Future of Play: How AI is Reimagining Toys and Transit with Todd Gentry

Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Charles Greathouse. And I'm James Harris. And today we're excited to be talking to Todd Gentry.

Todd is vice president of sales for GoTrax. You might have seen their scooters, hoverboards uh in a city near you. Thanks for joining us, Scott. Glad to be here.

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So I mean, Bentonville's changed quite a bit since you maybe were first here.

I'd love to hear a little of your retail journey uh just to start. Great. Um it has changed a lot. So I I entered the the retail world uh back in 1995 uh for uh with a fitness company by the name of Icon Health and Fitness.

So they have a history here with uh Walmart uh under the Proform uh Westlow brand, I think at the time they were they were selling them. So right out of college, I started uh that retail. I mean 90s was like the golden era. Oh yeah.

Not that the future's not bright here in Bettonville, but that was just like stores upon stores. I'm pretty sure like the merchandising was like we need warm bodies to make decisions about what's happening and a lot of chaos and an enormous amount of growth. It it was interesting to watch just how fast everything was changing and evolving. And so I went from that side of things with on the the fitness uh side of the world to a smaller startup company that uh by the brand of Classic Sport.

Classic actually ended up um, I believe Sportcraft took on that name, and many of the balls and sporting uh has now become private labeled here interesting at Walmart. Yeah. Um and during that time, I you know, I really learned how to, I guess, cut my teeth from the side going from a bigger corporation now to a startup where we were just uh clawing to get any business and doing anything and everything we could. How many hats would you say you wore in that?

Every hat. Every hat, yeah. We we were in a part of Denver. Actually, we were uh we would inflate basketballs and footballs.

We had this little kit of three balls a basketball, a football, and a soccer ball. And there were times we'd get behind on orders and we'd have to run down to the floor, and and it was a part of Denver called Five Points, which has changed dramatically. And a couple of times we'd hear shots ringing out in the neighborhood, and everybody would have to hit the ground and let things calm down. So yeah, any, you know, retail spare or uh the the space to lease was a lot different, you know, then but uh so and then that evolved in I I left actually uh from the corporate side and became a sales rep.

Yeah, and uh for about 12 years, 12, yeah, it was about 12 years, I was selling to sports authority independently, independently, and I represented a company primarily um Lifetime Products, oh yeah, which also does a lot of business here with blow molded, blow molded tables and chairs, basketball systems. Uh, we introduced the kayak business to them. And so we we did that for quite a while, and then uh sports authority went bankrupt, which tends to unfortunately happen to some of our retail partners, and uh jumped into the the Power Sports world at that time with Coleman Power Sports and again another um manufacturer that has product here with the gas-powered mini bikes and go-karts.

And the theme kind of across the board is I've I've worked in this industry, it's been in recreation and sporting goods. Yeah, that might speak to my intelligence level. You know, I might I think it's really fascinating because you know, the to to meet somebody that they started at craft and then they went to PG or they went to Unilever, like, you know, the on the consumer space, it's not as often you come across somebody that's in the I mean they're big categories, but they're not they're not that, right?

I think it's almost more challenging to do what you did, uh, because you you you you aren't just coasting on the power of your brand or the marketing campaign or the you know whatever um might be a part of it. Yeah, there's clawing at every uh every step of the way. And startup, oh my gosh. That just yeah, that retail is such a small world, so it's funny to have like, oh, it's a startup, which you know could have become vaporized.

And actually, it's you know still lives on in different ways, different brands, different retail banners. Well, it's interesting. You know, uh you talking about your background in some of these categories that now we play in to kind of hear a little bit of the evolution of like we know what we're working with now, but to go back 20 years when we weren't calling on that time. I wasn't far behind you, but I started out of high school, not out of college.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's great. I was always uh I've always been a little jealous of those that have gotten to play in fun, cool categories.

Not that my categories weren't really cool, but my first buying desk was Adult Incontinence. And oh gosh, that's a different okay. I I would fight with marketing because I was if we needed to tell this story, and they're just like, Yeah, we're not that called to tell this story. Yeah, my kids were always uh interested in stuff I was selling.

