January 17, 2025 • 22 mins
January of 2025 marks 10 years of the current version of Machine—I say current only because I started Machine in 2002 as a motion graphics business then transitioned into what we have now in 2015. It’s been quite a ride so far, but it still feels like we haven’t even started yet.
In 2015, it was mainly a one man show. I lived in the back of the shop with my four dogs. No heat, air, hot water, kitchen, shower, or any of the creature comforts we’re used to. I cooked on a hot plate and showered at the YMCA. I was all in on the vision, but it wasn’t a clear vision at all.
I just wanted to do something positive for the graff culture by opening a place for writers to gather, blackbook, attend art shows, etc. Over time, it developed into what you see now. Lots of ups and downs and a huge amount of great memories.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this. Team members, customers, supporters, collaborators, everyone. We have a long way to go.
— Bus
P.S. Rest in peace Kub, Herbie, Hooper, and Shortie. I think about you all the time.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So we're in January of 2025, sothat marks 10 years of this version of Machin and I only say this version because I started the company in 2002 it was a
(00:11):
motion graphics, motion graphicscompany at first, and I did that for a number of years, and then I got real burned out on that industry, and then
decided to start this thing.
So I just wanted to take aminute to kind of go over, you know, I'm sure some of you heard the history of the of the of the company, but I thought, you
(00:34):
know, it's 10 years. I thoughtit'd be a good time to kind of go through that real quick and maybe try to come up with some of the lessons that I learned
through that process. So in 2014I started volunteering at the Venice art walls, and this was
what was remaining of the Venicepavilion. Any la riders would know what I'm talking about. So the
(00:58):
the the roles of the personattending or, you know, monitoring the walls was to sort of guide people, you know, I guess what I would do is, like
someone would come up and theywould have paint, and I would go up to them and say, Hey, you're going to paint today. And they'd say, yeah. And I would ask them
what they're going to do, andit's like, are you going to do a piece? Are you going to just kind of fuck around. And then we would sort of determine where
(01:23):
they're gonna where they'regonna paint. So if they were gonna do a piece or something, they would go on the main wall. If they were gonna just kind of
fuck around and do throw A's, Iwould direct them over to, say, like the the pillars or the smaller walls or something like that. And so that's where, kind
of like the inspiration for amachine. This version of machine started was because, while I was doing that, this was 2014 I was, I was 40 years old at at the
(01:50):
time, and what I noticed was,you know, I would a lot of times, it was young people there, and
when, I would have theseconversations with these young people, even though I was 40 years old and they were like teenagers, they were still
listening to me, and I realizedit was because there was a mutual respect between each other. We were both graffiti writers,
(02:14):
and that immediately startedgetting me thinking that I have a responsibility to be a good influence on these, these kids, if they're listening to me, you
know, it's like,
it's, it's an opportunity that Idon't think a lot of middle aged people have, as far as connecting to the youth in the way that graffiti writers do.
(02:37):
You know, you know graffitiwriters to other graffiti writers, regardless of the age that they are.
So when I'm talking to thesekids and they're actually listening to what I say, I'm like shit. I really want to do this more. But at the time, I
was running my motion graphicscompany, so I could only be there so often, you know, I was really busy with that other thing, so I was trying to think
(03:01):
of, like, how can I,
how can I create something thatI can do my motion graphics company? And also, you know, have experiences like this, and that's where opening up the the
shop came in. It was like, if I,if I open up a place that's like an art gallery where we can have art shows and different kinds of events, graffiti related events,
(03:26):
and then also have it open everyday, so that the youngsters can come in and black book and have a place where they can gather and kind of like, meet each
other. And I could meet them,and we could, kind of, I could hopefully, you know, be a positive influence on them, and maybe help share some of the
rules of the game, or some ofthe ways that we came up as the older generation. And so that's what I did. And at the time, I couldn't really afford to rent,
(03:54):
you know, a whole whole, Icouldn't take on a whole nother expense, you know, like renting a commercial space, you know, that's
just the rent alone. I think waslike, you know, 20, what was it like? 25 grand a year, or something like that. And I couldn't really afford it. So at
the time, I owned a house, andso what I did was I rented that house to a buddy of mine, and then I just moved into the back of this shop that I opened up.
