to come up with a solution really a solution for the snowcross industry because my brother was racing on this team and we wanted to produce something that would hold up to the aggressive riding that snowcross produced. And that's what we did. You know, we started with XPS Ski-Doo kits for the race team. And how it evolved from there was it was like I started getting phone calls like people were like, “Hey, could I get a replica kit? Can we get some kits for our trail sleds?” And so after the snowcross thing, it was like it really kind of kicked in and we saw the potential for this.

We were like, “Okay.” So, fast forward, I, you know, I kind of kidnapped a friend from college that was a Flash dude, a web developer, a close friend, and locked him in my bedroom, and I said, “Dude, you need to build me this website. This is my idea. This is what we got to do.” So, he did, like two days, three days, he was at my house, and we hammered the thing out.

Nice.

And it was born.

Born right then. What was the like when you first looked at a machine and was like, “Okay.” Because you saw that there was the full wrap, which like as we know that's that is that's a pain to work with when it comes to powersport vehicle graphics. There was the spot stuff. When you started templating, what was like the process like back then for you in those early days? Were you able to get I mean, was it all just hand and trace and transitioning that to a wall or table? Like, how did that process how did you kind of figure out that?

Yeah, that was a that was, you know, the process was long and tedious and getting hands on snowmobiles, getting them in the shop, doing the hand trace thing, putting them on a wall, printing off a grid, trying to get stuff as accurate as possible. So yeah, I mean, it was pretty difficult early on doing that stuff. There were a few times. So I think early on we started working with a couple companies. You know, my brother was still racing snowmobiles and he was going to the X Games and doing some stuff and we had gotten contacted by FLY Racing and they had some athletes that were doing the X Games. They needed some helmets painted.

I was doing airbrush and I was doing anything at the time. Shannon and I, we started this little sign shop, this little digital printing shop, kind of a local gig, you know, and but it was Shannon's idea early on that we needed to get online, do something online. So, FLY Racing reached out and said, “Hey, we got some sleds we want to wrap and send to the X Games, and we got a bunch of helmets we want painted.” And we were like, “Oh, cool.” So they sent us some artwork and they had some kind of half-assed templating stuff going on too.

But that's we kind of were able to see deeper into more of the the industry artwork because they sent us all this raw artwork and we're like okay cool. We were kind of learning Illustrator more at that time and digging deeper into these artwork files and they had some templates that were kind of like I said a little half-assed. They weren't I don't think they were act they were made to kind of wrap the whole hood of the sled at that time but we kind of we took that and we refined it. So yeah we just kind of learned from having those files that time from FLY Racing. Was kind of cool because we were new kind of to vector artwork even at that time.

We were playing around with Photoshop and Illustrator a little bit, maybe CorelDRAW, some early software programs in the sign industry. So, we didn't have a really good grip on all the artwork too. So, that kind of leads into the templates because the templates all have to be cut out. With vector artwork are these cut lines that the machines will cut out, you know. So, yeah, but it was a long tedious process back then. And I mean, for the most part, it still is. There's a lot of new technology that helps, but it's like it's a process. So, it's a valuable tool and a valuable item once you're done with it, creating these templates. So

Yeah. Everyone now in the snowmobile industry knows what a sled wrap is. They know it comes precut. It's piece by piece.

We've noticed even in like the side-by-side space a lot of people in that space they've never seen like we were at a sand show in California a few months ago and we were applying a few of the pieces on a side by side and people stopped and they were like wait you can just like peel this you have a piece just for that part of the of the side panel like on the door like you don't have a whole sheet that you have to put on here like no it's just a piece by piece that industry it seems like the you know it's taken a little bit longer for or it hasn't hit yet the commonality of like pre-cut templated out pieces and so was it a hard thing for you to market like back then in those early days did you have to were people like did you have to explain the process like we are going to send you or deliver to do, you know, a roll or a kit of graphics and you're going to put it together like a puzzle.

Yeah. Yeah. It was Yeah. Customer getting the customer to understand the process. It was a big key of it. And I think we spent the first four or five years of the business like going to these trade shows and really selling the term sled wrap. You know, it was like creating a, you know, kind of exposing the market to that term sled wrap and getting that to be like a household term like so, so everybody knows what a sled wrap is, because we knew we had SledWraps.com. So people are going to type sled wrap in, it's going to be the first website that comes up. So that was an asset.

But then also the understanding of that term being that it's a kit. So that part was our early website. My friend that we my friend Pete, we locked him in the bedroom there. He built this idea that we had to drop this snowmobile down in the screen and have all these pieces come onto it individually. So we kind of built this just drop this sled down. Boom. And then the wrap started applying itself. And that was the first thing that you saw when you went to the screen. So that was a big help.

