May 14, 2025 • 24 mins
How can businesses take advantage of a dormant industry that has become accustomed to using the same technology? On this 183rd episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Tucker Hiegel, Marketing Director of Deck the Door Decor. Deck the Door Decor is a prime example is how businesses can disrupt stagnant industries, like kickplates, by prioritizing innovation.
In this episode, Tucker Hiegel shares his insights on how businesses can capitalize on opportunities to innovate and stay ahead of the competition. He discusses the importance of constantly evolving and adapting to changing consumer needs, as well as leveraging technology to improve efficiency and customer experience. If you see an innovation gap in your industry, this one is for you…
Key Topics Covered:
- Identifying innovation: Why stagnant industries hold massive opportunities and the benefits of constantly seeking ways to improve them
- Disrupting industries through quality: How businesses can push quality to disrupt their industry and gain a competitive advantage
- Navigating a family-owned business: The challenges and benefits of working with family members and tips for overcoming potential conflicts
- The importance of adaptability: How being adaptable can help businesses stay relevant and successful in a constantly changing market
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tucker Hiegel (00:03):
The way that we decided how a kick plate should
be turned out to be better thanall the other ones on the
market. So
Andrew Maff (01:02):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode
of the E comm show as usual. I'myour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingTucker Hiegel, who is the CEO
and co founder over at deck thedoor decor. Tucker, how you
doing, buddy? You ready for goodshow?
Tucker Hiegel (01:16):
I'm good, man, I'm ready. How about you?
Andrew Maff (01:17):
Doing good. Super appreciative of you doing this
with us. Super excited to talkto you. Obviously, you and I
have been talking for a littlewhile so so everyone knows I've
I know you a little bit more sothan some of the guests I have
on the show that just surprisedme that day of so I know a
little bit of a background, butI still kind of like starting
these off prettystereotypically, and kind of
give you the floor. Tell us alittle bit about your
(01:39):
background, how you got startedwith Deck the door, and we'll
take it from there.
Tucker Hiegel (01:42):
Cool. Yeah.So I'll try to make sure I don't
ramble, because, as you alreadyknow, I have a tendency to kind
of,
Andrew Maff (01:50):
it's good, man. It makes my job easier.
Tucker Hiegel (01:54):
Well, so there's, it's a pretty wild story how we
got started. And there's,there's a full video about the
whole story. If you want to hearall the nitty gritty details.
Since that exists, I will try tokeep it short. Essentially, we
got started. So deck the doordecor is our company. That's our
(02:14):
brand name. We're a small doorhardware manufacturer in St
Louis, Missouri, and so we makeeverything in house right here,
just on the other side of thiswall, ship all over the country,
and we're launchinginternationally. I'm thinking in
June. That's the goal, at least.
Who knows nice the way that wegot started. We focus primarily
(02:34):
on door plates right now. Buthence the name, the brand name.
We intend to move into morelines of hardware, but we ended
up focusing on door kick plates,mainly because my mom is kind of
an eclectic like designer, hadthis idea to customize a kick
(02:56):
plate and just did it willynilly with stuff she had laying
around the house. She wasactually prepping the backyard
for featuring Better Home andGarden magazine, and so she was
trying to cover up at the bottomof the door. That was, like, the
garage entry. Yeah, she was,like, all worried about it.
(03:18):
Didn't want it to be on camera.
So that was the inspirationbehind this kick plate that she
made with, like, paint andstencils and stuff, right? And
it just turned into, like, wewould have company over. People
would ask her where she got it,which turned into, will you make
me one? And and then we had alady who actually owned a custom
(03:42):
lamp shade company. Who waslike, You guys need to turn this
into a business. So that's kindof the long and short of it is,
at the time, I was kind ofgraduating college, so I put we
started in 2013 and it was a lotof R&D to figure out how to make
(04:05):
a good kick plate, how to allthe manufacturing processes. How
do we modify plates in a uniformway so that we have a, you know,
reliable, repeatable productthat consumers can expect,
quality, all that kind of stuff.
And then a lot of stuff happenedalong the way. I brought on a
(04:26):
new business partner, finally,in 2020 and we had our whole
range of struggles, but when Ibrought her on, Monica, as our
Chief Operations Officer, it wasjust night and day difference,
and so we ended up having tocarry all this back stock of
(04:46):
just like regular blank kickplates ready to be modified by
modifying like we engravepeople's home address or a
monogram or family. You know,Hiegel family established in
2019, that kind of stuff,business logos for corporations,
car dealerships, stuff likethat. But we ended up having all
(05:07):
this blank inventory. And I waslike, man, like, this stuff is
just sitting here. We got allthis money and wrapped up and
all these plates that are justsitting here. Yeah. I was like,
so let's list it on Amazon.