(04:24):
Well, it wasn't even a shop. Itwas just, uh,
so I'll just kind of explainwhat it was like. It was a 2400 square foot, basically, like a rectangular shaped, pretty much an empty place, like all all it
was in the very back there waslike, a small there was like, basically like a toilet in the corner with like a small wall built around it. And then there
(04:46):
was like this makeshift sinkthat basically had like a pipe coming out of the wall, you know, like the spigot that you see on the outside of the house,
you know, and it was just goinginto.
To this makeshift sink, and thepipe was like rested on an old, rusty coffee can. I'll try to find pictures, and maybe I'll edit them in here. And anyway,
(05:11):
so there's no heat, no hotwater, no kitchen, no shower, no nothing, you know. So what I did was my dad and I built a wall halfway between it. So it was a
2400 square foot building. Andthe first the front 1200 square feet was Machin and then the back is, I lived back there. And
(05:35):
you know, I had my four dogswith me, and we just lived in the back. And in the winters, I would have a space heater for them. And, you know, in the
summers, we just were hot asfuck, because there's no amenities at all, you know. And I showered at the YMCA, did laundry at the at the
laundromat, and shit basicallyjust went in, went all in on this, this idea, and it was just a really loose idea, mainly just to have a space for people,
(06:00):
graffiti writers, to gather andhopefully try to do something positive for the scene.
And so over time, it evolvedinto other things. And you know, the events were going, we were doing them once a month, and
kids started coming in andasking, you know, Hey, are you going to sell anything? And
(06:21):
we had plans to sell our ourspray paint brand that was coming out. I had created a
through what's called a privatelabel. I had a company in the in the US that made spray paint, so I had them come up with a formula for at the time, it was
the only graffiti spray paintMade in America. And I don't know if there even is a brand. Now, there's American brands, but they're not actually made in
(06:49):
America. This one was made inAmerica, so we intended to sell that, but that was all. That was all as far as like, and we weren't even making any money on
that, really, it was, or it wasjust me. I was by myself up until, you know, a little while I had some help. And then, you know, it's grown into, you know,
(07:10):
bringing in more more teammembers and stuff. So we started selling, like, little markers and shit here and there. And,
you know, eventually we justkept adding more stuff. Some kids asked about slaps, and I, I didn't think much of it, but then another kid asked about
slaps. So I was like, I know howto screen print. So I made a
(07:34):
fucking like, I think of it likea reverse air hockey table, like I just had a piece of wood that I framed
and drilled a bunch of littleholes in it, and then hooked up a shop vac to it, so when you turn the shop back on, it sucked the sheet down. And so I was
printing stickers just in theback of the shop, in the same area that I lived in.
(07:58):
And you know, just sort of keptgrowing from there, and the events started getting bigger, and we started gaining a little more, more people started
knowing who we were. And, youknow, things just got,
they started, you know, justkept growing. And
I was looking at some videostoday when I was thinking about this, because I'm like, you know, 10 years, we should come up with something to do.
(08:24):
And I realized, like,
you know, it was like, therewas, there was a lot of challenges, you know, when 2020 happened, and all the COVID Shit, and then the, then there
was these riots and all thisshit that was happening right near the spot.
So we were sort of closed downto a certain degree. We never really, I mean, we fully closed down for, like, I don't know it was like a week or two weeks,
(08:47):
maybe, and then we started doingpickup orders. So we weren't really fully closed, we just couldn't have people in. So we focused on the business, and we
grew quite a bit during thattime, because I was really focused on getting better as at running a business. You know, I had been doing this for a few
years now, and,
(09:08):
you know, I didn't know anythingabout retail or shipping or, you know, e commerce, or any of that stuff. So I was learning as I went.
And I wasn't doing the best job,you know, like I was, I was focused on a whole bunch of different things. So I wasn't doing the best job at running
the business and, you know,leading a team. I wasn't doing a very good job at all of that stuff. So I I wasn't really providing the experience that I
(09:35):
felt like the graffiti culturedeserved in terms of the graph shop side of things. I mean, we were doing all these events.
People were really enjoying theevent. So we were doing, I think we were doing those right, but I was not running the business right. And so around 2020, is
when I started really gettinginto personal development. 2019 I was reading and stuff. And that's when I started taking the business much.