Yeah, yeah, that actually made my job a lot easier. That's really fun, yeah, right? I mean, because we would go out and ride you know, go-karts and minibikes. We'd have the entire neighborhood over and we'd set up courses and pray that nobody would roll one or get hurt.

We had that every now and then. Yeah, moms weren't too happy with me. Well, but dads loved me. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Um I think durable medical equipment was the the closest to being you know cool because I could roll around in some wheelchairs at the layout center. Um, couldn't quite argue getting the motorized ones as like a viable uh path. So never quite did it. But now when my kids come to the office here at High Impact and we've got a couple of GoTrack scooters, there you go.

They absolutely love being able to. In fact, my now seven-year-old daughter, um, I think we were we had just gotten here, and you know, we have a couple snacks in the kitchen, like and scooters. And she looked at me and said, Dad, I'm glad Walmart fired you. I was like, I was displaced, but yeah, thank you.

Uh nobody should have heard that. Well, you say because now we get to ride the scooters. I'm like, thanks, baby girl. That's awesome.

It's funny how God works things out. Uh I'm glad you get to ride some scooters. That's that's funny you mentioned that. My four-year-old granddaughter, she she called me on FaceTime uh with her dad, and she's like, I have something to show you, grandpa.

And so then he took the phone and she's on uh one of our three-wheeled scooters, and she takes off and then she wraps her leg around the front post and then takes both her arms off of it, and she's four hands, and she said, I'm ready for a bigger scooter now. And my and I don't know that if her mom, my daughter-in-law, I don't think my daughter-in-law knew this was going on. And my son's filming this, and she's like, I'm ready for a bigger scooter now, grandpa. So, you know, if I can do this with no hands and wrapping my leg around like a kind of tough to argue that logic.

Yeah. So we're working on that for a bigger scooter. So speaking of GoTrax, um, you've been with them about a year. Yeah, yeah, just over a year now.

What was the draw? What was compelling about Goatracks? So I had experienced, I mentioned the Coleman Power Sports side. Um, I actually introduced our Coleman Power Sports team on the production side with um the CEO um of Tau, who owns Goatrax.

So we they started manufacturing all of our product. And to mention that too, we now just purchased Champion Sports, which now has the the the Coleman license. So the company I work for and we were producing, we now own them. So so we're they mentioned it was a small world.

Yeah, it is very small world, very small. So that's cool. The GoTracks, um, though this past year, knowing the company and knowing what they did already, I was really excited to jump on board when Terry reached out to me. And um, it's it's been a ride this last year, a crazy ride.

And uh the vision is really what's super exciting about what we're gonna be doing. Is there any innovation that you've got in the funnel that's maybe not out that you're free to talk about? Or do you sure yeah? We've got some fun stuff, uh, particularly in the AI.

We're calling it the AI plus in robotics. Yeah. And um, we have been able to work with our manufacturing um our way into that AI world with robots. So we've we've uh a couple times been down in the the Walmart lobbies with our humanoid and our quadrupeds and just blown people away.

We're now known when we walk into the lobby at Walmart as the robot guys, and the receptionists ask us where the robots are each time. They were disappointed yesterday. Oh, they're fantastic dancers. The robots, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you for the clarification. Anytime. Yeah.

But um, so we're really excited about that. There, there's there's a great retail application. They're expensive right now, right? Uh, when people say robots are here, they are here.

Sure. But when you're talking about humanoid that that could be in excess of $40,000, I don't think most of us are rushing out to get those. But the applications for retail, such as security and marketing and uh, you know, the patrol, when I say security, um, there's things that we can do to help even introduce them more uh to everybody, to everyday consumers. And then from a manufacturing side, we'll do what we do.

And that's you know, getting that technology down to where they become uh easier to run from a cost standpoint. Yeah. So a lot of cool stuff. And then the toys, the the the AI toys, which fall under robots and tying chat GPT technology into that.