And then you know the FAQ page and the install instruction page making that super accessible and exposing that easily on the website were keys early on in the birth of this.

And you so you just to kind of paint a geographical picture here. You're East Coast United States operated this all the time out of Vermont. Correct.

Yeah. Correct.

Were your customers mostly at the time word of mouth or like how quickly did you start going to trade shows and you know getting you know not just like personal you know relationship type people purchasing your own product like

Yeah I mean we didn't really when we launched SledWraps.com was pretty much the beginning you know we knew we had to do this online. We knew we're not going to be able to sell too much locally. We did but that wasn't that wasn't our goal. You know, we our goal was to sell this online. So, SledWraps.com gets built, we launch the website, and then the orders start coming in. But again, here on the East Coast, we were still very much involved in the snowcross industry. So during that time when we launched that website we were sponsoring snowcross teams and working with at that time there was a company called Rock Maple Racing.

It was the East Coast Snowcross. It was like the East Coast Pro Snowcross Circuit and then I think it was WSA West Western Snowcross Association back then. So both of those circuits, we were working with them, working with different teams, and it was also helping getting the name sled wraps out there because we would we were wrapping trailers. We're wrapping a lot of trailers during that time for the race teams. That was probably our biggest like our bread and butter kind of stuff right there. That was our biggest bread coming in these trailers. At least during like the very beginning of Sled Wraps.

So we were putting SledWraps.com on these trailers and all the snowcross sleds we're getting those. So we're getting exposure there and through the X Games videos and stuff like that. So yeah, we weren't really selling a lot like dudes walking in the door saying, “Hey, I want a sled wrap.” But we did have I remember one dude coming in like the first dude and saying, “Hey, I want to do this graphic kit on my sled.” And he was a local guy. I didn't know him much, but he brought a sled in.

And that's kind of we used that sled for one of the early templates because I already the idea was already rolling and this guy comes in and I was like, “Oh, perfect. He has a brand new sled. We're going to template this thing out.” So I was like the first customer that got the it was like

Got the full treatment.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like this Iron Maiden themed sled too. It's like

Kind of funny.

So what was the like what was the first models that you were like fully confident? I really stoked on how the this new kind of idea of you know full templating pre-cut kits. Was kind of like that bread and butter model that you got that you really mastered.

Yeah, I think it was the Ski-Doo Rev chassis when the Yeah, I think that came out in 03 or 04 right there. And that was Yeah, that was when all the sleds started changing. Their chassis started changing. I think the IQ the IQR Polaris chassis came out and so those models being the snowcross models too they were easy to kind of visualize and see the pieces and see how a wrap kit could fit on these. Yeah then it wasn't you know oh wait I guess the XP chassis came out and that was even easier. But it's evolved so much as you know, now you guys are covering like 99% of these sleds and back then we're just getting going. Our gaps are bigger.

The panels are a little different. We're not templating out all up around the dash and console and trunks and stuff like that. We're doing kind of the basic stuff. You know, we got into doing we were the first ones to start doing, you know, tunnel wraps. And I mean, we were really kind of pioneering, cutting the path, carving the path, so to speak, for everybody at that time. We were trying to do seat covers that match the wraps and everything. And we, you know, we had lots of stuff that worked, lots of stuff that failed.

You know, you kind of when you're in business like that, you want to try to stay ahead of the curve and you want to try to stay in front of everybody, but it's also it's hard work because the guys in second and third, they're seeing the mistakes you're making. They're learning from the mistakes before we have to we're learning the hard way, right? We're taking the hit when it comes to it. So yeah, some hindsight's like, man, it's not too bad kind of working in second and third and then, you know, on that last corner, you kind of make the pass.

Yeah. You know, Mack and I have we I mean, we've had this conversation many times is because we've tried it's important to us to feel like we're always innovating and we're trying new things and if you want to call it, you know, trying to lead the pack rather than be a follower in the pack. And as you said, there's benefits, there's pros and cons of being on both sides of that. It's tough because you want to be a benefit of being that of being the leader is it gives you more reasons to talk about what you're doing because typically you're doing new things.

There's some successes, there's some failures, but it gives you an excuse to talk about yourself in an attempt of improving and doing cool stuff. And so, we've noticed this with kind of what we've done with our websites, changes over the last four or five years. It's taken about four or five years for other brands to, catch up to some of the stuff that we're doing. And it's like, yeah, they're, you know, they've done a pretty good job of, you know, doing what we built a few years ago. We're already working on like the next phase of what we're doing. And it's just like a it's a constant grind.