(10:00):
More seriously, and we startedgrowing fairly rapidly between 20
2019 and 2020 we grew 350%
the next year, we grew 100%
and it's been growing eversince. And so
I feel like we started gettingbetter at running the business. And one of the lessons I learned was,
(10:24):
you know, consistency and howyou treat your customers, you know,
like, like anybody you know, Icould tend to get pissed off and like, I know, there was some, some times where maybe, like, I didn't handle things properly,
and shit like that. But one ofthe bigger things, I think
what any kind of like businessowner should understand is like,
(10:47):
when you start a business,you're essentially making an obligation to anybody that's going to spend money with you. So it doesn't matter if you're
having a hard time, it doesn'tmatter if you're a one man show or if you don't know how to do all of these things, if somebody gives you money,
all that stuff, all that stuffis not that customer's problem, and you have to deliver on your promise. And so I started, I learned that lesson a little bit
(11:16):
late, not that I alwaysdelivered, but like, sometimes it was late. And like, especially with stickers, it was like
I was printing them by hand. Soit was a pain in the ass process, printing them by hand, cutting them by hand, and all that stuff. And so as that
product gained popularity,
instead of scaling i I extendedthe lead time. So at one point it was like,
(11:41):
you know, it used to be, I can'tremember what the turnaround time was in the beginning, but I think it was like,
I want to say it was a few days,I don't remember exactly, but it was like, three or four days or something like that. And then it became a week, and then it
became two weeks. So a customerwould order stickers, and I'd be like, Look, it's gonna take two weeks, because a lot of times I was there by myself, and so the
(12:06):
only time I could print waseither before hours or after hours. So then I was changing the hours. I was doing all this shit that, like I would never in
a million years do. Now, it'slike, customer doesn't give a shit if you're there by yourself, the customer doesn't give a shit. If you know it's
hard to to fulfill yourobligations, like they gave you money you said you would give, give them this product. And,
(12:34):
you know, I felt like I was kindof like, not doing that, right? So anyway, as as we started to grow, and I started getting better at the business end of
things,
the focus really shifted to, howdo we provide the absolute best experience for customers possible? So I started hiring people. I hired customer support
(12:55):
help so that, like, emails gotanswered fast. I bought equipment so that the stickers could be turned around much faster. So now it's very it's
very rare that things are latebecause of something that we did. Most of the time when things are late, it's because the shit got lost in the
(13:17):
carriers and stuff. But we stilltake care of that anyway. And so I wish I had learned that lesson earlier, because I think we would be a lot further along
had I taken that end of thingsseriously. And like I said, I've never screwed anybody over and, like not sent their products. It's just it took longer than it
should have. And
(13:38):
anyway, so, you know, we keptscaling, we kept growing and doing all these things. And then I tried to have two locations, one in Vegas and one in San
Pedro, and that didn't work. Iwas not.
It just wasn't. It wasn't in thecards, like attention was too split between the two places. And then I made the decision to just move everything to Vegas.
(14:06):
And, you know, Vegas has beengood, but it's also very challenging. You know, we ran, I don't
even know how many events wewere doing, them every month, pretty consistently for years, and we barely had any problems with people tagging and, you
know, with beef and any of thatkind of stuff. And like, we haven't been in Vegas for very long, a few, think, three years now, and we've been seeing all
(14:32):
kinds of weird little issues,people burning the spot, writing on the neighbors shit, writing on our in our parking lot, and beefing with each other in the
shop and things like that, sowe're trying to overcome these challenges. But I got on this rant, not a well, I don't know if it's a rant, but more of a
rambling, but I was talkingabout how I was watching videos, and I feel like one thing that I realized today, and I had been thinking about this, but like,
(14:58):
it really hit me hard.
Card today,
when I was watching all thesevideos of these events. And if you want to see those, if you go to the machine studio, YouTube, there's a if you scroll down,
there's an events playlist, ifyou click on the playlist, there's all kinds of videos dating back to 2016
(15:21):
of a bunch of events. And sowhen I was What re watching those videos, and I was even re watching some of the raw footage,
I came to this realization that,like
for years, we haven't beencreating memories like we used to, you know, we used to have these events that,
you know, people remembered, andthat I remembered, I would I would video them. And we had, like, graffiti battles. We had break dancing battles. We had
(15:49):
bunch of art shows, all thesedifferent kinds of art shows
with lots of graffiti writers,lots of well known graffiti writers. And
you know, those memories areburned into my mind, and I know that they're burned into other people's minds, because every so often somebody will comment on
one of the videos that I makeand will say, you know, I miss the Pedro shows, and I miss the Pedro location, and so do I like I wish, I wish that stuff was
(16:17):
still happening. And so when Icame to that realization today, like I've been thinking about doing events again, but
I've been nervous about all theproblems that come along with with events.
