And Some Days the Bear Eats You

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Podcast Transcript

Loren Feldman:
Welcome, Jay, Liz, and Sarah. It’s great to have you here. Liz, contrary to some of the advice you’ve received on this podcast, you’ve been putting energy into the bear-proof-enclosure idea that you want to sell out west. You took your team out to Montana recently to see if your enclosures can stand up to grizzlies. How did it go?

Liz Picarazzi:
So I have to report it was, unfortunately, a disappointment. We spent a lot of money and a lot of time, both in preparation and traveling to the testing. It’s done at a test facility for grizzly bears. And due to a couple of technical issues, most importantly, being the leveling of the bins, the testing facility determined that they were not going to be tested with the grizzly bears. And instead, they’re going to have a technical test, which is just basically a ground test without bears. It was very disappointing because of all of the expense, but also, we felt really, I would say, pretty disempowered to fix the situation with the leveling.

It really had to do with a misunderstanding with the center about who was going to assemble the bin on-site. It was our understanding that we were going to ship it there, and we were doing the assembly. But it turned out that they did the assembly. And the leveling was not done correctly, which was the reason that it was not put into the test. So, very disappointing. We have a very, very strong reputation for being rat-proof. Basically, our westward expansion is going to be through being bear-resistant. And we do not have that designation at this time. We didn’t fail the test. It still will have this technical test. But for me, I really want—

Loren Feldman:
What’s a technical test? What does that mean?

Liz Picarazzi:
So basically, they’re looking at kind of how it operates, the measurements of the doors, the gaps between a frame and door, what they know about the ability of bear claws to be able to open up. This facility primarily tests trash cans and coolers. So although they have tested trash enclosures, mine is a 750-pound enclosure of steel, which, whether or not it’s leveled, I at least don’t think the bears would have penetrated. But we didn’t have that chance to test it.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, wait, I want to understand this. You’re telling us, there’s a business that all they do is test coolers and garbage cans to see if bears can get into them. It would seem to me that you’d run out of customers pretty quickly. I mean, how many coolers are there in the United States, and how many garbage cans that they could keep a facility open for a whole year? How does that work?

Liz Picarazzi:
Well, it’s a nonprofit. And it’s actually like a sanctuary for grizzly bears that have been taken out of the wild.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, this is just an extra.

Liz Picarazzi:
Yes, this is an extra. They have wolves. They have otters. They have many other animals there. And the grizzly bears are probably the biggest attraction, but it’s a sanctuary, and it’s a really big tourist attraction in West Yellowstone, Montana.

Sarah Segal:
So, is your product still out there? Or is it shipping back? What are you doing?

Liz Picarazzi:
So I guess I skipped the lead here. It’s still out there, and it is going to be tested with the bears tomorrow, apparently.

Loren Feldman:
The center is the bear refuge?

Liz Picarazzi:
Yes, it’s part of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, and they are the one—

Loren Feldman:
It’s called the Grizzly Bear Committee?

Liz Picarazzi:
It is.

Jay Goltz:
Were the people grizzly? Were they hungry? What’s going on there? Did you not feed them before you went there?

Liz Picarazzi:
You know what, maybe I should have bribed them with some food, but the only food that should have been involved was baiting the bins for the bears. So that’s what they do, is they get the most delicious food that the grizzly bears want. They bait it. And it’s in this area where there would have been five bears over the course of the day that tried to penetrate the bin.

Sarah Segal:
How long do they leave the bin out there for?

Liz Picarazzi:
They leave them out for shifts of one hour, so each bear gets one hour. And so there were supposed to be five hours of testing. One of the things that is a little bit tricky, though, is that it requires 60 minutes of bear hands-on time, where the bear’s actually trying to get in. So if the bear wanders off and does something else, that is not counted as part of the 60 minutes. So over the five hours, cumulatively, you need to get the 60 minutes. What unfortunately often happens is that the bears get tired or they give up. And that’s why they have a technical test to fall back on.

Loren Feldman:
So you’re saying, if the product is too successful and discourages the bears and the bears give up, you don’t get certification, because they haven’t tried hard enough, long enough?

Liz Picarazzi:
No, you can get the certification, but it’s through this backup of the technical test.

Jay Goltz:
You know, this feels like when I listen to NPR, and they have these three outrageous things, like which one do you think this is: A, B, or C? And they tell this bizarre story, and you have to guess which one of them is true. Because this is a bizarre story that—

Sarah Segal:
“Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me.”

