Meet Roggen Frick, Founder of Bear Iron Works

We are live and I am excited about this. So hi everyone, meet Rogan Frick. Love the name. What the Frick? No, thank you. I'm not the only one that did that, right?

No, you're not. I get that all the time. I got quite the name.

So as you know, the only thing I know about you is honestly is that you're brave because Most, you know, most guests aren't that brave. Most people are like, I don't want to go live. What if I make a mistake? And what if you do? What will Adrian do? And there's nothing I could do. It's live. But honestly, I've had over about 300 lives, and I've never had any issues. Only a couple of times I had to say the views of my guests are not my views. But in the meantime, introduce yourself and let our audience know who you are.

Yeah, my name is Rogan Frick. I have a company called Bear Ironworks where we manufacture rock screens and trenching construction equipment, and we sell that e-commerce and we ship that all across the country and have had a very good run doing it. And I've come on here to talk about business, talk about myself and whatever else anybody else is interested in.

Okay, how cool, totally over my head. So I— so we have to— so first of all, I, I did read one thing just like a minute ago. You were working since the age of 5?

Yes, I've been working since a very young age because my dad's, uh, had his own companies his whole life.

So in, in the construction industry?

Yes, I, uh, I learned how to operate equipment very young. My dad, he had a whole fleet of equipment when I was very young age, and he would like send me out on the property with it and go like dig a hole for trash or whatever it might be. And then as I grew up, you know, he taught me how to operate equipment and got more technical because the type of work that he did was abandoned mine closures and mining reclamation in Colorado. So we were all always up in the mountains and it was always kind of like very technical equipment operating work. And I would be by his side during the summertime when I wasn't in school. And he taught me how to run equipment and eventually taught me how to weld, and that's what I used to build my career off of.

Okay, that is so cool. So where are you located? Like, state is fine.

So the company's located in Colorado, uh, but I'm located in South Carolina.

Whoa, wait, that's really cool. Okay, yeah, so explain, because I, I'm, you know, not 100% sure. So your dad teaches you all of this as you're growing older. So you're digging the trash, and then every year you're getting up, one year you're like, oh my God, I get to go on the Cat, or the, um, oh wait, one of the names of the— what is it called? What do they call it? Like, what was the first equipment that you drove?

I think the first one that I did was an excavator. So a trackhoe was another term for it. And, uh, that's what I spent most of my time like running when I was growing up, was either a trackhoe or a backhoe. Um, and then I learned how to run dozers, learned how to run road graders, learn how to drive dump trucks, and, and just kind of expanded on that as my career went because I actually went and got a degree in the construction industry and worked in the construction industry for a bit before I started this business, um, and made it what it is today.

Okay, so first of all, I'm thinking of the little kids that are playing with their Tonka toys They're playing with the Tonka toys and there's— they're like playing outside and there you come by and you're like riding the actual equipment. That's crazy. Were your friends just completely jelly?

Yeah, you know, they, they, uh, I, I don't know. I don't know if they really knew like that I was doing that all the time. I grew up in a farming community, so I think a lot of other kids, you know, they grew up working on tractors and stuff like that, so they probably— some of my friends had similar experiences, but One of my pet peeves when I was growing up was everybody always called every construction equipment a tractor, no matter what it was, whether it was a dozer or trackhoe excavator. And all my classmates would call it a tractor. And I knew all the equipment, you know, off the top of my head of what everything was just because I'd been around it so much. And yeah, it was funny, I guess. Apparently this is the story my dad tells. He had to like take the keys out of the equipment because I'd go in there and start it up and start running it myself once he taught me how to do it.

Wow, it's like a dream come true. I remember when I was with American Cancer Society, we were doing like an event, like touch a tractor, touch, you know, where the kids would come out and they get to dig. Um, that, that is— it's very cool. Okay, so now you're older, so are you graduating from high school early? Like, what's taking place with your school life?