But one of the things that hitme hard today was not creating memories like we used to.
And, you know, it's like I wasthinking about this, and I don't remember where I read this, but somebody was talking about how, well,
(16:46):
there's like, a few things,like, when you get older, it feels like time goes by faster. And Alex hermosi talks about
one of the reasons for that islike, say, when you're 10 years old, a year is 1/10 of your whole life. But when you're 50, a year is like not really that
much time compared to your wholelife,
(17:06):
but but
one of the things that that Iheard somebody say was the reason that, another reason why time feels like it passes faster as you get older is because you
settle into routines, and you'renot creating these memorable experiences. And so,
for example, like, if you'redriving to work every day,
(17:30):
you tend to start taking thesame same route to work every day, so that nothing stands out. And they talked about, sort of like, how your mind works and
how it stores memories if you dothe same thing over and over and over again, then you don't really remember each of those times. You know, you don't
remember if nothing happensbetween the time you left the house and got to work and it was pretty much an uneventful trip. All of those memories of you
(17:58):
driving to work sort of metblend together and sort of form like this mash up of sort of memories that creates, almost like one experience. So it's
almost like you lose, I don'tknow if I'm explaining this right, but this is how I understand it. But it's almost like you lose a lot of that time
because you don't remember anyof it. And so they say, like, do little things, like take your a different route to work, or, like, even something stupid,
(18:26):
like, well, I don't even know ifit's stupid, it's probably actually very valuable. But like, you always brush your teeth the same way most of us,
I'm assuming. And they said, Trybrushing your teeth with your left hand, and it's a whole different experience, you know? And so back to what I was
talking about, like, we're sortof doing the same shit, day in and day out. We're printing stickers, we're doing all these kind of things, but we're not
(18:50):
having these standout memories.We're not having these events. We're not having these gatherings where all of this stuff can happen, these cool
black book sessions and,
you know, these battles and
just meeting different peopleand all these kind of things that these memories aren't being created because we're sort of like doing the same every day we
(19:12):
open up the shop, you know, wehelp customers. I'm sure the people running the counters, they they create little memories here and there because they get
to meet different people. But asfar as for me,
it's the same shit every day.You know, I'm making content every day, I'm posting every day. I'm checking in with the team. I'm making the artwork for
(19:34):
slap tags. It's basically likethe same thing. So every day is probably in my mind. As far as how it's being stored, is just a mash up of years of experiences
that don't really feel likeyears anymore. And so I'm really coming to the realization, and it kind of like put me in a little bit of a depressed state,
(19:54):
because I was like, fuck, man,
we have to get back to that.Because when I was watching those.
Videos, and I was seeing allthese faces of people that I used to interact with regularly, and I'd have these great conversations with these people,
and I haven't seen them foryears now, because we don't do that stuff anymore. Obviously, we're in a different state, but we can be creating all of those
memories here, and at the sametime, people come through Vegas all the time. So,
(20:21):
you know, we have to figure outa way to just make that happen again, and even for people like that aren't here, you know, just to be able to watch those videos
and just see those thingshappening. I think,
I think it's important, and Ireally do need to get back on to that. So
I,
(20:42):
yeah, I got into something elsethat I didn't intend. But I
think that's all right. How longwe've been talking here? We're at, oh shit, 20 minutes. I think I probably can wrap it up. I think the stuff I was talking
about with the memories that canapply to anybody, I think like,
I've been trying to incorporatedifferent things, like little things, just trying to experiment with different ways of going to work. And, you know,
(21:06):
even, like, you get you settleinto routines with, like, food and all these kind of things. So like, I'll just leave it at like, just try to mix it up. I
think it's very valuable to tryto at least create some memories. And then if you're the type of person, I'm not really the kind of, like travel or
anything. But if you're the typeof person that does these kind of things, I would encourage you to make sure you're creating a lot of memories, because that's
(21:29):
all you have at the end of theday. I mean, you have this very second and then the shit that you remember. So hopefully you're creating those things for
those of you that have beenaround or, you know, actually, for everyone that's that's listening, or everyone that's, like, familiar with the company,
or been to any of our shows orparticipated in any way, even leaving comments or liking stuff, sending me messages, all of that stuff. Like, I can't
(21:55):
even tell you how much Iappreciate it, even though we're 10 years in, like, I just still feel like we haven't even gotten started, you know, I'm really
looking forward to to what's,what's coming in the future. And, you know, I just really appreciate all of you for
for being a part of this. Yeah,I don't know. We got a long way to go, so we'll see what happens. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning
(22:18):
in. I really appreciate youguys. And here's the next 10 years.