Right? I had put all of our Rand D into figuring out how to
modify kick plates, and kind ofI did not realize I didn't do
(05:31):
any, like real research into howto make a kick plate. And it
turns out that we make the bestkick plates,
Andrew Maff (05:40):
happy accident,
Tucker Hiegel (05:42):
The German or, like, weird, you know, that
comes from growing up. You'regoing to do something, do it
right? But like, just in the waythat me and my brother, who's a
master fabricator, he's our Headof Production, the way that we
decided how a kick plate shouldbe turned out to be better than
all the other ones on themarket. So, and we didn't know,
(06:03):
man, that's not what we weresetting out to do, yeah. But so
anyway, we ended up listing allof our back stock inventory on
Amazon, and that's what reallystarted to scale for us. So
yeah, where we're at today is,you know, riding the Amazon
train and then, yeah, ways toexpand above that, which
(06:25):
hopefully you're going to helpus do. I think we got a good
plan for that. So
Andrew Maff (06:28):
that's the goal. We for context for some of the
listeners we've been talkingabout helping with
diversification, becauseobviously everyone and their
mother knows that I'm not theworld's biggest fan of being
reliant on Amazon. But so familyrun business, man. So, you know,
mom comes up with the idea moreor less accidentally. You run
(06:49):
the business. Your brother's thefabricator. What's, what's that
like? I've worked with familybefore. I don't know that I
Tucker Hiegel (06:55):
Yeah, so I've heard that we've got, we've got
would do it again.
a long lineage of familybusinesses in our on both sides
of the family, my mom and mydad's side, and both, both of
them have, I would say, liketurbulent and tumultuous for
those companies, For extraneouscircumstances and then the the
(07:21):
obvious of working with familyand egos and that the power
struggles and poor communicationand just all the stuff, right?
Yeah, our family is kind of in aweird mix, because just timeline
wise, like when I was born, myfamily had like a farming empire
(07:43):
in Arkansas that collapsed. Somy my mother grew up with a way
different lifestyle than what Igrew up with. So, like, I
started this whole company withnothing on credit cards,
whereas, you know, her family,she was supposed to have an
(08:05):
inheritance, and you know, itwas a farm, so it collapsed, and
there was nothing left. And so,like, you know, she grew up with
a certain kind of lifestyle thatI have yet to see, hopefully. So
so that kind of made a differentsetting, where, I would say,
(08:26):
internally, our family had awhole lot of struggle outside of
business, before we ever startedto work together and in, again,
not by just by proxy, we endedup working through a lot of
those struggles, and we worktogether very well now at the
(08:47):
age we're at, so I would saythat we have worked on stuff
that most families never will.
You know, yeah, and that'sprobably the leg up on working
with family. Now here's theother thing. Is we're all first.
It's me and my brother, so we'reall of the same generation.
There's no like dad built thebusiness, and he thinks it
(09:08):
should be this way, and mybrothers are young and dumb, and
we think we should do it this.
We don't have any of that also.
Andrew Maff (09:17):
Yeah, that's good.
The one of the things I wasthinking about, especially when
you and I first started talkingthe, you know, it's a kick
plate, like, you see them allthe time, but you don't really
think anything about it. Youdon't like, I never walk by one
and go like, Oh, why isn't thatbetter looking like? It's just
never. One of the things thatyou think about. I know that you
more or less coined that term,like, was utilitarian art,
(09:40):
right? So, like, where do youkind of, where did you figure
out that there doesn'tnecessarily need to be a line
between functionality anddesign, and that you can have it
kind of both ways?
Tucker Hiegel (09:55):
Well, that may just be like, again, like an
odd. Mix of the people whostarted the company. So my mom's
super eclectic, yeah, and mydad's side is very analytical.
And I'm kind of a weird mix ofthe two. So, so those are two
(10:16):
different trains of thought,schools of thought that are
mixed together within there. Butsome we started the company with
the focus more on the artisticside, yeah. And as we grew and
as we were figuring out how todo stuff, we and it, we
initially started offsubcontracting manufacturing to
other local companies, likewe've always made our products
(10:39):
have always been made andsourced in the USA, but not
always by us. And I have adegree in business life. More
familiar that was, like my areawhen I was starting the company
with my mom, was like, figuringout how we do this, yeah, which
initially just turned intoplates that people would want,
you know, and like when we firststarted, black hardware was
(11:02):
really in. Nobody would touchbrass, you know. So it was like
trying to figure out what peoplewanted and how kick played
should be. It's a weird nichethat was just a big gap in the
market that we found out. So oneof the things that we designed
was the 3m That's trademarked asthe stick and kick adhesive
(11:29):
mount, door kick plate, yeah,and those are really hard to
find. I think there's a coupleother companies that offer them,
but they're real hard to find.
Not too many companies evenoffer it, and if they do, they
use, like, cheap, off brandadhesive. And you know, it's,
like, made in China type stuff,yeah. So that's one of our best
selling products. Is the 3madhesive mount. Another one of
(11:51):
our products is this, these dogscratch door protection plates,
I don't know, yeah, like, that'ssome of the paw prints engraved
on there.