So I graduated high school on time, um, but at that point, you know, I already knew how to run equipment well. I already knew how to weld. Um, and decided to go get a degree in construction management just because I had the background of it. I felt like that was going to be an easy enough degree for me to go into. So I went to college, went to Colorado State University, and I actually started the company then. It was a side business, uh, when I was in school, because I wanted to have a shop where I could— I raced dirt bikes. I wanted to have a place where I could put my dirt bike, work on my dirt bike. And so. Um, my dad had suggested to me, why don't you make these rock screens and you can sell them at an auction and that might be enough to pay for the rent on the shop so you can have a place for your bike. So that's what I did. I started making these screens and at first I would take them to an auction, but then I built a website and started marketing them a little bit. And pretty soon I started getting a bunch of calls for these rock screens. Then I hired an employee and then I hired another employee and then I was in a bigger shop and all of a sudden, you know, I'm running a fully legitimate business while I'm going to school. And it was becoming a little overwhelming. Like, I didn't really quite realize how much demand there was for these rock screens. And so I decided to shut it down because I was starting to not perform well in school. I finished my degree. I was just going to go work in commercial construction, build buildings, and do that for my career. Um, and then my dad— it was like in the middle of COVID— he was working for a large contractor at the time. He had gotten out of business for himself and he was working in Louisiana, Louisiana on like a $6 billion project for a company called KeyWit. And he was kind of getting tired of, you know, the demands of that type of project, you know, those types of projects, they work like 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, it's just like, it's relentless, you never stop. And he called me and he's like, well, what if, what if we started the Grizzly business, went on it, in on it together? Because you proved that, like, there's a demand for it, you know how to market it. He said, I'll, I'll get the shop and get some people welding, and you can go do the marketing aspect of the business and try to bring in the sales. And so that's what we did. And I was still working in construction, um, as my day job, and then doing the marketing and building the business on the side. And then eventually I went full-time into the business and, and took kind of the leadership role in it and drove the business and grew it further. And I turned it from, you know, people pick up the phone, want a Grizzly, we give them a quote, we make it custom order, to an actual manufacturing business where, you know, we're scheduling out things, we're, we're planning our demand, where I implemented stock keeping measures and everything like that. So that way we could actually manufacture these things and have them ready to go out the door and meet the demand that was in the market. And I've since grown that to the point that the operations are running themselves pretty well. I've put in all these tools and systems of management to be able to remotely manage it. Because now I live in South Carolina on the East Coast, and I'm kind of the representative of the company on the East Coast, but do a lot of online marketing. And that's where pretty much all of our business comes from is online.

Okay, amazing. We have to go to your website. We have to go and see what exactly, because you got me on the screens. I'm like, wait, is that like— what is a rock screen? Okay, so let me see. So beer. Okay. Okay. Here, let me— let's do this. Let's— Let's share my screen so whoever is watching can actually check this out. Okay. Right. I'm on your site. You can see it.

Yep.

Yep. Okay. So first of all, nice looking site.

Thank you.

This, this is— so this is your business, not your father's. This is you.

So originally I started it, but now it's my father's and I's. We do it together.

He realized— wait, oh my gosh, he must be so happy to have— just dads, they love it. Okay, so I love this. This is your inventory page. So am I renting this? Is this something I'm going to rent?

So this is stuff that contractors buy. And so usually what happens is these types of products, you know, they're for excavation and managing soil. We have a couple different products beyond the rock screens now. Um, but what happens is a lot of time something happens on a construction site and somebody needs this thing like the next day, and they start calling around trying to find them. So we've identified the most popular models and try to keep them in stock ready to ship. That way people can just get on there and buy them.

Wait, so why— why— okay, that makes sense. First of all, very heavy though. So like you would literally— where, where are these located? Are they in Colorado?

Yeah, they're all manufactured in Colorado, but we ship them nationwide. Okay. And we got our freight figured out so that we can get them right to wherever they need to go.

Amazing. And then what am I screening on the rock? What is, what am I looking to, like to get out any of the smaller rocks?

Yes. I mean, everyone's got a different use for it and some people even use it for screening other things like glass recyclers have used it to like It's the size of Glass Town, but essentially, right, you got a big pile of dirt. Maybe it's got some, you know, 2-foot rocks in it. It's got some sands in it. It's got some gravel in it, and it's usable if you can get rid of like the big stuff. And so these are called Grizzlies is the main thing, and that's the like the box-shaped part that you're looking at. And the Grizzly is really like what it's meant for is to get the big rocks off. It's got these big solid steel bars on it. The rocks hit that, they roll off, all the soil falls through. And then the, the thing that we've added on to this is a screen. And we've got this removable screen system that hooks onto the top of it, and it's like a wire mesh that sits on the top. And so then you can screen it out to get to like a specific size. Like say you're doing landscaping and you want to have rocks that are like you know, half an inch or three-quarters of an inch or something like that. You could, you can screen through that and separate your rocks in that way. You can change out your screen sizing. Maybe you have a gravel pit, maybe, you know, you're going to use this on different construction projects that are going to have different requirements. And so our system allows you to adapt throughout the different projects while still being a cheap, affordable price.

Okay, very cool. Oh, and I, okay, so I could really understand this now that we're— oh, I'm learning something new. I love it. I love it. And I love that you have this very clear and clean, and then, okay, so we're going from the rocks to— well, well, snow pusher.