All right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love. And, yeah, stay up.
So we're in January of 2025, sothat marks 10 years of this version of Machin and I only say this version because I started the company in 2002 it was a
(00:11):
motion graphics, motion graphicscompany at first, and I did that for a number of years, and then I got real burned out on that industry, and then
decided to start this thing.
So I just wanted to take aminute to kind of go over, you know, I'm sure some of you heard the history of the of the of the company, but I thought, you
(00:34):
know, it's 10 years. I thoughtit'd be a good time to kind of go through that real quick and maybe try to come up with some of the lessons that I learned
through that process. So in 2014I started volunteering at the Venice art walls, and this was
what was remaining of the Venicepavilion. Any la riders would know what I'm talking about. So the
(00:58):
the the roles of the personattending or, you know, monitoring the walls was to sort of guide people, you know, I guess what I would do is, like
someone would come up and theywould have paint, and I would go up to them and say, Hey, you're going to paint today. And they'd say, yeah. And I would ask them
what they're going to do, andit's like, are you going to do a piece? Are you going to just kind of fuck around. And then we would sort of determine where
(01:23):
they're gonna where they'regonna paint. So if they were gonna do a piece or something, they would go on the main wall. If they were gonna just kind of
fuck around and do throw A's, Iwould direct them over to, say, like the the pillars or the smaller walls or something like that. And so that's where, kind
of like the inspiration for amachine. This version of machine started was because, while I was doing that, this was 2014 I was, I was 40 years old at at the
(01:50):
time, and what I noticed was,you know, I would a lot of times, it was young people there, and
when, I would have theseconversations with these young people, even though I was 40 years old and they were like teenagers, they were still
listening to me, and I realizedit was because there was a mutual respect between each other. We were both graffiti writers,
(02:14):
and that immediately startedgetting me thinking that I have a responsibility to be a good influence on these, these kids, if they're listening to me, you
know, it's like,
it's, it's an opportunity that Idon't think a lot of middle aged people have, as far as connecting to the youth in the way that graffiti writers do.
(02:37):
You know, you know graffitiwriters to other graffiti writers, regardless of the age that they are.
So when I'm talking to thesekids and they're actually listening to what I say, I'm like shit. I really want to do this more. But at the time, I
was running my motion graphicscompany, so I could only be there so often, you know, I was really busy with that other thing, so I was trying to think
(03:01):
of, like, how can I,
how can I create something thatI can do my motion graphics company? And also, you know, have experiences like this, and that's where opening up the the
shop came in. It was like, if I,if I open up a place that's like an art gallery where we can have art shows and different kinds of events, graffiti related events,
(03:26):
and then also have it open everyday, so that the youngsters can come in and black book and have a place where they can gather and kind of like, meet each
other. And I could meet them,and we could, kind of, I could hopefully, you know, be a positive influence on them, and maybe help share some of the
rules of the game, or some ofthe ways that we came up as the older generation. And so that's what I did. And at the time, I couldn't really afford to rent,
(03:54):
you know, a whole whole, Icouldn't take on a whole nother expense, you know, like renting a commercial space, you know, that's
just the rent alone. I think waslike, you know, 20, what was it like? 25 grand a year, or something like that. And I couldn't really afford it. So at
the time, I owned a house, andso what I did was I rented that house to a buddy of mine, and then I just moved into the back of this shop that I opened up.
(04:24):
Well, it wasn't even a shop. Itwas just, uh,
so I'll just kind of explainwhat it was like. It was a 2400 square foot, basically, like a rectangular shaped, pretty much an empty place, like all all it
was in the very back there waslike, a small there was like, basically like a toilet in the corner with like a small wall built around it. And then there
(04:46):
was like this makeshift sinkthat basically had like a pipe coming out of the wall, you know, like the spigot that you see on the outside of the house,
you know, and it was just goinginto.