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me.” This is what this feels like. So do we really believe you went out to Montana and went to a bear sanctuary?

Loren Feldman:
Where there was a committee of grizzly bears.

Jay Goltz:
Of grizzly people who didn’t give you enough time. Hmmm. What’s the next choice?

Sarah Segal:
Wait, how do you find a place like this? Are they advertising online? “We’re a sanctuary. We test things.”

Liz Picarazzi:
No, I mean, this is for big brands like Yeti, or Brute, Rubbermaid, any sort of trash cans, Coleman. They all get their products tested here. So for me, that was something that was also discouraging, because a lot of these brands that probably have tested dozens of times over the years with dozens of products, if they don’t pass, or if it doesn’t work out, yes, it’s disappointing. But it’s not like me. I’ve got my house mortgaged against the business. And if something like this doesn’t work out, it’s a pretty big deal. If I’m just an employee at Yeti and the cooler fails, like, yeah, I’ll go back, and I’ll improve it, and I’ll go again. But it’s not going to affect my paycheck.

Loren Feldman:
Was this gonna be videotaped?

Liz Picarazzi:
Yes. So I had a videographer lined up. I even have my marketing campaign, which was to launch in January, all lined up where the video was the primary content for that. So I still have tomorrow. I have the videographer who’s going to be there. And who knows? I mean, maybe the next time I’m on here, I’ll talk about how wonderful it went. But I’m just feeling a little tempered.

Sarah Segal:
I work with an animal—it’s not a sanctuary, but it’s an animal facility in Montana, probably not very far from where you are. I’m just curious how much you’re paying them for this thing.

Jay Goltz:
Ooh. Let me guess, let me guess: $3,500?

Liz Picarazzi:
Less.

Jay Goltz:
Oh, that’s a bargain.

Liz Picarazzi:
Really. It was only $1,000.

Sarah Segal:
Okay, it was $1,000, but then on top of that, I’m assuming your flights, your hotel stay, videographer, the shipping of the product. This is probably, all in, seven or eight grand, right?

Liz Picarazzi:
Easily. Yes. Plus, our time. Time taken away from sales. I took one of my technicians, who also happens to be our top salesperson. He was out of circulation for about a week for this.

Loren Feldman:
Are you confident that the trash enclosure is now properly leveled and set up?

Liz Picarazzi:
No.

Jay Goltz:
I would say this episode should be called, “If you thought you had problems, you really don’t. You need to hear Liz’s problems.” [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Do you have your marketing plan all set? What are you going to do with that video if the grizzly bears do, in fact, fail to breach your enclosure?

Liz Picarazzi:
So I mean, the videos that come out of this center do tend to go viral, because the bears, like on coolers and on trash cans, they get on top of them. And it’s like they’re giving them CPR. They’re pushing down over and over and over. It’s really interesting to watch.

I don’t think that would have happened with my 750-pound steel container. For our rat video, which we did about five years ago, we hired an actor who played the role of a rat scientist, who talked about the experiment, how it went, what was baited. And it was really funny. It was very popular, and it actually became a pretty big part of our brand. When we advertised as being rat-proof, we put that in the signature line of almost all of our emails, and that’s really part of what we’re known for.

In terms of who we are going to be targeting, it would be a lot of resort towns in the Mountain States, resorts themselves, homeowners associations. We do have a pretty strong presence in Aspen. We have about 10 or 12 units there. And really kind of through word of mouth, those bear enclosures have sold well there.

I don’t need to have a certification to say that we are bear-resistant, because they are bear-resistant in practice. They’ve been in the field. So that’s the thing: Okay, am I going to be hurt that much if I don’t have the certification? I actually think I might be hurt more by not having the bear video, quite frankly. That was what I really wanted, I hate to say it, even more than the certification. I wanted that bear video.

Sarah Segal:
I think there’s a way to get that bear video after the fact. But I love this, because I think it’s a great case study for other businesses. Like, Jay, could you put a couch somewhere and put a whole bunch of dogs around it, and see which dog likes that couch the best?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, you got me thinking now. [Laughter]

Sarah Segal:
It’s a very specific thing for your industry. We had a client for a long time called Relay that makes basically nice walkie-talkies for hospitality. And they had a video of that where they took the walkie-talkie, and they drove a car over it a couple times to show that it continued to work and was never damaged. And it did well. I mean, it showed that it would withstand abuse, which I think is really important for a lot of businesses that want to invest in products or enclosures or what have you, where they’re going to be manhandled. Or bear-handled.