Andrew Maff (12:08):
And so that's, that's for the people that are
just listening. That's the, it'slike, the part that goes, like,
directly under the door handlefor the most part, which tends
to be where most dogs just go totown, if, if you're leaving them
locked in somewhere,
Tucker Hiegel (12:23):
yeah, yeah. So it's vertical. It goes right
under the doorknob. We sell itin all different sizes, but it's
got, you know, it's kind of hardto tell, but so it's got radius
cut corners and beveled edges sodog can't catch their paw on it.
It's adhesive mounts. You don'thave screws, smart screw heads
sticking out. So all of that iskind of utility baked in on
(12:46):
like, what's the best product?
Because all these other peopleare just flooding the market
with overseas junk. That's alllow cost leader, so we can't
compete with that. So really theonly option was like, well, we
have to make the best one then,because we can't meet price,
yeah. And so those differentmanufacturing steps have helped
(13:07):
cross that bridge between, like,utility. It's strange because
the whole product started off asit's just a utilitarian, like,
it's almost a commodity. Like,if you're going to have a door,
you have to have a door knob,you know, if you're smart and
you don't want to replace thedoor or repaint the door,
because repainting door sucks,then you should get a kick late
(13:30):
too, right? Yeah. So it's, it'sone of those weird products,
like you were saying thateverybody knows what it is, but
not off the top of their head.
It's like a background tertiary,unaware of it. But if you've
ever seen a kick plate on adoor, like it's kind of a
(13:51):
statement piece too. I mean, ittakes up a big piece of the
door. They work great. They savethe door from damage. They do
all this stuff. But it's likeit's this big billboard thing
that it could be so much morethan what it is. Man, like our
the first set of kick plates Iever sold, I have the check
framed on our office over hereis from a local Volvo dealership
(14:16):
that I actually helped build,and so they bought some all for
the showroom, so that I waslike, if you know utilitarian,
commercial, industrial, kickplates are always just to make
the place not look bad and hide,yeah, areas. And it's like,
well, you could always put yourlogo on that or use it for like
(14:39):
OSHA signage they require, yeah?
Well, if you're already payingfor this thing to put on the
door, why buy a separate signthat says exit and clutter
everything up? So like, yeah,yeah, it's just an opportunity
to do things a little bitdifferent.
Andrew Maff (14:58):
Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting. Thing,
because, you know, this, allthis stuff kind of ties into,
like, I end up just beating adead horse with saying this
stuff over and over again. Butlike, you know, to your point
of, you're a clear example of aproduct that there's just so
much overseas competition comingin with, like, cheap versions of
(15:18):
them that just don't last andbut doesn't really come off that
way, as obvious on somethinglike an Amazon so they're, you
know, they're getting the sales,and they are the least
expensive. But then you get theproduct, and you're like, Great,
I'm going to have to order thisdamn thing again in a month,
because it's going to breaklike, one of my favorite terms
is cheap is expensive. You getsomething cheap, you end up
(15:39):
having to bind it over and overagain, and so it ends up just
becoming a waste. And I reallybelieve that over the course of
the next, like five to 10 years,if Amazon keeps trending in this
direction, it's just going toget worse and worse and worse.
Brands are going to start to getaway from it, and everyone's
going to have to really leaninto quality and, you know,
(15:59):
differentiation and reallybeing, like, a premium product.
So to your point of it, not onlybeing like, it's not a piece of
crap, but it's also somethingthat you can make a statement
piece for B2B, it makes a ton ofsense. It's also really
interesting for the home, Iknow, like, you know, to get a
kick plate of just, you know, ifyou want it monogrammed, or you
want to have your address on it,or something like that. Like,
(16:19):
it's a really nice way to kindof elevate it. And I know one of
the things like you and I talkedabout is, like, a lot of these
influencers that do, like, youknow, both kind of interior and
exterior decorating, like theylove to make the entryway just
this beautiful, stunning, like,welcome to my home kind of
thing. And sometimes you seethese videos of these
influencers with these beautifuldoors and these awesome flowers,
(16:42):
and then just this scuffed upjunk kick plate at the bottom of
it. So it's a very interesting,it's an incredibly interesting
market that, like, does anyone,in fact, that kind of start
spins, I got it. It kind ofstems another question. Do you
have, like, competitors in termsof, like, the customization
element at all, or is it? Is itmostly just people just doing
(17:05):
the it's just a blanket, flatthing?