To this makeshift sink, and thepipe was like rested on an old, rusty coffee can. I'll try to find pictures, and maybe I'll edit them in here. And anyway,
(05:11):
so there's no heat, no hotwater, no kitchen, no shower, no nothing, you know. So what I did was my dad and I built a wall halfway between it. So it was a
2400 square foot building. Andthe first the front 1200 square feet was Machin and then the back is, I lived back there. And
(05:35):
you know, I had my four dogswith me, and we just lived in the back. And in the winters, I would have a space heater for them. And, you know, in the
summers, we just were hot asfuck, because there's no amenities at all, you know. And I showered at the YMCA, did laundry at the at the
laundromat, and shit basicallyjust went in, went all in on this, this idea, and it was just a really loose idea, mainly just to have a space for people,
(06:00):
graffiti writers, to gather andhopefully try to do something positive for the scene.
And so over time, it evolvedinto other things. And you know, the events were going, we were doing them once a month, and
kids started coming in andasking, you know, Hey, are you going to sell anything? And
(06:21):
we had plans to sell our ourspray paint brand that was coming out. I had created a
through what's called a privatelabel. I had a company in the in the US that made spray paint, so I had them come up with a formula for at the time, it was
the only graffiti spray paintMade in America. And I don't know if there even is a brand. Now, there's American brands, but they're not actually made in
(06:49):
America. This one was made inAmerica, so we intended to sell that, but that was all. That was all as far as like, and we weren't even making any money on
that, really, it was, or it wasjust me. I was by myself up until, you know, a little while I had some help. And then, you know, it's grown into, you know,
(07:10):
bringing in more more teammembers and stuff. So we started selling, like, little markers and shit here and there. And,
you know, eventually we justkept adding more stuff. Some kids asked about slaps, and I, I didn't think much of it, but then another kid asked about
slaps. So I was like, I know howto screen print. So I made a
(07:34):
fucking like, I think of it likea reverse air hockey table, like I just had a piece of wood that I framed
and drilled a bunch of littleholes in it, and then hooked up a shop vac to it, so when you turn the shop back on, it sucked the sheet down. And so I was
printing stickers just in theback of the shop, in the same area that I lived in.
(07:58):
And you know, just sort of keptgrowing from there, and the events started getting bigger, and we started gaining a little more, more people started
knowing who we were. And, youknow, things just got,
they started, you know, justkept growing. And
I was looking at some videostoday when I was thinking about this, because I'm like, you know, 10 years, we should come up with something to do.
(08:24):
And I realized, like,
you know, it was like, therewas, there was a lot of challenges, you know, when 2020 happened, and all the COVID Shit, and then the, then there
was these riots and all thisshit that was happening right near the spot.
So we were sort of closed downto a certain degree. We never really, I mean, we fully closed down for, like, I don't know it was like a week or two weeks,
(08:47):
maybe, and then we started doingpickup orders. So we weren't really fully closed, we just couldn't have people in. So we focused on the business, and we
grew quite a bit during thattime, because I was really focused on getting better as at running a business. You know, I had been doing this for a few
years now, and,
(09:08):
you know, I didn't know anythingabout retail or shipping or, you know, e commerce, or any of that stuff. So I was learning as I went.
And I wasn't doing the best job,you know, like I was, I was focused on a whole bunch of different things. So I wasn't doing the best job at running
the business and, you know,leading a team. I wasn't doing a very good job at all of that stuff. So I I wasn't really providing the experience that I
(09:35):
felt like the graffiti culturedeserved in terms of the graph shop side of things. I mean, we were doing all these events.
People were really enjoying theevent. So we were doing, I think we were doing those right, but I was not running the business right. And so around 2020, is
when I started really gettinginto personal development. 2019 I was reading and stuff. And that's when I started taking the business much.