Yep.

So like a plow?

Yeah, so we've gotten into a couple different things. We've got, uh, like 5 different product lines now, and one of them is a snow pusher. That— so it's an attachment for a skid steer to help, you know, just push snow in a parking lot. Clear, clear parking lots. That's our newest product that we've launched. Just getting into learning how to do attachments and everything like that. And we were fairly confident that our design is good, and then it's going to help people manage their, their lots.

So wait, so this means so if you had like, what, what machines would this fit in? Would it fit into like an excavator? Like what are that you would—

so the main, this is for a skid steer. So skid steers are the ones that look like WALL-E. You know, they're like a little— they got like two little wheels on the side or maybe tracks on the side, and they got a bucket in the front, right? And so those are like the most common pieces of— that's like the most common piece of equipment out there is a skid steer, because you can put all kinds of different attachments on the front of it. You can have a bucket, you can have a snowplow, you can put a lawn mower on the front of it, you can put a road brush to clean your road. I mean, the possibilities are kind of endless with the attachments that go on the front of them.

Oh my God, I definitely want to ask you a couple of business questions, but this is nice looking bedding boxes. We saw those washout tubs. I wanted to see what that looks like.

Oh, so these are, these are a simple bin used to clean out a concrete truck when it's done pouring, so it doesn't— because you can't just dump that down the drain.

Oh my gosh, I want to hear about your marketing, but hold on, I still want to go through this track. Off-pad. Oh, okay, okay.

Yep. So these ones, they sit on this.

How would I use this?

So this sits at the exit of a construction site, and you know, uh, construction sites are muddy, right? And all the tires, the trucks and everything, they pick up all this mud, right? Well, you don't want that on the roadway because that's— it's gonna, you know, pollute the water, it's gonna make the highway dirty, it's gonna be flinging rocks at people's windshields and stuff like that. And so you put what's called a tracking pad at the exit of your site, and you drive over this, and usually you'd put like multiple of these panels in a row. And so if you have really muddy tires, by the time you get driving over the pads, your tires are fairly clean, and then your, your road's going to be cleaner.

Oh, that is so cool. Okay, I am loving all the work. Your story is amazing, which I'm like looking here. Where is your story? That's crazy, this picture, by the way. Tell me, did you actually— is this real?

Yeah, so the, the airport in Grand Junction, Colorado has these planes out, uh, in front of it, and, oh yeah, you know, that's the town that we manufacture in is Grand Junction.

All right, am I gonna find it on More About Us? Okay. All right, here's the— our team. Okay, our president, Mike Frick, that's, that's your dad, well known for his career. Our vice president. Okay.

Yeah, we probably got some little more to add with our story. We're going to be redoing the site again here in a couple months and getting some new content on there.

But very cool. Okay, let's go back. I'm going to— because I want to hear. So what actually is what, what, what are some of the challenges that you have as a business owner? First of all, does your age get in the way at all?

Sometimes it does. When I was working in the construction industry, it really got in the way when I was— because I was, you know, part of the management of construction projects and in charge of like actually like bringing all the subcontractors in and managing a project. And being young with a clean-shaved face is sometimes people don't want to listen to you when you've— when they've been around for 40 years in the industry. So I did run into challenges there with it. But today in the business world, you know, I do all my business on the internet, do it all over the phone, so I get away with it a little bit easier now.

To share with us how you handled it back when they— when you were actually— they saw you, they were working with you.

Yeah, so when I was working with them, you know, I— the approach I took is that, you know, yes, these guys have a reason why they don't want to trust me, right? They've been doing it for 40 years. They've had the experience in it. You know, they've been doing it longer than I've been alive. And so who am I to walk in and tell them how to do their job? And so I took that approach of I'm not the expert in the situation. I'm just the director of the chaos trying to make something happen. And I would sit down with them, go over the plan, listen to their concerns. I think listening is a big important skill to make sure that people feel heard and feel respected. And by doing that, and then being able to ask them questions to understand what they're doing, and tell them, you know, what, how I feel about like the situation at hand or their trade, or whatever they're trying to accomplish and ask them if I feel like if my their thoughts are genuine on that and like considering their opinions, that helped me develop good working relationships with those people to where then I didn't really have any issues. It was usually like a first week kind of thing. And then after that, you know, that stigma really went away.

Yeah, they get tough, but they, they forget that they were in this. Well, maybe they weren't in the same place and that is why. So I just wanted to change the title on, on the room so that it says Beer Iron. Okay, so As far as Bear Iron goes and the work you're doing, so now how do people find you? Like, I know the website, like, tell me a little bit about your marketing. Do you— who do you market directly to?