Tucker Hiegel (17:08):
Yeah, it's, it's just, it's an afterthought. So,
no, we don't have any directcompetitors. There's a few
people that have seen ourproducts and, like, have tried
to recreate some of it on Etsywith, like, a vinyl monogram,
but at scale. You know, no,can't do that and so, so all the
(17:32):
products that we sell areunavailable everyone. They're
pretty exclusive, like they havehammered copper kick plates,
like you can't buy thoseanywhere else. Engraved kick
plates, you can't buy thoseanywhere else. Dog scratch
plates, at least for the next 17years, until my utility patent
runs out, you can't buy thoseanywhere else. It's funny to
(17:53):
speak to your point. You'retalking about with quality with
Amazon. So to this day, like Isaid, like in the movement of
startup fervor, I was like,Let's list all these kick plates
on Amazon. I didn't do any like,what you're supposed to do,
product research, look at thecompetition, or any of that
stuff. But by selling on Amazon,we started to get returns, and
(18:15):
we would get stolen stuff. I'mlike, they even say this because
I don't want to give people, uh,ideas, but whatever. So people
would buy, like the Chinese onefor $30 and then ours for 78 and
compare the two. And then wewould get, I would get to
compare what the competition isselling out there, because
(18:36):
people would return the poopykick plate and our package,
right? But yeah, like, whatwould show up with sharp edges
and just everything's wrongabout it, like the diameter, the
kick plate holes, everythingthat's supposed to go on the
quality of, like, making a kickplate, yeah, is not there. And
(19:00):
people see that if you compareit, if you hold both products in
your hand, it's really obvious.
Andrew Maff (19:08):
Every Amazon seller is probably screaming right now
just thinking, like, I hate whenthat happens, like the amount of
the amount of times I've heardthat it's that's got to be so
wildly frustrating, of like,because you also can't Amazon
does nothing about it. Like, ifyou turn around, you're like,
hey, this isn't ours Amazon,just like, tough. Like, they
(19:28):
returned it. It is what it is.
You got it back, and it's like,dude, like, that's another
platform. Is ridiculous. Sorry,I digress.
Tucker Hiegel (19:38):
It's tough. It's tough. We have a love hate
relationship with Amazon,because, like, I said, like, we
wouldn't be at the point we'reat today without the scale that
they've offered. But like, it'sbeen a brutal fight because,
man, like, Amazon makes a lotmore money on the products I
sell than I do, and so I. Youknow, thank God that there's
(20:01):
scale there, because withoutscale, like the break even to
sell on Amazon, and our categoryis astronomical. Yeah, I don't
know how other people are doingit, honestly, I really don't,
yeah.
Andrew Maff (20:18):
I mean, look, it's, you know, in my opinion, it's
the overseas sellers have biggermargins, so it's justified.
There's the ones that do it theway that I think is usually the
best, at least for certainproduct lines, which is like,
you just use it as, like, acustomer acquisition channel,
but then you find ways to, youknow, convert them off Amazon
eventually. And then you havethe other ones that are just
(20:39):
like, you know, they're totallyfine with single digit profit
margins. And you know, it iswhat it is some brands, you
know, you can get enough volumeon Amazon that you kind of build
your own little brand on Amazonso that people are searching
your brand name. And so thatkind of helps the CPCs and
things like that. But it's alsothe brands that like it happens
(21:04):
a lot I see with apparel where,like, apparel brands, you know,
they'll have a ton of differentstuff, those seasonal things,
things like that, so it kind ofis what it is. But then they'll
have, like, their evergreenstuff that they sell a lot of
all year, and that's the onlything that they sell on Amazon.
And they're just there toprotect their brand name, so
they're not running ads. They'retypically shipping stuff on
their own. They're not dealingwith, you know, all of the extra
(21:25):
bells and whistles of Amazon,but it's still like to benefit
from Prime, to benefit from allof the stuff that Amazon offers.
It's like, yeah, you can benefitfrom it, but you're not going to
make much. You're just payingthem more.
Tucker Hiegel (21:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For us, realistically, the onlyreason why Amazon makes any
sense is because we are buildinga brand outside of that. If the
end game was just to sell doorkick plates on Amazon, that
would have been, well, it'd justbe a waste of time. Yeah, it's
(22:00):
not a career, you know?
Andrew Maff (22:07):
Yeah, no, it's not.
But yeah, Tucker, this was,this is awesome. Super
appreciate you having the show.
And I want to take up too muchmore your time. I know you're
super busy. I'd love to give theopportunity let everyone know
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
Deck, the door decor.
Tucker Hiegel (22:19):
Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.
It's been fun. And, yeah, maybewe'll have to do it again
sometime. I was like, I'll behere, yeah. So as far as all of
our products are all availableat Deck the door decor.com, our
social media handle is @KICKPL8.
So it's also our phone number.
(22:45):
So K, I, C, K, L, number eightgonna be seven digits. But yeah,
you can find, find us all overthe place, out there, on the
interwebs, and I don't know, Ipersonally am not very, not a
very large footprint online, butmy company is so.
Andrew Maff (23:06):
We'll get you out there. Cool, cool, beautiful.