Like there's no like stopping and just being content with where you're at. There's many days where I like I wish we could get there, but Mack and I are both like always thinking ahead and you know, how can we improve this or make this better or give a give the customer a more fun experience on the site? But yeah, being the follower, there's some days where it's like, oh man,

Yeah,

It'd be nice to be it'd be nice to be in that position. But

Yeah, it's the process though, you know, man. It's not it's not the end result when it comes down to it. When we build something, it's really the process that we all enjoy. It's like building it and doing that stuff. If you're building a motorcycle or a car or a business, it's like building that. That's so trying to like be present and settle into that and enjoy the process is a big key to life.

Yeah. So, what made you keep going? So, you're still sled wraps, right? Like early days you're sled wraps. Maybe we can we don't have to. How long did you run it just as sled wraps before you started kind of introducing the Deviant Ink kind of name and concept?

Yeah. I don't recall exactly, but it probably wasn't I mean we probably made a good six or seven eight years before we really started thinking about the Deviant Ink thing. The Deviant Ink thing was always in my head. We you know Deviant Ink started out as a clothing brand when I was in college. We were like a bunch of snowboarders that kind of you know just this crew. It was like the Deviant Crew and we started making some clothing and but it was just like some kids playing and we never really did too much.

We got it into a couple snowboard shops and but you know we took all the money and you know bought beer with it and whatever you know so that kind of like fizzled out. But once I got this sled wraps thing going. It was always in the back of my mind. I want to kind of revamp this and rebirth the Deviant Ink brand. And so what happened was really it was like the need to diversify. We're like okay we're building sled wraps. We're selling sled wraps but if we want to keep going and we want to try to diversify enough so that and who knows I mean snowmobiles maybe they won't be forever maybe whatever. Who knows what's happen what will happen.

So we were like let's try to get into the motocross and side by side markets and stuff like that. So that's where Deviant Ink really kind of came in. We're like, “Okay, we need to kind of rebrand Sled Wraps because Sled Wraps is definitely going to pigeonhole you into, you know, snowmobiles.” So, that's what we did. And that was a difficult thing to do. That was a really challenging thing to do because Sled Wraps, I mean, we that brand took off like Sled Wraps and that whole brand was it was popular. It was definitely an industry staple. Everybody recognized that SW logo. It was Yeah.

So, it was a really challenging thing to do and we kind of, you know, I probably made a ton of mistakes during it and I could have, maybe I would do it differently, maybe I wouldn't, I don't know. We kind of went a little slow with it and we kind of introduced the brand. We started introducing some wraps with Deviant. They were like the Deviant Ink branded wraps in the snowmobile on the sled wrap site. And then I think we were kind of introducing some of our clothing line as Deviant Ink too at the time. So, we're trying to like build this separate brand through the Deviant Ink avenue, you know.

I don't exactly remember when what year that was when we switched everything over, but it wasn't too wasn't too soon or too early before you guys took over, I don't think.

Yeah. Yeah, I was going to get into this later on, but that's how I like you guys were I literally I wanted a sled wrap. I typed in sled wrap and you were like you were the one who popped up like it was like you were the guy, you know, mid 2010s and it was all sled wraps then. And so yeah, I kind of watched as this kind of Deviant Ink kind of name kind of started floating around.

But yeah, for sure, you know, smart move like your brain was in the right spot as far as like, hey, like we're killing it with the sled wrap stuff, but people are really only buying sled wraps for certain months of the year and how can we, you know, kind of try and bring this out of like a full seasonality type of business and spread. It's something we're, you know, as a snowmobile wrap company today, we're still struggling with and dealing with.

As you, as you were, if we kind of maybe go back a few years, who was like your first big athlete, spokesperson, spokesman, spokeswoman, like person you were like, “Man, I got them. They're rocking my brand. This is sick. I can't believe we made this happen.”

Man, that's a tough one. It's hard to think back. There was so many people that helped out and so many great athletes and friends, but you know, we started playing with some of the Slednecks dudes, Dan Adams and Rob Hoff, Jimmy Blaze. There were some of those dudes that were doing that freestyle stuff. I can't even remember all the dudes names. So it yeah it was probably those guys you know because that's how we got exposed. I think we did some stuff with Red Bull early on. So that was you know from our perspective back then that was pretty big. We're like oh we got some Red Bull kits we got to produce and some athlete stuff.

So we were able to use I don't I don't know how much like repping the athletes were actually doing. We were producing we were I don't know sponsoring maybe we were giving wraps away. I don't maybe we were charging for them. I don't even remember some of the early ones. But just the exposure was helpful you know or the ability to use any of the the photographs or the marketing stuff on our end you know to help with the exposure and promotion.

Yeah. So that yeah that was one of my questions was the old Slednecks days and the how much involvement you guys had. Sounds like you had you know some athletes and some representation in there rocking

Yeah. Yeah. That's about it though. We didn't really have much involvement with the videos or anything like that. I think Keegan was he one of the dudes his name he was one of the sled video producers. I think we talked with him a little bit. I think we were just helping out with graphic kits though, you know. We weren't doing anything else. Just kind of getting some riders with some wraps because at those days, I mean, it was just that was the transition out of snowcross and then into this backcountry stuff or in this freestyle stuff. So though, yeah, it was like Dan Adams and Rob Hoff. Those were the early guys.