Yeah, so a lot, a lot of our products, right, there's something that people are looking for, they need that product. And so we do rely a lot on Google, um, and Google pay-per-click ads. We do a lot of SEO, which is very important, right, because if you're not showing up in the first 2 results, then you're probably not going to get clicked on. And then the e-commerce part, we've expanded out that to where, you know, we're showing up in the Google Marketplace, we're showing up on Facebook Marketplace, where our ads are showing up in more areas. And then we've tried just marketing generally to the construction industry, and then people that hit our demographic. But like I said, these products are products that you're only going to buy if you need, you don't really buy it if you see it and feel like it's a good idea. And so we scaled back on that and we only do like retargeting towards people that we know have a genuine interest and a genuine need for the products, people that have checked us out. We do some trade shows like construction shows where we can go actually show off the product to people and let them know who we are and about our brand.

Okay, so, so, okay, so your marketing, you just, you have to like kind of be specific, but the Google is better for you. So in order to get it, All right, now talk to me about, like, first of all, how many people do you have working for you?

So including ownership, we have 10 employees. Majority of those employees are production employees. 6 of them are actually on the shop floor. 2 of them are managers. And yeah, that's— and then we have contractor partners. I partner with an ad agency that does marketing consulting and then does a lot of the legwork on the marketing stuff.

Well, so what do they do? So you're, you're making something. What is the production doing? What items are—

So all of our products that we, that we sell on the website are 100% made in America in our factory. And so we, we are building that to inventory for things that are popular, and then any orders that come in that somebody wants something custom or somebody wants something that we don't have in stock. You know, we take in those orders, make it, and then ship it out.

Okay, so, and then I'm curious, are you busy all year round?

It slows down in the winter because construction's a seasonal industry, especially in the northern part of the United States. That's why we started— that's why we launched the snow pushers to try to help, you know, keep a little bit busy in the wintertime. And it does really ramp up. Like July is usually our busiest month and stuff's going out the door like crazy. But we do, we do maintain customers throughout the winter that are buying. You know, we do offer some promotions through the wintertime on occasion to, you know, give people who are looking a deal. And then, you know, the South keeps us running because the South is always doing construction all year round.

That's me. I'm in Daytona Beach, Florida. So that's awesome. Well, you're, you're beautiful too in the area that you are. So I, I, I just had the question in my head. I'm trying to understand. So you're, so you are able to keep these guys clean. You can offer customization if someone sees what they want. You're manufacturing and distributing here in the United States. So you are both the manufacturer and your own distributor, right? And then are you, do you also have someone else that you're that distributes for you like another company?

So we do, we manage all the contracting of like the goods in our own in-house logistics parts of it. We have an operations manager. He manages the shop floor. He manages sales, like inbound sales, and then he manages all the outgoing shipments and is kind of like the point of contact for all the customers. And we, we have a handful of shipping partners. We have about 10 different shipping companies that we work with to get us the best rates to be able to ship these things because, you know, them being big and heavy, it definitely is expensive. And that was like something that I learned early on that almost killed the business was trying to ship them. And so we actually brought in the operational manager, not for his expertise in manufacturing, because I understood that part of it, but for his expertise in logistics and how to move goods. And that's really where he brought in a lot of value to the business, to the point that we— the furthest that we've ever shipped something is Guam, and I comfortably can ship things that far now.

Wait, so are you selling also to municipalities?

Yep, we sell to municipalities, federal government, state governments, Department of Transportation. The military is a big customer, and then private contractors, like just construction contractors and everything like that.

I love family businesses. I think that is amazing. So what is your goal being on podcasts?

Uh, the biggest goal on podcasts is— I got a couple reasons. I mean, I want to improve my SEO by putting it on my website. I want to get my brand recognition out there for anybody that's listening to the podcast that might not know about us but needs our products. Um, and then just trying to get my name out there a little bit more because I might have some other ventures in the future that I start up. And, you know, I want people to know who I am and what I offer.

I love that. And I don't have that many more questions, but I do want to ask you the challenges that you currently are facing. I mean, with the— like, this is something to me that, like, it would be— it would be inflation-proof. I mean, if you need something done, you need it done. What I'd like to hear a couple of challenges or the struggles you're having?