Thanks. Tucker again, obviouslyeveryone that tuned in, thank
you as well. You know the usualrate review, subscribe all that
fun stuff and whichever podcastplatform you prefer, or head
over to the ecom show.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual. Thankyou all for joining us. We'll
see you all next time.
Narrator (23:26):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to E comm show.com to subscribeon your favorite podcast
platform or on the blue tuskerYouTube channel. The E comm show
is brought to you by bluetusker, a full service digital
marketing company specificallyfor E commerce sellers looking
to accelerate their growth, goto bluetuskr.com now for more
(23:48):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show. Hey.
The way that we decided how a kick plate should
be turned out to be better thanall the other ones on the
market. So
Andrew Maff (01:02):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode
of the E comm show as usual. I'myour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingTucker Hiegel, who is the CEO
and co founder over at deck thedoor decor. Tucker, how you
doing, buddy? You ready for goodshow?
Tucker Hiegel (01:16):
I'm good, man, I'm ready. How about you?
Andrew Maff (01:17):
Doing good. Super appreciative of you doing this
with us. Super excited to talkto you. Obviously, you and I
have been talking for a littlewhile so so everyone knows I've
I know you a little bit more sothan some of the guests I have
on the show that just surprisedme that day of so I know a
little bit of a background, butI still kind of like starting
these off prettystereotypically, and kind of
give you the floor. Tell us alittle bit about your
(01:39):
background, how you got startedwith Deck the door, and we'll
take it from there.
Tucker Hiegel (01:42):
Cool. Yeah.So I'll try to make sure I don't
ramble, because, as you alreadyknow, I have a tendency to kind
of,
Andrew Maff (01:50):
it's good, man. It makes my job easier.
Tucker Hiegel (01:54):
Well, so there's, it's a pretty wild story how we
got started. And there's,there's a full video about the
whole story. If you want to hearall the nitty gritty details.
Since that exists, I will try tokeep it short. Essentially, we
got started. So deck the doordecor is our company. That's our
(02:14):
brand name. We're a small doorhardware manufacturer in St
Louis, Missouri, and so we makeeverything in house right here,
just on the other side of thiswall, ship all over the country,
and we're launchinginternationally. I'm thinking in
June. That's the goal, at least.
Who knows nice the way that wegot started. We focus primarily
(02:34):
on door plates right now. Buthence the name, the brand name.
We intend to move into morelines of hardware, but we ended
up focusing on door kick plates,mainly because my mom is kind of
an eclectic like designer, hadthis idea to customize a kick
(02:56):
plate and just did it willynilly with stuff she had laying
around the house. She wasactually prepping the backyard
for featuring Better Home andGarden magazine, and so she was
trying to cover up at the bottomof the door. That was, like, the
garage entry. Yeah, she was,like, all worried about it.
(03:18):
Didn't want it to be on camera.
So that was the inspirationbehind this kick plate that she
made with, like, paint andstencils and stuff, right? And
it just turned into, like, wewould have company over. People
would ask her where she got it,which turned into, will you make
me one? And and then we had alady who actually owned a custom
(03:42):
lamp shade company. Who waslike, You guys need to turn this
into a business. So that's kindof the long and short of it is,
at the time, I was kind ofgraduating college, so I put we
started in 2013 and it was a lotof R&D to figure out how to make
(04:05):
a good kick plate, how to allthe manufacturing processes. How
do we modify plates in a uniformway so that we have a, you know,
reliable, repeatable productthat consumers can expect,
quality, all that kind of stuff.
And then a lot of stuff happenedalong the way. I brought on a
(04:26):
new business partner, finally,in 2020 and we had our whole
range of struggles, but when Ibrought her on, Monica, as our
Chief Operations Officer, it wasjust night and day difference,
and so we ended up having tocarry all this back stock of
(04:46):
just like regular blank kickplates ready to be modified by
modifying like we engravepeople's home address or a
monogram or family. You know,Hiegel family established in
2019, that kind of stuff,business logos for corporations,
car dealerships, stuff likethat. But we ended up having all
(05:07):
this blank inventory. And I waslike, man, like, this stuff is
just sitting here. We got allthis money and wrapped up and
all these plates that are justsitting here. Yeah. I was like,
so let's list it on Amazon.