I think Rob Hoff got a couple centerfold shots through Scott Sports. So those were big and it was like big SledWraps.com logo on the side of his sled and it was like a centerfold shot. It was beautiful, you know. So those were the early ones that really helped out.

Yeah.

And it was the photos. It was really the photos that we were able to use and get from the photographers and stuff.

Sure. As you look back on kind of, you know, late 2000s, early 2010s, what was there a mistake or like a regret? Like if you could look back and think, oh, if I knowing what I know now, I would this is I would have went right instead of left and the right was this. Is there anything like that you can think of?

You know, I've probably listened to my wife a little bit more. She's so she's so intuitive with things. Not really. I mean delegating more, you know, I think there wasn't any like big right or left thing, but like just as a businessman and a new entrepreneur, being green to everything, things were growing really fast and lots of money coming in and it's like you want to try to like maximize your profit. That's like what's in your head.

At least in my head at that time, I wasn't as forward thinking as like, okay, like yeah, some of the diversification ideas started to come in, but it's like you just want to keep making as much money as possible when it's coming in. So, I think, you know, I was wearing my wife and I were wearing all the hats and we're doing marketing, we're doing sales, we're doing the printing, we're I'm like I'm I got printers running in the basement of my house, you know? I'm like this stuff was, you know, and at during that time like these other companies are popping up.

So it's the competition is getting stronger and heavier and so I'm still I'm trying to keep my overhead low. I'm trying to like I'm not going to build a big facility or go rent a big warehouse right now. I'm going to try to just keep pumping this stuff out of my basement really or my garage basement, whatever I was doing. But I think it would have been smart for me to maybe spend a little money instead of not spending it in on the cheaper end of things and trying to just maximize my profit, put more money, you know, build the facility, delegate some more responsibility, hire on some more people.

Don't get me wrong, we had some great employees that helped. You know, it was only I only had one employee at a time, though. I could have had maybe five or six through some of those heavy years and it would have really changed the stress for me and my wife and the ability to start thinking more headspace to think and think about that diversification, think about what's next, think about how to actually responsibly spend this money and put it back into the business and where to put it.

So, yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is like the delegation and that responsible maturity saying I was young, you know, just like let's just make the money and that's good enough.

Yeah. Do you think some of the competitors that popped in throughout that time, do you think they were doing do you feel like they were doing more of that? Maybe reinvesting more into marketing and partnership opportunities and at the time did you see that and feel that or looking back you're like oh yeah they definitely were by the time I'm just you know tunnel vision grinding you know

Yeah it could have been a little bit of both you know I think you know when you're in there grinding you definitely get tunnel vision and it's hard to see outside of that sometimes but yeah There was definitely I was seeing the other companies growing, you know. And I was seeing, you know, some of these companies were literally copy and paste like off our website, taking the whole FAQ page, the whole, you know, and they're and they're popping up and like with the same wording on their website. I'm like, dang.

So that taking that stuff personal too is that was probably some of the mistake too, you know, taking stuff like that personal and both sides of it, you know, the compliment stuff and the, you know, the negative stuff, you know, just, you know, not letting your head grow too big so you're like, “Oh, I got this. There's no nobody's going to be able to catch us on this or I got the market cornered or whatever.” But and then also like not taking the personal. Like these guys or whatever, you know.

So, but yeah, I was watching the other top three or four, grow and, follow in our footsteps for a while, like I was saying earlier, and then just waiting and then all of a sudden, yeah, okay, now it's a it's a it's a race and now it's a real race. And that the competition was growing and I'm still I got one guy I got my basement door I got UPS coming in and like we're just trying to pump stuff out as fast as we can trying to keep up with customer service and all that stuff. So it became pretty difficult.

Yeah. Yeah. When did the idea first pop into your mind of selling the baby off, selling sled wraps, selling Deviant Ink?

Yeah, I think it was during or soon after, you know, some of that stressful challenges of seeing the competition growing. And yeah, you know, my son, I had I have two kids. I have a son and a daughter, Nox and Enza, and they were, you know, nine, seven and nine, about the time that we sold the business to you guys. And, even though you're you have your own business, people are like, “Oh, you got your own business, you got all the time in the world, you got freedom and all that.” Yeah, you do in a way, but it's also like none of the time in the world because your head space is like it's all taken up, you know? You're grinding all the time.

You go to bed at like, I was pumping out wraps at night time like during this time of season like you guys are pumping right now. It's like holiday season. This is go time. And you know I'm I got two printers running in the basement almost 24/7 for some of those years. And so yeah it was taking a toll for sure.