(10:00):
More seriously, and we startedgrowing fairly rapidly between 20
2019 and 2020 we grew 350%
the next year, we grew 100%
and it's been growing eversince. And so
I feel like we started gettingbetter at running the business. And one of the lessons I learned was,
(10:24):
you know, consistency and howyou treat your customers, you know,
like, like anybody you know, Icould tend to get pissed off and like, I know, there was some, some times where maybe, like, I didn't handle things properly,
and shit like that. But one ofthe bigger things, I think
what any kind of like businessowner should understand is like,
(10:47):
when you start a business,you're essentially making an obligation to anybody that's going to spend money with you. So it doesn't matter if you're
having a hard time, it doesn'tmatter if you're a one man show or if you don't know how to do all of these things, if somebody gives you money,
all that stuff, all that stuffis not that customer's problem, and you have to deliver on your promise. And so I started, I learned that lesson a little bit
(11:16):
late, not that I alwaysdelivered, but like, sometimes it was late. And like, especially with stickers, it was like
I was printing them by hand. Soit was a pain in the ass process, printing them by hand, cutting them by hand, and all that stuff. And so as that
product gained popularity,
instead of scaling i I extendedthe lead time. So at one point it was like,
(11:41):
you know, it used to be, I can'tremember what the turnaround time was in the beginning, but I think it was like,
I want to say it was a few days,I don't remember exactly, but it was like, three or four days or something like that. And then it became a week, and then it
became two weeks. So a customerwould order stickers, and I'd be like, Look, it's gonna take two weeks, because a lot of times I was there by myself, and so the
(12:06):
only time I could print waseither before hours or after hours. So then I was changing the hours. I was doing all this shit that, like I would never in
a million years do. Now, it'slike, customer doesn't give a shit if you're there by yourself, the customer doesn't give a shit. If you know it's
hard to to fulfill yourobligations, like they gave you money you said you would give, give them this product. And,
(12:34):
you know, I felt like I was kindof like, not doing that, right? So anyway, as as we started to grow, and I started getting better at the business end of
things,
the focus really shifted to, howdo we provide the absolute best experience for customers possible? So I started hiring people. I hired customer support
(12:55):
help so that, like, emails gotanswered fast. I bought equipment so that the stickers could be turned around much faster. So now it's very it's
very rare that things are latebecause of something that we did. Most of the time when things are late, it's because the shit got lost in the
(13:17):
carriers and stuff. But we stilltake care of that anyway. And so I wish I had learned that lesson earlier, because I think we would be a lot further along
had I taken that end of thingsseriously. And like I said, I've never screwed anybody over and, like not sent their products. It's just it took longer than it
should have. And
(13:38):
anyway, so, you know, we keptscaling, we kept growing and doing all these things. And then I tried to have two locations, one in Vegas and one in San
Pedro, and that didn't work. Iwas not.
It just wasn't. It wasn't in thecards, like attention was too split between the two places. And then I made the decision to just move everything to Vegas.
(14:06):
And, you know, Vegas has beengood, but it's also very challenging. You know, we ran, I don't
even know how many events wewere doing, them every month, pretty consistently for years, and we barely had any problems with people tagging and, you
know, with beef and any of thatkind of stuff. And like, we haven't been in Vegas for very long, a few, think, three years now, and we've been seeing all
(14:32):
kinds of weird little issues,people burning the spot, writing on the neighbors shit, writing on our in our parking lot, and beefing with each other in the
shop and things like that, sowe're trying to overcome these challenges. But I got on this rant, not a well, I don't know if it's a rant, but more of a
rambling, but I was talkingabout how I was watching videos, and I feel like one thing that I realized today, and I had been thinking about this, but like,
(14:58):
it really hit me hard.
Card today,
when I was watching all thesevideos of these events. And if you want to see those, if you go to the machine studio, YouTube, there's a if you scroll down,
there's an events playlist, ifyou click on the playlist, there's all kinds of videos dating back to 2016
(15:21):
of a bunch of events. And sowhen I was What re watching those videos, and I was even re watching some of the raw footage,
I came to this realization that,like
for years, we haven't beencreating memories like we used to, you know, we used to have these events that,
you know, people remembered, andthat I remembered, I would I would video them. And we had, like, graffiti battles. We had break dancing battles. We had
(15:49):
bunch of art shows, all thesedifferent kinds of art shows
with lots of graffiti writers,lots of well known graffiti writers. And
you know, those memories areburned into my mind, and I know that they're burned into other people's minds, because every so often somebody will comment on
one of the videos that I makeand will say, you know, I miss the Pedro shows, and I miss the Pedro location, and so do I like I wish, I wish that stuff was
(16:17):
still happening. And so when Icame to that realization today, like I've been thinking about doing events again, but
I've been nervous about all theproblems that come along with with events.
But one of the things that hitme hard today was not creating memories like we used to.