We're having some good runs at that as well. So a lot of uh the educational opportunities in that, specifically that world, seem like could be a pretty major unlock. Particularly when you look at some of the depressing statistics of you know our our reading level, math scores, things of that nature. Do you see uh AI-enabled tech uh or AI-enabled toys being a help, uh a benefit from uh educational?

Most definitely. And uh, we were just talking offline here a little bit about the fact that so many people can end up putting their kids just in front of a screen. Right. Right.

And what are they getting from that screen? If we can now take AI and that ability to interact um with a young child in a safe environment, again, that's something that you got to be careful of, right? Uh, but giving them the opportunity to have feedback um and to be able to grow and to learn and to be challenged in ways, um, whether it be math, um, reading, whatever that can be, there's so many things you can do with that. And AI can learn with you too.

Like they can take on the ability of understanding, so to speak, the age of the age appropriateness of who they're dealing with, and and and you can learn together with it. Yeah, exactly. You can you can have different challenges along the way. So that's fun, and then the never-ending uh why.

Why? Why you can uh I'd love to have a AI robot get annoyed with help uh help navigate the the why journeys. Um that that age, like when it goes away, but I definitely have them the why at home. I don't know if it goes away.

Well, I did you know I've got children in their 20s now, and I still hear why while I talk to them. So yeah, hopefully not 10 of them. You're consecutive in a row. No, yeah, just three.

Get in. Sturgil sits and says, why is the only is the most important word to Lexus? All right, I got that one on lock. I'm glad Sturgil would be satisfied with that.

That's right. It was interesting. Yesterday, in one of our meetings, we had an an AI, uh, let's call it a toy. It it looks like a little pet dog in the meeting.

And we introduced it at the beginning of the meeting and we didn't turn it off. And during one of our conversations that we were talking about top selling um categories um at Walmart, it all of a sudden jumped in and it named the top five selling categories at Walmart. And instead of using the word Lego, it used building systems. Now, this was the top selling items in the toy and it used building systems.

And our buyer said, Absolutely, we don't use the term Lego at Walmart, and it knew in our conversation to use building systems, and that was from it had only been in that conversation for 20 minutes. That's amazing. Yeah, how that picked that up. That that blew me away.

It blew our buyer away, too, by the way. He went, I just caught what it just did, and it was quite interesting. Yeah, yeah. I love, I mean, when you can read enough, get enough context, it seems pretty intelligent.

Yeah. Um yeah, flipping kind of to AI, what have you seen as uh you know useful, not useful? You've uh a wide array of experience across retail and are getting deep into this AI space. What are you most excited about?

And what are the things you think are more distracting? Are you asking more from what I see like from a retail, what we could be selling and what we could be doing? And then yeah, just in AI adding value across the retail landscape. Yeah.

Um I think what we're seeing on the retail landscape, for me personally, um, the analysis portion of what we've been able to look at quicker, and I know your team helps us tremendously with that. And I know they're pulling a lot of information that way. But for me, to be able to look at documents and just to have it sorted so quickly, you know, for me to say, hey, I need to look at this specifically uh and to pull that information, it's mind-blowing to me. You know, I I think back before we even had Excel, right?

In the early days before we even had email. I mean, I remember that day. Yeah. I feel like I'm talking about covered wagons here, you know, but yeah, before cars, uh, but now you have before email, you know, it could be a dating system, I guess.

But um, but before we had those abilities to to draw information, I don't even know how we did business, right? Like how how we could truly do analytics. So my my first role um in the industry was in replenishment at Walmart. And there were still people that worked there that the years prior, they would open this giant like you know, you've seen like the really huge calendar.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Look like that, open it up, and it was a warehouse, and all the items that they were responsible for replenishing with all the data, and they would just circle the numbers, and that was what they're and at the end of the day, they'd give it to their assistant, and the next day they'd type it in, and that's how replenishment's amazing. As recently as the 80s, like it's not a lifetime ago.