Right? I had put all of our Rand D into figuring out how to
modify kick plates, and kind ofI did not realize I didn't do
(05:31):
any, like real research into howto make a kick plate. And it
turns out that we make the bestkick plates,
Andrew Maff (05:40):
happy accident,
Tucker Hiegel (05:42):
The German or, like, weird, you know, that
comes from growing up. You'regoing to do something, do it
right? But like, just in the waythat me and my brother, who's a
master fabricator, he's our Headof Production, the way that we
decided how a kick plate shouldbe turned out to be better than
all the other ones on themarket. So, and we didn't know,
(06:03):
man, that's not what we weresetting out to do, yeah. But so
anyway, we ended up listing allof our back stock inventory on
Amazon, and that's what reallystarted to scale for us. So
yeah, where we're at today is,you know, riding the Amazon
train and then, yeah, ways toexpand above that, which
(06:25):
hopefully you're going to helpus do. I think we got a good
plan for that. So
Andrew Maff (06:28):
that's the goal. We for context for some of the
listeners we've been talkingabout helping with
diversification, becauseobviously everyone and their
mother knows that I'm not theworld's biggest fan of being
reliant on Amazon. But so familyrun business, man. So, you know,
mom comes up with the idea moreor less accidentally. You run
(06:49):
the business. Your brother's thefabricator. What's, what's that
like? I've worked with familybefore. I don't know that I
Tucker Hiegel (06:55):
Yeah, so I've heard that we've got, we've got
would do it again.
a long lineage of familybusinesses in our on both sides
of the family, my mom and mydad's side, and both, both of
them have, I would say, liketurbulent and tumultuous for
those companies, For extraneouscircumstances and then the the
(07:21):
obvious of working with familyand egos and that the power
struggles and poor communicationand just all the stuff, right?
Yeah, our family is kind of in aweird mix, because just timeline
wise, like when I was born, myfamily had like a farming empire
(07:43):
in Arkansas that collapsed. Somy my mother grew up with a way
different lifestyle than what Igrew up with. So, like, I
started this whole company withnothing on credit cards,
whereas, you know, her family,she was supposed to have an
(08:05):
inheritance, and you know, itwas a farm, so it collapsed, and
there was nothing left. And so,like, you know, she grew up with
a certain kind of lifestyle thatI have yet to see, hopefully. So
so that kind of made a differentsetting, where, I would say,
(08:26):
internally, our family had awhole lot of struggle outside of
business, before we ever startedto work together and in, again,
not by just by proxy, we endedup working through a lot of
those struggles, and we worktogether very well now at the
(08:47):
age we're at, so I would saythat we have worked on stuff
that most families never will.
You know, yeah, and that'sprobably the leg up on working
with family. Now here's theother thing. Is we're all first.
It's me and my brother, so we'reall of the same generation.
There's no like dad built thebusiness, and he thinks it
(09:08):
should be this way, and mybrothers are young and dumb, and
we think we should do it this.
We don't have any of that also.
Andrew Maff (09:17):
Yeah, that's good.
The one of the things I wasthinking about, especially when
you and I first started talkingthe, you know, it's a kick
plate, like, you see them allthe time, but you don't really
think anything about it. Youdon't like, I never walk by one
and go like, Oh, why isn't thatbetter looking like? It's just
never. One of the things thatyou think about. I know that you
more or less coined that term,like, was utilitarian art,
(09:40):
right? So, like, where do youkind of, where did you figure
out that there doesn'tnecessarily need to be a line
between functionality anddesign, and that you can have it
kind of both ways?
Tucker Hiegel (09:55):
Well, that may just be like, again, like an
odd. Mix of the people whostarted the company. So my mom's
super eclectic, yeah, and mydad's side is very analytical.
And I'm kind of a weird mix ofthe two. So, so those are two
(10:16):
different trains of thought,schools of thought that are
mixed together within there. Butsome we started the company with
the focus more on the artisticside, yeah. And as we grew and
as we were figuring out how todo stuff, we and it, we
initially started offsubcontracting manufacturing to
other local companies, likewe've always made our products
(10:39):
have always been made andsourced in the USA, but not
always by us. And I have adegree in business life. More
familiar that was, like my areawhen I was starting the company
with my mom, was like, figuringout how we do this, yeah, which
initially just turned intoplates that people would want,
you know, and like when we firststarted, black hardware was
(11:02):
really in. Nobody would touchbrass, you know. So it was like
trying to figure out what peoplewanted and how kick played
should be. It's a weird nichethat was just a big gap in the
market that we found out. So oneof the things that we designed
was the 3m That's trademarked asthe stick and kick adhesive
(11:29):
mount, door kick plate, yeah,and those are really hard to
find. I think there's a coupleother companies that offer them,
but they're real hard to find.
Not too many companies evenoffer it, and if they do, they
use, like, cheap, off brandadhesive. And you know, it's,
like, made in China type stuff,yeah. So that's one of our best
selling products. Is the 3madhesive mount. Another one of
(11:51):
our products is this, these dogscratch door protection plates,
I don't know, yeah, like, that'ssome of the paw prints engraved
on there.
Andrew Maff (12:08):
And so that's, that's for the people that are
just listening. That's the, it'slike, the part that goes, like,
directly under the door handlefor the most part, which tends
to be where most dogs just go totown, if, if you're leaving them
locked in somewhere,
Tucker Hiegel (12:23):
yeah, yeah. So it's vertical. It goes right
under the doorknob. We sell itin all different sizes, but it's
got, you know, it's kind of hardto tell, but so it's got radius
cut corners and beveled edges sodog can't catch their paw on it.