And my kids were becoming a little more conscious as humans and you know so my mind was like yeah I need to I'm starting to think my diversification was starting to think about being more present with my family and my kids and that's when the idea really started to pop up and like what's next you know I didn't really think that Sled Wraps or Deviant Ink is going to be forever. Anyway, like I like change. I like welcome it and I like, it's ebb and flow, man. Up and down all the time and it needs to be that way for growth and everything. So, yeah, I was ready.

Yeah, to kind of give some backstory here on how we met. And this is I don't know when this was. This is probably like 2013, 14 or 15 maybe somewhere back in there. Like I said, I had the the old RMK or the AXYS, whatever. I think it was the RMK and wanted to wrap. Found you guys. I started a an Instagram channel back then or Instagram was pretty new and so I wanted to kind of learn that platform and so I started a channel called Mountain Mob and started learning how to build that and gain an audience and it was so much easier back then than it is now.

And I think the first year or so I just straight up bought the like bought the kit and then I started growing this this Mountain Mob channel and re I think I reached out to you somehow. I got in contact with you or the Instagram account and was kind of telling you what I was doing with Mountain Mob and I feel like back at the time we were we had a pretty decent growing presence and we were you know pushing eyeballs to SledWraps.com and we bought a couple more kits and that's my first I think I feel like that's how I got your attention.

I don't know if that's if that is how you perceived it, but the way that my eyes perceived it was, you know, I wasn't I went from like just being kind of a customer to, oh, he's got he's kind of built an audience up. Let me maybe take him a little bit more serious and see what's going on. I don't know what your thought or perspective was on that, but

Yeah, I mean, it's hard it's hard to say. I mean, there's there was so many dudes like doing similar things, you know, all kinds of backcountry bros trying to get free wraps, you know, and promoting companies and all that, but we were like I was always pretty open and supportive of that. Anyway, I love to see dudes gaining followers and trying to promote companies. I don't know, it was cool. So we tried to support people the best we could.

Yeah.

So yeah,

So as we kind of walk through this this passing of the baton, I've I'm remembering it, you know, how I remember it. And I'd love to hear like get your kind of behind the scenes because we've never really had this conversation before. We handled the, you know, the negotiation and the beginning, you know, conversations. It was all phone, text, email. Like, we didn't have anyone else. It was just you and I.

I remember I was kind of watching what you were doing and I was thinking, man, I have like I had a marketing I have a marketing background, digital marketing, and I just thought, man, if this was my baby, I would be doing some of these things and I could really grow this brand. And I'm not an artist. I had to figure that out. Like obviously, you know, Bruce is super artistic. His designs are amazing. And I remember I hit you up and I think I just kind of planted this seed.

I think I even asked you I'm like, “Hey, you ever thought about selling?” And I believe the way I remember it is you replied pretty quickly and you were like, “Yeah, I'm like actually thinking about that like it's been on my mind lately.” I think I remember that's how it went and that's kind of how it started. Correct me if I'm if I'm if I'm wrong there, but

Yeah, I think that's pretty close. I think I remember you the not the exact wording, but it was something like, “Well, what are your plans with Deviant Ink?” But you know, it was kind of beating around the bush, but I knew what you were saying.

Yeah.

You read right through me. Read right through me. Yeah. Well, it's pretty that was pretty easy to, you know, and also I was like during that I think you sent me an email and I was like in Central America like on an island in like very warm weather with beautiful ocean and everything. So I'm like, “Oh man.” Yeah, now seems like a good time.

Yeah. Yeah. So we started that conversation. I think we had probably what actually now that I recall I believe we got pretty serious in the conversations and then we kind of put a pause for about a year and kind of let some things work out and then fired it back up and we got right to it and took a few months and settled on a win-win for everyone would have felt like and watched the watch the baby leave, you know, leave homes, you know, pass the baton on.

What was it like? I mean, I know I've been in a few you know, transactions like that on both sides. Now, what was it like selling your, you know, you started this thing and it wasn't just like a quick win, right? Like it wasn't like, oh, I started this thing, hit the jackpot, sold it off, but this was a grind for like 18 years, you know, 15 plus years of grind time. Like, what was it like selling this off?

Yeah. Oh, man. It's a It's very bittersweet for sure. You know, on one hand, you're like success. You sold this thing off and you're moving on to do something greater. On the other hand, you're like what the hell are you doing? Like this is your baby. This is your creation. And so yeah, it's difficult, but I mean you guys stepped in like right at the perfect moment. And that was I think that was a key to the success for you guys taking it over.

We were yeah we were so ready to let it go because of the stresses and also the want of this other freedoms the to be more present with our kids during the time of their growing up and so yeah I mean bittersweet is what the what it is.