Yeah, it's fascinating when you when you when you when you see that, and then see where we're at today where we can literally dump gigabytes of numbers into something that say find correlations, and there it is. Yeah, so when I learned uh analytics in the early 2000s, it was okay, start at the top line, so growing 10%. Now what items are contributing, and then let's look at a little regionality. And you basically kind of do a reverse recause analysis where now you can say find every relevant correlation that is in 10 stores or more, and it does install late.

Um it it's uh that to really be able to harness it, it's gonna the that's the feature of analytics for sure. Yeah. Had a great conversation yesterday about the so what. The so what?

Right. Because if you you can do all these things and you can you can create a bunch of different uh correlations, the the so what? What's the so what? And at the end of the day, it's all about decisions.

Like what what decisions are made differently? They may be made prior, and with additional data, it can trigger, you know, a replenishment event, a a feature opportunity, um, uh a likely out of stock that needs to be researched or or whatnot. And ultimately, that's what we're always trying to do is do better faster. Yep.

And go this is a great go find that so what in a in a in a more creative way, a faster way, a better way. Sometimes you you you can just make way more decisions. Yeah. Um which I think has been important for growth.

You know, you wonder could a Walmart have grown, you know, um, or continue to grow, or now see where they're gonna be the next 10 to 20 years without it. I mean, you get to a point where if you didn't have the AI, yeah, could you process enough information? Could you really see the vision of where you need to go? And even without the error, exactly, you'd really have a lot of trial and error, right?

So I think it's helping eliminate that. I know from us from the manufacturing standpoint, it helps us greatly from a uh you know, a competitive standpoint. We can understand, we can understand the lay of the land better and quicker. We can see quicker how our you know um uh competitors are reacting and acting to certain things.

Now obviously they can do the same thing. Yeah, so we're just in an accelerated world, yeah, I guess at retail. Yeah, I I've I've gone back to it a lot. Um Jack Shoemaker's quote of the only sustainable competitive advantage is speed.

And and as I as I've like chewed on that, it's like, yeah, I think I think he was right. Um and it's interesting because what used to be an advantageous rate of speed is no longer anywhere near the front. You know, yeah. What uh what got you here might not get you there when you when you think about AI and in general having a data-rich environment that's meant for better decision making.

Yeah, I think that's the key too, is people do get scared or intimidated. And I know I I get intimidated by it all the time, but if if AI can lead to decision making, and if we can learn how to work that and not take the human element out of it, if we can work those two together, where I think a lot of people get worried and intimidated is like, well, AI is doing everything, but really it can't make those decisions that you know, okay, ultimately I take the AI information and what is that doing to help my company?

Well, there's also a liability issue. You can't sue AI. It's a great point, right? Like uh a doctor has to sign off on a thing, a CPA has to sign because they can be sued.

Yeah. Um, technology can't be sued. Yeah, yeah. Well, we were at CES, and you know, it's incredible.

AI was mentioned quite possibly literally in everybody's face. Probably. Probably. If not, um should be.

And then the you know, hundreds of thousands of people there assessing what's happening, deciding which trends are are likely to be faster or not. You know, it's still so people-centric. Um, we saw a good friend of mine, Howard Beats, there. He's been to every CES since 1989.

Wow. And he said, he said, here's what I'm doing. I'm walking around, and every booth that has AI in the name, I remove AI to see if they've actually got a viable product. Because everybody's just because they all wanted to know, be known.

Some of them are really compelling applications, and then other times it's just like, that's just you know, same thing everybody else has. Yeah. It became noise. I saw uh a rendering, it could be real, it could have been AI generated.

Uh people magazine, person of the year, AI. Um, oh wow, which might actually be the the headline. And this year, yeah, I did kind of person of the year. Person of the year, it's interesting to think about.

That's funny. Uh yeah, actually the the created AI. Yeah, yeah. So in a world filled with data um and of product product lines today that are just eat up with fun, uh, what's it like sometimes to have to battle the there might not be data to prove this, but we think people are gonna love doing uh this, that, the other.

You know, you've got uh hoverboards that have LED lights and a Bluetooth speaker. Like until you did it, there wasn't data that said that you should. Right. Right?