And, you know, it's like I wasthinking about this, and I don't remember where I read this, but somebody was talking about how, well,
(16:46):
there's like, a few things,like, when you get older, it feels like time goes by faster. And Alex hermosi talks about
one of the reasons for that islike, say, when you're 10 years old, a year is 1/10 of your whole life. But when you're 50, a year is like not really that
much time compared to your wholelife,
(17:06):
but but
one of the things that that Iheard somebody say was the reason that, another reason why time feels like it passes faster as you get older is because you
settle into routines, and you'renot creating these memorable experiences. And so,
for example, like, if you'redriving to work every day,
(17:30):
you tend to start taking thesame same route to work every day, so that nothing stands out. And they talked about, sort of like, how your mind works and
how it stores memories if you dothe same thing over and over and over again, then you don't really remember each of those times. You know, you don't
remember if nothing happensbetween the time you left the house and got to work and it was pretty much an uneventful trip. All of those memories of you
(17:58):
driving to work sort of metblend together and sort of form like this mash up of sort of memories that creates, almost like one experience. So it's
almost like you lose, I don'tknow if I'm explaining this right, but this is how I understand it. But it's almost like you lose a lot of that time
because you don't remember anyof it. And so they say, like, do little things, like take your a different route to work, or, like, even something stupid,
(18:26):
like, well, I don't even know ifit's stupid, it's probably actually very valuable. But like, you always brush your teeth the same way most of us,
I'm assuming. And they said, Trybrushing your teeth with your left hand, and it's a whole different experience, you know? And so back to what I was
talking about, like, we're sortof doing the same shit, day in and day out. We're printing stickers, we're doing all these kind of things, but we're not
(18:50):
having these standout memories.We're not having these events. We're not having these gatherings where all of this stuff can happen, these cool
black book sessions and,
you know, these battles and
just meeting different peopleand all these kind of things that these memories aren't being created because we're sort of like doing the same every day we
(19:12):
open up the shop, you know, wehelp customers. I'm sure the people running the counters, they they create little memories here and there because they get
to meet different people. But asfar as for me,
it's the same shit every day.You know, I'm making content every day, I'm posting every day. I'm checking in with the team. I'm making the artwork for
(19:34):
slap tags. It's basically likethe same thing. So every day is probably in my mind. As far as how it's being stored, is just a mash up of years of experiences
that don't really feel likeyears anymore. And so I'm really coming to the realization, and it kind of like put me in a little bit of a depressed state,
(19:54):
because I was like, fuck, man,
we have to get back to that.Because when I was watching those.
Videos, and I was seeing allthese faces of people that I used to interact with regularly, and I'd have these great conversations with these people,
and I haven't seen them foryears now, because we don't do that stuff anymore. Obviously, we're in a different state, but we can be creating all of those
memories here, and at the sametime, people come through Vegas all the time. So,
(20:21):
you know, we have to figure outa way to just make that happen again, and even for people like that aren't here, you know, just to be able to watch those videos
and just see those thingshappening. I think,
I think it's important, and Ireally do need to get back on to that. So
I,
(20:42):
yeah, I got into something elsethat I didn't intend. But I
think that's all right. How longwe've been talking here? We're at, oh shit, 20 minutes. I think I probably can wrap it up. I think the stuff I was talking
about with the memories that canapply to anybody, I think like,
I've been trying to incorporatedifferent things, like little things, just trying to experiment with different ways of going to work. And, you know,
(21:06):
even, like, you get you settleinto routines with, like, food and all these kind of things. So like, I'll just leave it at like, just try to mix it up. I
think it's very valuable to tryto at least create some memories. And then if you're the type of person, I'm not really the kind of, like travel or
anything. But if you're the typeof person that does these kind of things, I would encourage you to make sure you're creating a lot of memories, because that's
(21:29):
all you have at the end of theday. I mean, you have this very second and then the shit that you remember. So hopefully you're creating those things for
those of you that have beenaround or, you know, actually, for everyone that's that's listening, or everyone that's, like, familiar with the company,
or been to any of our shows orparticipated in any way, even leaving comments or liking stuff, sending me messages, all of that stuff. Like, I can't
(21:55):
even tell you how much Iappreciate it, even though we're 10 years in, like, I just still feel like we haven't even gotten started, you know, I'm really
looking forward to to what's,what's coming in the future. And, you know, I just really appreciate all of you for
for being a part of this. Yeah,I don't know. We got a long way to go, so we'll see what happens. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning
(22:18):
in. I really appreciate youguys. And here's the next 10 years.
All right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love. And, yeah, stay up.
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