Yeah. So, fast forward. So, this so to give people some time, you know, timeline here, I believe this was we bought Deviant Ink from you at the end of 2018. Did I get my year right? Because I feel like we had

Was it 18 or 19? Right. You might have it right. I don't have anything in front of me to tell you exactly what it I

I feel like it was the towards the end of 18 because I feel like we had a year and then COVID hit. Like I don't feel like we bought it and it was like a few months later we were right into COVID, you know? I feel like we had a year there where we were running around like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off.

Yeah, I believe it was the end of 2018. I can check that. But yeah, it kind of it's all a blur now obviously.

What's it been like for you? I mean you've so it's now been, you know, six plus years, right? So watching someone take your baby and there it's now six years out of home, right? Like what what's it been like seeing that happen?

Yeah, it's been beautiful, honestly. You guys really kind of took that baton and just ran with it. I, you know, I don't keep a very close eye on things, but I kind of, you know, watch Instagram here and there. I'm very much on the outside. You know, we don't, we don't communicate that much. So but it's been beautiful and you guys definitely put that a different energy into the company that it needed and the this whole podcast thing that you're doing is a whole another thing that you know it might have entered my mind to do something like this and to interact with the community more because the snowmobile community is amazing.

There's so many beautiful people and awesome people out there to connect with. But so yeah, it's been great to watch you guys unfold in your version.

Nice. Yeah. Was there any has there been anything that Cuz like you said, we haven't we'll ping each other, you know, occasionally and we'll check in, but it's not like we've we're in constant comms all the time. But

Yeah,

As you've kind of sat there from the sidelines and maybe seen some things pop up, anything that we've done with the brand that, you didn't agree with at first? You're just like, man, these guys are wild. What the crap are they doing?

No, not that I can think of. Again, I haven't really paid too much close attention, but I don't know everything that you guys have done. I can only see really from your social media what's going on. But no, I mean it looks great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything that we did that we've done since owning it that you I mean you mentioned the podcast, right? Like creating that kind of content, but was there anything that like maybe you either didn't have the time or you didn't you didn't dare to do before but saw it come to fruition after selling it?

No, not that I can think of. I mean, I think the one thing is this podcast. I don't know if there's anything else that you guys have done that I wouldn't have done. Yeah, it would be the podcast. This kind of thing. Again, I mean, I may have thought about something like this. It may have entered my headspace at some time. But would I be the one to do it? Probably not. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. You know, one question we got a lot and that we've received actually quite a bit and if we keep this in the episode, we keep it in the episode, but if we don't, only you and I are having this conversation, right? Okay.

We've gotten we've we've had a handful, you know, we go to a lot of shows and everything and there's been a lot of handshake deals with graphic providers and OEMs and a lot of people would ask us like, “Hey, how did like how come you didn't like how come you don't have or haven't had that like direct kind of handshake friendly partner partnership if you want to call it or alliance with an OEM when a few of the competitors out there who weren't part of you know the early days and the pioneering of the graphics industry grabbed one?” What was your approach on that?

Yeah I'll try to keep this as diplomatic as possible and like, maybe we can use it maybe you won't but so yeah I'm a bit of an outlaw, a bit of an engineer, a bit of a redneck, a bit of an entrepreneur. So, some of those companies, some of the manufacturers early on, it was we had conversations with them. Every one of the top three manufacturers contacted us, Arctic Cat, Polaris and Ski-Doo. Ski-Doo was first and we almost had the Ski-Doo deal. We were going to have the Ski-Doo deal and a couple conversations popped up within the negotiations that really kind of I was young, man. I was young at the time, so it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

And I had I was kind of a bullhead and very stubborn and so you know maybe there were some requests for certain things or maybe changing the product a little bit to kind of meet some price points and stuff like that didn't really feel right anyway even as a business businessman at the time. And then so I kind of I stood my ground knowing that I was jeopardizing a pretty big deal. So that's how that kind of rolled out. And

So they were they had certain requests of you that were going to change operationally kind of what you were currently doing and what you know you had on your road map and those were things that you weren't very stoked to change and start to do on the demands of this of Ski-Doo. Is that how I picked that up? Did I pick that up right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for the most part and I mean I think everybody was trying to again maximize profit and get to a price point and you know you're starting the snowmobile industry is really small and it's very there's a lot of politics involved and yeah so yeah I don't know what else I could really say to all that. Yeah. Do I regret not bending a little bit there and opening up the doors to that deal? Maybe it would have been a good deal. But also I also had this other vision for Sled Wraps and Deviant Ink at the time and I was like, I don't want to be under the control of a manufacturer.