This this is uh some gut, some intuition, some customer research. Can you help us? You know, I think being comfortable with AI and using it is a good push for anybody who's listening, or like you should be paying attention and you need to go find ways to get comfortable and utilizing. And then I think we can get too comfortable looking at historical data, yeah, to then because it's not a window for the future, that's all past data that's been collected.

Right. So I'd love to hear your perspective of like, okay, well, and when we innovate and create new fun toys, um, or you know, transportation being totally reimagined um with some of the scooters, how would you you know coach someone maybe new in their career through this uh juxtaposition? So just from our experience, I mean I'm not the authority uh the authoritarian figure on this, but what we have seen is again where I come from, it's all recreation, right? Yeah.

And so when we want to innovate, give me a second here. When we want to innovate and we want to see what the next it is, we get out and participate. Right. Yeah.

And so and and we get around which is so much fun. And as part of that, as we've seen the emergence of this e-mobility, let's call it, you know, with the the scooters and the hoverboards and the interest that people have in that electric space. I mean, there's there's always been the talk of how from an environmental standpoint, what people view as the benefits of leaving the gas powered. And I just as recently as you know, three years was or two years was selling gas-powered product.

There is a there is a definite feel still that people want that. You know, it's explosive and but the growth is coming into this electric space, right? And so well, that's exactly where I was gonna go is as we've seen this explosion on on the e-scooter side, right behind it has been the e-bikes, and and the growth in that has been phenomenal. And now following a typical curve of any category, you know, when the e-bikes first came out, I remember my parents came to me and I wasn't working with a company that sold e-bikes at the time, it was all gas powered.

Yeah. And they said, Hey, in your industry, do you have any leads on an e-bike? You know, they're in their they're in their 70s and and they're looking for e-bikes to to help, you know, get out and and do stuff. And I'm like, I I really don't.

And and so they went out and they went to uh a local shop. They spent $3,500 each. They they dropped $7,000 on some really nice e-bikes. Yeah.

And and today, you know, our company could do those same e-bikes. They would have probably they would have paid a thousand each you know for a very similar bike. Yeah, yeah. That's the that's the way the technology those pioneers that go out and buy it that makes it affordable for the rest of us.

Yeah, exactly. And so so that category is it's it's a no-brainer on the e-bike side. Now, our company also um does a tremendous amount of business in golf carts. Yeah, and and so if you want to talk about an exploding category, Wall Street Journal had an article uh last year where they predict that the golf cart industry will be a five billion dollar annual industry.

I mean, any given weekend if the weather's nice. I don't live on a golf course, but there'll be more golf carts on the street than cars. Exactly. Just people just zipping around, kids mostly, but that's and that's been something.

So I I recently was in Hong Kong meeting with some of our investors, and they keep asking, like, what is America doing with golf carts? They're like, are you growing golf that big of a business in in America? And we're like, no, they're really not growing golf. My neighbor takes his kids to school on his golf cart.

Yeah. They can avoid the lines and everything. Yeah. People are shopping with them.

There's communities in Florida that are restricted just to golf carts. It's kind of my favorite thing to do on vacation down in that Destin area is gonna get an Airbnb close enough that we can golf cart for the week and not have to rent a van. And everybody loves it. Yeah, yeah.

If there's something about it, and I remember sitting in these meetings last week trying to explain like what this infatuation is with golf carts. And, you know, um, I'm telling them like people just like the open-air driving experience, like getting out and just feeling that, particularly kids, and they're like, just doesn't make sense to us. And so, so that that as far as an innovation and direction, that's again, it's in that EV space, it's outdoor, it's participating, it's being together, which you know, we talk about all this AI, how sometimes that makes us exclusionary and isolation.

Yeah, but really, you know, we look at this as an advantage of let's kind of bring all the technology and opportunities in there's a family environment and a community environment. Well, you've said it a bunch of you've said it several times about having fun. Yeah. Uh and I I I'm more convinced than ever that you really gotta have fun in life to stay happy, to stay healthy, to be motivated.