Jay Goltz:
See, I would have liked to have seen a video of you sitting in an airplane next to some stranger, and the person turns to you: “Oh, where are you going?” And you explain, “Oh, I’m going to a bear sanctuary.” And watch their expression, waiting to see if they’re like on Candid Camera or something.

Sarah Segal:
You should send a picture to Loren, so at least if you have a photograph of you and the bears, he can put it in the newsletter. Because I think everybody would love to see that.

Jay Goltz:
With a 21 Hats hat on the bear.

Loren Feldman:
We want to see you appearing before the Grizzly Bear Committee and making your case for their approval.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, well, I have nothing going on this week compared to that. [Laughter]

Liz Picarazzi:
But actually, Loren, I do want to say one more thing, in terms of the marketing. So this would have allowed me to have two to three different products for different populations. So we’ve got the rat version. We’ve got the bear version, which has different handles. It has the same opening handles as you see in national parks with those trash enclosures. So we outfitted it with that, and we made it in steel instead of aluminum.

So there was a lot of product differentiation, that also, in terms of our marketing, it would have been two different target populations. And like I said, it really would have helped, and will help with our westward expansion. It’s just going to take longer than I anticipated.

Loren Feldman:
So you also had a more traditional marketing opportunity. You also recently attended a trade show in Chicago. How’d that go?

Liz Picarazzi:
So that went wonderfully. That was the week after my disappointing bear trip to Montana, in Chicago. And this was with my main kind of target customer, which is downtown districts, commercial districts. They’re sometimes called S.S.A.s, sometimes called business improvement districts. And it’s a yearly convention where all of those executive directors from all over the country come to the city to hear various speakers.

But we were an exhibitor, so we were able to interface with a lot of existing clients, who we’re already installed with, to kind of get their opinion. They’re very happy. Some of them even provided live testimonials to other people coming into the booth. But we also got to meet prospects who we may have connected with through some sort of cold emails.

So that was incredible. There was great interest, great connection, and that felt really good afterwards. Then there’s also a lot of more volume selling that comes from that. You know, if we sell, usually in New York, for rat-proof, oftentimes, it’s single-family or small multifamily. This would be for large cities. Like we have in New York City, Citibin is installed in 22 different business improvement districts, 60 different locations. We’re also in Philadelphia, in Boston and Newark, in Hoboken, and growing. So that’s our biggest growth area for the business. And that is like the biggest concentration you could possibly have of that population. All three of us who were there, we felt like we got incredible leads, great face time with clients.

Loren Feldman:
I guess those clients are, you just explained to us, business districts. I imagine, it’s kind of a long sales cycle with them. So maybe it’s too early to know whether you actually made any sales. Is that right?

Liz Picarazzi:
Yes, too early, but setting up estimate visits. So for those who we connected with who are from New York, we’re out this week doing visits in their districts. And then the other thing we heard is that the city is going to be mandating—not just suggesting—that business improvement districts containerize their trash. So right now, we’re in 22 of the 76 business improvement districts in New York City, and this just makes the opportunity that much greater to install in the rest.

Jay Goltz:
I assume not in Chicago, right? We have S.S.A.s. Because we have alleys. We don’t have garbage sitting on the sidewalk. So I can’t imagine…

Liz Picarazzi:
We did! We have a big proposal out to one of your S.S.A.s, Jay, that we reached out to ahead of time. And then when we were there, we met with them again, we took measurements, and so I have a feeling that one is probably going to move ahead.

Jay Goltz:
For where, though? Where is this unit going to be? Because we don’t put garbage on the sidewalks. In the alley?

Liz Picarazzi:
This is for public use. So this is for public trash that normally would be in a trash can, like in a corner basket.

Jay Goltz:
No, that’s a problem, because they’re overflowing all the time, and they don’t get picked up enough. Okay.

Liz Picarazzi:
Right. So those corner baskets—

Loren Feldman:
But Liz has a solution for that.

Liz Picarazzi:
Right. Well, and so these corner baskets in cities that often overflow, we now have a product that handles the overflow that’s called the Basket Plus. So that’s something that is really like a before-and-after visual of what we can make happen in cities on a corner. We can take hundreds of corners and get the trash lifted off of the sidewalk and into the bin. So that was also really validating that there was specific interest for that product in Chicago.

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