I definitely don't want to be under the control of a manufacturer. That was my perspective at the time. And I want to be able to continue to do what we want to do and create the artwork we want to do all that. So yeah, again a little bit of a rebel when it comes to that stuff like that at least back then. And yeah,

You know, I think a lot of people have come to who have a lot of our customers have been very vocal about our our design library. And from what I can tell is, you know, there's been a little bit more freedom in kind of what you've been able to create. I mean, a lot of the designs on deviantink.com are your designs. Like, they've been they were great sellers 10 years ago and just by tweaking some colors and some adjustments, they're they look completely different and fresh and they're great sellers today still too, right?

And a lot of people of customers have come to us and really appreciated like, hey, like your catalog, your the designs you list in your catalog. There's such a variety of style and it's not just cookie cutter like this and this, but there's a fun variety of craziness. Wild, loud, soft, subtle, clean, crisp. Like there's just a nice spread. And you know, as I look at it and as being the person who came in and purchased the company from you, as I look back, I think, yeah, man, that would have been cool to have, you know, some sort of a partnership in place.

But I but now as I look back I think, man, I wonder what that would have done to the product, you know, the style that that really makes the Deviant Ink brand what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. I spent a lot of time not looking at my competitors back in those days. Is I've made a very conscious point not to follow any of the competitors and not to keep any of their visual stuff in into my social media feed and stuff like that. You know, sure I would check in on people to see what's going on and stuff like that, but specifically for the reason for designing, I really wanted to have different stuff. I wanted to be able to offer something to all the demographics that are riding snowmobiles. But I wanted to keep a flavor that was unique and, you know, sometimes a little out there, sometimes Yeah. Just have a unique flavor.

Yeah. Yeah. Which you did. You did a great job, which is it's interesting because you said, you know, you didn't follow competitors. You kind of wanted to stay in your own lane. I'm in the same boat, man. Like don't follow, block. I do everything I can to make sure that I'm doing as much as I can to make sure that I don't see the noise out there. It's a lot of things. It's, you know, making sure that your eyes don't get tainted with what you know your competition is doing. Your headspace doesn't get tainted with or stressed about what they're doing or not doing and what you need to do and what you shouldn't be doing.

You know, I think as an entrepreneur and a business-minded individual just in general, I think it's a it's a safe space to be in, right? You're you should already know what's on

All the crap you've got to do.

And if you're if you're worrying about what everyone else is doing, it's it stops you from doing what you already know what you want to do, you know? And so

Yeah, that's that's awesome. I've got I've got kind of a fire round lined up here for you. I don't know if you've if you've if you made it this far in our kind of overview document, so maybe some of these will be a little surprise for you. But first question.

Yeah.

What's your what's the what is your favorite wrap design that you ever designed personally?

Boy, man, there's a whole bunch there, but there's one that sticks out. It's the Dazzle Camo and

Oh, yeah.

That when we released that wrap I have some really funny stories about it too that maybe another time because they get a little colorful. But but yeah, the Dazzle Camo, we released that wrap and it was just a it was a hit and it was it set a trend. It set a trend change in the snowmobile industry and it kind of bled over into the motocross industry and I think the motocross industry started to take a little more notice of the snowmobile market and the graphic market in the snowmobile industry at that time. And then we released a colorway of it like a teal blue colorway or something like that. It was really cool.

That colorway started popping up everywhere within the snowmobile industry and the motocross industry and maybe even further. So that was cool. It was a really influential graphic kit and yeah, I mean there was tons of the snowmobile wrap companies that just knocked it off and were pumping them out too. But I think that one be not so much just it was a fairly simple design and a lot of the good ones are, you know. But it was a game changer in a way.

Dazzle Camo still top, you know, still a pretty solid seller even in 2025. So, I don't know what year it was that thing was birthed here to the world, but it's withstood the years.

Yeah. So yeah, I think that was pretty early on. I think it was like 09 somewhere around there.

Yeah, that's

Maybe a little after that, but somewhere in that vicinity, I think.

That's cool.

Yeah.

If you So, as we've had this conversation, you know, you'll it's clear you kind of pop in occasionally. You're not keeping, you know, staying fully up to date on, you know, what's going on in the industry or even with Deviant Ink, but if you woke up tomorrow, okay, you woke up tomorrow and you were the owner of Deviant Ink in its current state, okay, what's the first thing you would do?

Well, I'd probably I'd probably go down through the designs and do a little house cleaning and then I'd probably grab the old crew and go snowmobiling. Head for the mountains.

Nice. Do a little bit of house cleaning. Love it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe we need to have you come on and do a little house cleaning for us. Give us your opinions on some things.

Yeah, I'd be happy to. That sounds fun.

Yeah. Who was As you look back through the years, you've worked with a lot of cool athletes. You know, you've 15 plus years of doing this thing. If you could pinpoint obviously you had many humans and friends and athletes and partners that you loved working with but if you could kind of tie it down to like one individual who would be the one that was like yeah you know that if I had if you're making me choose a favorite this individual would have been my favorite.