Uh and it's bonding and connecting. I think sometimes we take that part of life for granted. Yeah. Um, that's cool that that's your entire career has been about having fun.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You know, they they always joke about you'll never work a day of your life if you enjoy what you do. And uh, I mean, sure, there's bumps and bruises and losing deals and making bad decisions on um the the business direction, but at the end of the day, I have a garage full of fun stuff.

No doubt. And what I love is we're talking about innovation and effective use of AI while also not being fully reliant. And you're like, you didn't ignore the data. There was still data involved.

Yeah. There was also like review of your competitions, you know, you're seeing who's out there doing what, and then there's play, engagement, which to me is like getting into the customer's eyes, which I think a lot of merchants uh and suppliers have a hard time remembering it's not a widget. Like whatever you're selling is either uh a solution to a problem or it's an enhancement to their to their life, and like what will motivate a customer actually into the space to purchase it.

Um and the closer you are there, the more likely your solution is to be a great fit. Yeah. So yeah, so I love this sort of triangulation that you you laid out for us. Oh, thank you.

I mean, it it makes my job a lot easier. Again, I'm not I was never really an engineering mind or excelled of beyond measure in the school in in the classroom, but I have been able to, you know, feel what I enjoy. And yeah, it seems like we're all very quite similar, right? Yeah.

In this world and wanting to get outside, be active. Yeah, we really are more in common, and this helps bring it all together. So if you could give a piece of advice to um, let's say your first five years in retail self, uh, what would that be? 100% listen more.

And and um I think early on, um, I had many opinions about this is the way it should be. And and and I was passionate about certain things, right? They should like this. This was better than this, you know.

Our classic ball with its micro uh fiber technology was better than the Wilson ball any day. Yeah, right. We were saying, no, nothing against Wilson now, you know. But my opinions, I think, mattered too much early on.

When really, yes, if I hadn't if the buyer was able to let me come into that meeting and talk to him and share information, that's one thing, that's great. I can share minimal information, but listen more to what they're looking for. Yeah, I think anybody who just heard you say that to me, that interacted with me, maybe my first year as a buyer is letting out a giant amen. Um sure in my opinion, and and maybe listening would be would be helpful.

I think we all have a little bit of that, but sure. Boy, have we learned it over time of like, okay, yeah, no, let me just take a beat. Yeah, yeah. That's really good.

I remember the meeting I was in and I was on the sales side, and I could tell I was losing the buyer, and I was very young and and very new, so I started talking faster. I still and no do it. Give it more information. And my boss was in there, he goes, You know what you did wrong, right?

He goes, Shut the that's great, yeah. And I still like you know, it's it's tough. You there's that salesperson in you that wants to do all the talking, yeah. But really, I think they get these, you're not there to like really give a ton of new information, maybe some, but they there's a lot of ideas already moving forward.

Well, um, as a salesperson, maybe in the sort of as we get towards our lightning round, which we'll do in just a second. Oh boy. Um, for those that haven't heard of GoTracks, like what would be the, hey, here's where you're gonna find us, and here's why you're gonna love us. Well, you'll find us in just about every Walmart store.

Yeah. Right. And back near the bicycles. Everybody seems to know where the bikes are because they're that big section, the big rack, and the display.

So we're usually on the end of that um with our e-scooters and then um our hoverboards. And then great blessing for us is this year we're introducing a private label e-bike. So under the Concorde brand. So we're gonna be the opening price point uh at Walmart um for their e-bike, which we're super excited about.

They've been so disruptive in that bike space. It's it's been awesome to watch access to good bikes happen across the country. Yeah, and and your team has been a big part of that as we worked together on that. There's been a lot of hands in that.

We've never done anything on the the global sourcing side. Yeah. And you've got our private brand hub. Exactly.

Yeah, that's great. We were able to use your team here and and then work closely with the team overseas that they have. They are detail oriented. Yeah.

We've really learned a lot. And and now I, you know, I mentioned my parents' experience buying any bike, you know, $3,500 each, these will be at $450. Wow. And they're fantastic bikes.

That's amazing. You know, multi-speed and pedal assist. And your company's story is fascinating. Um, I can't even remember how many years ago it was, but you were just on marketplace.