It's adhesive mounts. You don'thave screws, smart screw heads
sticking out. So all of that iskind of utility baked in on
(12:46):
like, what's the best product?
Because all these other peopleare just flooding the market
with overseas junk. That's alllow cost leader, so we can't
compete with that. So really theonly option was like, well, we
have to make the best one then,because we can't meet price,
yeah. And so those differentmanufacturing steps have helped
(13:07):
cross that bridge between, like,utility. It's strange because
the whole product started off asit's just a utilitarian, like,
it's almost a commodity. Like,if you're going to have a door,
you have to have a door knob,you know, if you're smart and
you don't want to replace thedoor or repaint the door,
because repainting door sucks,then you should get a kick late
(13:30):
too, right? Yeah. So it's, it'sone of those weird products,
like you were saying thateverybody knows what it is, but
not off the top of their head.
It's like a background tertiary,unaware of it. But if you've
ever seen a kick plate on adoor, like it's kind of a
(13:51):
statement piece too. I mean, ittakes up a big piece of the
door. They work great. They savethe door from damage. They do
all this stuff. But it's likeit's this big billboard thing
that it could be so much morethan what it is. Man, like our
the first set of kick plates Iever sold, I have the check
framed on our office over hereis from a local Volvo dealership
(14:16):
that I actually helped build,and so they bought some all for
the showroom, so that I waslike, if you know utilitarian,
commercial, industrial, kickplates are always just to make
the place not look bad and hide,yeah, areas. And it's like,
well, you could always put yourlogo on that or use it for like
(14:39):
OSHA signage they require, yeah?
Well, if you're already payingfor this thing to put on the
door, why buy a separate signthat says exit and clutter
everything up? So like, yeah,yeah, it's just an opportunity
to do things a little bitdifferent.
Andrew Maff (14:58):
Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting. Thing,
because, you know, this, allthis stuff kind of ties into,
like, I end up just beating adead horse with saying this
stuff over and over again. Butlike, you know, to your point
of, you're a clear example of aproduct that there's just so
much overseas competition comingin with, like, cheap versions of
(15:18):
them that just don't last andbut doesn't really come off that
way, as obvious on somethinglike an Amazon so they're, you
know, they're getting the sales,and they are the least
expensive. But then you get theproduct, and you're like, Great,
I'm going to have to order thisdamn thing again in a month,
because it's going to breaklike, one of my favorite terms
is cheap is expensive. You getsomething cheap, you end up
(15:39):
having to bind it over and overagain, and so it ends up just
becoming a waste. And I reallybelieve that over the course of
the next, like five to 10 years,if Amazon keeps trending in this
direction, it's just going toget worse and worse and worse.
Brands are going to start to getaway from it, and everyone's
going to have to really leaninto quality and, you know,
(15:59):
differentiation and reallybeing, like, a premium product.
So to your point of it, not onlybeing like, it's not a piece of
crap, but it's also somethingthat you can make a statement
piece for B2B, it makes a ton ofsense. It's also really
interesting for the home, Iknow, like, you know, to get a
kick plate of just, you know, ifyou want it monogrammed, or you
want to have your address on it,or something like that. Like,
(16:19):
it's a really nice way to kindof elevate it. And I know one of
the things like you and I talkedabout is, like, a lot of these
influencers that do, like, youknow, both kind of interior and
exterior decorating, like theylove to make the entryway just
this beautiful, stunning, like,welcome to my home kind of
thing. And sometimes you seethese videos of these
influencers with these beautifuldoors and these awesome flowers,
(16:42):
and then just this scuffed upjunk kick plate at the bottom of
it. So it's a very interesting,it's an incredibly interesting
market that, like, does anyone,in fact, that kind of start
spins, I got it. It kind ofstems another question. Do you
have, like, competitors in termsof, like, the customization
element at all, or is it? Is itmostly just people just doing
(17:05):
the it's just a blanket, flatthing?
Tucker Hiegel (17:08):
Yeah, it's, it's just, it's an afterthought. So,
no, we don't have any directcompetitors. There's a few
people that have seen ourproducts and, like, have tried
to recreate some of it on Etsywith, like, a vinyl monogram,
but at scale. You know, no,can't do that and so, so all the
(17:32):
products that we sell areunavailable everyone. They're
pretty exclusive, like they havehammered copper kick plates,
like you can't buy thoseanywhere else. Engraved kick
plates, you can't buy thoseanywhere else. Dog scratch
plates, at least for the next 17years, until my utility patent
runs out, you can't buy thoseanywhere else. It's funny to
(17:53):
speak to your point. You'retalking about with quality with
Amazon. So to this day, like Isaid, like in the movement of
startup fervor, I was like,Let's list all these kick plates
on Amazon. I didn't do any like,what you're supposed to do,
product research, look at thecompetition, or any of that
stuff. But by selling on Amazon,we started to get returns, and
(18:15):
we would get stolen stuff. I'mlike, they even say this because
I don't want to give people, uh,ideas, but whatever. So people
would buy, like the Chinese onefor $30 and then ours for 78 and
compare the two. And then wewould get, I would get to
compare what the competition isselling out there, because
(18:36):
people would return the poopykick plate and our package,
right? But yeah, like, whatwould show up with sharp edges
and just everything's wrongabout it, like the diameter, the
kick plate holes, everythingthat's supposed to go on the
quality of, like, making a kickplate, yeah, is not there. And
(19:00):
people see that if you compareit, if you hold both products in
your hand, it's really obvious.