Yeah that's a tough one man. There's a like you said, there's just so many people that were awesome and yeah, boy, I remember it reminds me of going out I went out west I think one of our first trips to go snowmobile and you know I was never a snowmobiler. I rode motocross and I think at the time I had like some IQR race sled gear in Vermont that you know you're doing ditch banging with and you know doing a little bit of like just jumping like not really any snowmobile backcountry riding so to speak.

So, I go out west to meet up with Rob Hoff and Noah Evans and I think Duncan Lee was there and I brought a friend of mine from college and it was really kind of a PR trip, you know, go out, meet some of these athletes that are riding for us and go snowmobiling with them, hang out with them for a long weekend or whatever it was and probably get some photos.

I think we brought a photographer with us and but dang dude I didn't know the bottom of a snowmobile from the side of a tree man because so first of all we get out there and it's like it's pretty high-risk avy time like so right there I'm like this East Coast kid like avalanches what like what are we talking about I mean we got our avy packs on we're doing all the things and so it's it was pretty intimidating. We go out there and we get I remember getting up on the top of this one cornice and the whole thing just kind of goes I'm like, being so green at the time, not really knowing. I'm like, what the hell is going on, man?

I'm not I'm not riding a snowmobile down this hill. Like, no way. And I couldn't because I had like zero time on a sled in the powder. Yeah. Like I could barely carve a sled, you know? I was like a ditch banger. And so these guys, God bless them, man. They were like digging us out and pulling us off trees and whatever. So like those guys like Duncan Lee and Rob Hoff and Noah Evans, I have a lot of grateful and respect feelings towards those guys, especially for that trip because they put up with a bunch of some real amateur riding.

But so yeah, I can't really pinpoint I mean we work with so many good dudes and and girls and companies like the Sled Junkies dudes these dudes up in Maine up in Rangeley Lake. We went riding up there a bunch and did a bunch of photo shoots up there and couple of my boys up there that were really fun to ride with and but so I yeah I can't I don't think I can pinpoint one person, man.

Yeah,

It's it's that's a tough one. I mean

It's a tough one. Yeah, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have to chat with old Duncan Lee and get his version of that of that excursion. I remember him sitting behind me at one point under his breath. They're stuck again. I'm like, oh, love it.

So there's there comes a moment when you know you've created something, you've got kind of your friends and your kind of your personal network who, you know, buy, you know, want to help you out, so they buy, you know, from you and support you. Do you remember the first wrap order that came in that was a complete stranger? Like you had you're shipping it to somewhere you've never been and you're just like, man, this just happened.

Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't I don't remember the first order. I could dig back into the IRS records and probably pull up something, but I remember that first year when we launched the website and we had a goal, you know, our goal was to sell 365 wraps or a wrap a day. And I think we exceeded that the first year or if it wasn't the first year, it was the next year we exceeded that. So, we were pretty pumped and that's when you know the proof of concept kind of really took off and but I don't remember the first wrap we sold. I you know don't

Yeah. When was the like can you pinpoint the exact moment when you were like yeah I'm on to something here?

It was pretty soon man. It was pretty early on like, I think we launched the website probably in the fall and it you know the order started coming in it was like

Like magic

You know all yeah like magic only takes one right just one order and you're like okay

It's game on

Game on the website works the you know people it's getting exposed people are finding it so it's game on and then they just started coming in and you Yeah.

Yeah. It's great. Awesome. Well, Bruce, I appreciate your time. I wanted to kind of catch up. This is a good way for us to kind of catch up and just kind of another way for another excuse that I get to get have to learn more about the company that, you know, Mack and I own now. And I think it's good to understand history and I think it's fun for people to listen and watch people talk about, you know, the history of businesses, you know, in a certain industry. So, I appreciate you kind of going back deep into that vault, man, and you know, pulling some of those files out and remembering some of the early days. So, thank you very much.

What I mean if people want to stay connected with you, do you have is there anything going on now that you know let people know kind of what you're up to?

No not really not so to speak of definitely got some things in the works but nothing right now. So

Cool. Yeah, just living I mean you're you do go you do go to South America a few times a year, right? You've got kind of a little compound going on down there and

Yep. Working on this permaculture project and eventually there'll be something there that people could follow along with or connect with me on and there's some other stuff too. Yeah, just living though.

Awesome.

A low profile.

Love it. Okay. All right, Bruce.

Thank you, Trevor.

Yeah, thank you so much giving me the opportunity to have a conversation with you like this. So, appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning in to another Sledder Cast episode. We appreciate you guys and gals and the support you've given us through this show. And we'll see you on the next episode.