You went a client of ours, Goatrax was on the marketplace. Uh, you apparently they'd reached out to the merchant and and no response. Well, then the the buyer sees it. I can't remember if it's two million or five million in sales around this one holiday period.

So he called up the current or the the salesperson at the time. He like, he, why have you never brought this to me? He goes, uh, you're not returned my calls. There you go.

Never since then, it's just been year after year of of growth, yeah, with growth really driven by innovation. Yeah. Well, yeah. And some of those scooters, like I'm a I'm a large guy, and they they have no problem.

They're good quality scooters, yeah. Um and your team has been great to to help facilitate that. You know, that's one area for the years that I've tried to sell to Walmart, you know, and brought something here and and tried to get it. Not having the support.

Your team matters. It really does. And and you know, having that follow-up right away, uh, relationships that they trust. And and again, it comes down to that when you say listening, that's how you build trust, right?

And and and so, yeah, I think your question was about where's our product and all that. It's all you know, circuitous there. But yeah. Love that.

So lightning round. Let's go lightning round. Uh, what are you reading, consuming um you know, right now, whether you've just finished it last year or you're working on something now that's kind of moving you. So interesting question.

Um, good question. I'm I'm rereading portions of tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell. Oh, yeah. And I've we've we've um, as we've looked at the robots and how to, how are we gonna, you know, this is gonna be one of those categories that is gonna reach a tipping point.

And there's some cost factors beyond that. But what's gonna help it get to that? And so that's I've been spending some time there. Um, and one of the ideas that came out of there, they talked about where um Apple became who they are when they stopped selling an iPhone and made it an enabling experience.

And when you think about the apps and what happened with the apps and how that changed the smartphone, yeah, you know, so that's something I've taken from that. So yeah, love that. Um, so we've been in retail, it's a small world, but um tell us about one of your greatest retail blunders that you learned from. And I can tell you right now, if my kids were listening, which they're they're probably not, they probably are.

No, they're definitely tuned in. They're their biggest, they they they get a kick out of this every time. It's Mango Mattress. And uh, and we uh we during the time when boxed mattresses were becoming a thing with the memory foam, we decided that there was a there was a a technology in Asia that you could take a spring coil mattress and you could compress it down.

I remember this. And you could roll those up and put them in a box. They were so heavy. Can you imagine all that steel in there?

And we thought we're gonna run, you know, people are gonna want a a coil, spring coil mattress over a memory foam mattress. Who wants to go down that? Yeah. And now you look today, there is not a single spring coil mattress that exists anywhere in a box, but there are plenty.

Were you really? What was happening? Yeah, I worked for a company called Sleep Innovations, and we did a lot of bed and boxes at it. We were at one market, uh, you know, market week they have in New York, uh, spring and fall.

And I remember seeing, I said, So this is just a spring mattress. They go, Yeah, but it's in a box. So, you know, I was like, I don't think anybody's buying it because it's in a box. It's just a convenient way to get it home.

Yeah, exactly. Everybody was like, Well, they're so much easier. Think about the people in New York City that you know, you can't get a moving truck and you get up three levels of stairs, and I'm like, think about those people trying to carry this thing. It's like you gotta be huge.

Not very many of them probably did. So there you go. That's and then what uh what has you fired up this year? What's uh what's what's the the from a business perspective, what's the what's the theme for 2026?

It's it's definitely in this uh robot uh the robotics AI. Yeah. I just I'm excited to see where it goes. Yeah, I mean, where can this be in 15 years?

Yeah, right. I mean, I'm not gonna be hopefully, I mean I'd love to be 15 months. Yeah, right. There's so many things that that I think we're gonna be, you know.

I was joking about I knew time before email, right? I think we're gonna be saying we'll know time before we had somebody, you know, some type of robot in your office that's just used for something every day. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome.

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. You bet. Thanks for having me, James.

And uh thank you for joining us. As always, you can uh see all see or hear all of our podcasts on our website, highimpactanalytics.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.