Andrew Maff (19:08):
Every Amazon seller is probably screaming right now
just thinking, like, I hate whenthat happens, like the amount of
the amount of times I've heardthat it's that's got to be so
wildly frustrating, of like,because you also can't Amazon
does nothing about it. Like, ifyou turn around, you're like,
hey, this isn't ours Amazon,just like, tough. Like, they
(19:28):
returned it. It is what it is.
You got it back, and it's like,dude, like, that's another
platform. Is ridiculous. Sorry,I digress.
Tucker Hiegel (19:38):
It's tough. It's tough. We have a love hate
relationship with Amazon,because, like, I said, like, we
wouldn't be at the point we'reat today without the scale that
they've offered. But like, it'sbeen a brutal fight because,
man, like, Amazon makes a lotmore money on the products I
sell than I do, and so I. Youknow, thank God that there's
(20:01):
scale there, because withoutscale, like the break even to
sell on Amazon, and our categoryis astronomical. Yeah, I don't
know how other people are doingit, honestly, I really don't,
yeah.
Andrew Maff (20:18):
I mean, look, it's, you know, in my opinion, it's
the overseas sellers have biggermargins, so it's justified.
There's the ones that do it theway that I think is usually the
best, at least for certainproduct lines, which is like,
you just use it as, like, acustomer acquisition channel,
but then you find ways to, youknow, convert them off Amazon
eventually. And then you havethe other ones that are just
(20:39):
like, you know, they're totallyfine with single digit profit
margins. And you know, it iswhat it is some brands, you
know, you can get enough volumeon Amazon that you kind of build
your own little brand on Amazonso that people are searching
your brand name. And so thatkind of helps the CPCs and
things like that. But it's alsothe brands that like it happens
(21:04):
a lot I see with apparel where,like, apparel brands, you know,
they'll have a ton of differentstuff, those seasonal things,
things like that, so it kind ofis what it is. But then they'll
have, like, their evergreenstuff that they sell a lot of
all year, and that's the onlything that they sell on Amazon.
And they're just there toprotect their brand name, so
they're not running ads. They'retypically shipping stuff on
their own. They're not dealingwith, you know, all of the extra
(21:25):
bells and whistles of Amazon,but it's still like to benefit
from Prime, to benefit from allof the stuff that Amazon offers.
It's like, yeah, you can benefitfrom it, but you're not going to
make much. You're just payingthem more.
Tucker Hiegel (21:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For us, realistically, the onlyreason why Amazon makes any
sense is because we are buildinga brand outside of that. If the
end game was just to sell doorkick plates on Amazon, that
would have been, well, it'd justbe a waste of time. Yeah, it's
(22:00):
not a career, you know?
Andrew Maff (22:07):
Yeah, no, it's not.
But yeah, Tucker, this was,this is awesome. Super
appreciate you having the show.
And I want to take up too muchmore your time. I know you're
super busy. I'd love to give theopportunity let everyone know
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
Deck, the door decor.
Tucker Hiegel (22:19):
Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.
It's been fun. And, yeah, maybewe'll have to do it again
sometime. I was like, I'll behere, yeah. So as far as all of
our products are all availableat Deck the door decor.com, our
social media handle is @KICKPL8.
So it's also our phone number.
(22:45):
So K, I, C, K, L, number eightgonna be seven digits. But yeah,
you can find, find us all overthe place, out there, on the
interwebs, and I don't know, Ipersonally am not very, not a
very large footprint online, butmy company is so.
Andrew Maff (23:06):
We'll get you out there. Cool, cool, beautiful.
Thanks. Tucker again, obviouslyeveryone that tuned in, thank
you as well. You know the usualrate review, subscribe all that
fun stuff and whichever podcastplatform you prefer, or head
over to the ecom show.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual. Thankyou all for joining us. We'll
see you all next time.
Narrator (23:26):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to E comm show.com to subscribeon your favorite podcast
platform or on the blue tuskerYouTube channel. The E comm show
is brought to you by bluetusker, a full service digital
marketing company specificallyfor E commerce sellers looking
to accelerate their growth, goto bluetuskr.com now for more
(23:48):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show. Hey.
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