Yeah, so trying to just maintain, you know, a high sales volume and stuff, because as the— surprisingly enough, the cost of steel since we started the company, because we started the company in the middle of COVID in 2020 is actually when we started, so at the beginning of COVID And surprisingly enough, the price of steel since that point has actually went down. Not like an insane amount, but it hasn't went up, which is good. So the actual cost of manufacturing the, the products has been level. So we've been able to manage the pricing pretty well there. But what does hurt is all the inflation and all the other areas, right, like electricity and rent, and all the consumable items and trying to keep up with keeping good wages. And now we're providing benefits to our employees. And so those, those have been like challenges to try to navigate. And so the biggest thing that I do is with all the systems I put in place and all the software tools is I have a lot of data. And so I try to analyze all the data and understand how to make the business run more efficiently. I'm a big believer in lean management practices and trying to cut away any waste. And so I go through every year and I'm actually in the middle of it right now. Of going through and analyzing all that data to find out where can I cut any waste and things like that. And what I've been able to do is, you know, I cut out waste to make the business run more efficient, but then that is able to pay for something like employee health care or employment retirement program. And so that the bottom line still stays the same, even if the revenue is staying the same, if we have an increase in costs in that area.

I wanna look at something before we go. I wanna— so I'm curious. I'm going back to your website. Hold on. So I, I think it's amazing that you're made in the USA. Everything that we're hearing, we know how important it is to bring manufacturing back to the USA. Okay, so I'm on your site. Love, love, love. You have everything very clear. What I don't see is that USA made the flag, but we make our products. Is there— that's so interesting. Is it somewhere that maybe I'm missing it? Yeah, it used to be that important.

Oh, we got it down there at the bottom. It used to be a bigger, um, bigger feature on the front page when I had the website. But my— so I hire out a gentleman, his name is Josh Ramsey. He's my marketing officer that I pay for his expertise. And his rule with his clients is that he gets the first page of the website. He gets the homepage. I can say whatever I want about all the other pages. And he's got a lot of expertise about, you know, how to convert sales and how to make sure that people stay on the site. Because being made in America, even though it's a good value, it's not the first thing that somebody cares about. It is, it is in other parts of the site. So that's an organization. We're part of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and that's kind of like their grassroots organization for American-made manufacturers.

And, oh, did you go to the conference?

Yeah. So we do a big show. It's every 3 years. It's called Con Expo. And they put on here.

Oh, you're going to go to Tucson. It's beautiful. I love that.

Yeah.

Oh, it's so interesting. Kind of like stepping into the other shoes. Okay, very nice. So that is the association. So you could tell tell them that they got a little coverage too. I am— I, I have to look at the refund policy. What could that be like? All right, orders canceled within 24 hours, and you could email, and then after— okay, I mean, it's not like once it's shipped, like, oh, call the UPS truck to come back, and now, right?

Yeah. And I mean, my principles are policies are policies that, you know, I have to have things in writing for in the event worst case scenario, right? But I believe in customer service, and I believe in providing good customer service to customers. And, you know, for some reason I get you a product shipped all the way out there or something and it doesn't work, I'm willing to work with you and, and to figure something out. Um, so that's like the absolute worst case scenario. All sales are final, but you can look at our Google reviews and you'll find that we've done a lot of work to make sure that customers have the right solution and that we're going to take care of them.

Oh, I love this. Is there any question that I that you'd like me to ask you that I didn't ask you? Maybe I'm, I'm missing.

Um, let's see, about the business and everything. Hmm, I don't know, I feel like we covered it pretty good. You're the first one that's ever like brought the website on the podcast live and kind of went through things, so that was an interesting take on it all.

I don't— I had a few people come in to chatter, but I— it's, it's so like You know, the niches is so much for Chatters, probably not that many people that are kind of interested in the beer iron. Yeah, I believe in doing things differently as you do too. Like, I love everything I've seen. It's very clear. So yeah, I need to see it too. So that helps, helps the no prep to see. I could cheat a little bit.

I just cheated.

Nobody knows. But I love meeting you. I love your dedication. I love that it's a family business. Like, that to me is so special. You are. Wonderful. And you have a fun story, and that story, I'm opening it up because it is really great. I love the way you have— you said it like, I think that's— it's just the whole thing that you've been working since 5. I— it— you should go and over the holiday get all your pictures of you and have like some pictures of you when you were little. Like, I just think that people will love that evolution. Yes, yes, do that. But I'm really glad that you were with us today. I really appreciate it. And this will be turned into a podcast. My daughter will go in and, and, and produce it for me. She's 19, so she's awesome. And I don't have any more questions and I love this. So, Ragan, you and I are going to stay in touch. I will. Are you— oh, how many people— I know the website. So you are on— are you on LinkedIn?

Yes, I'm on LinkedIn. Ragan Frick. I'm going to be the only one with that name, so it should be easy to find me.

Yeah. Tell me about your name before we go. Tell me about the history of your name.

So, so my family, uh, they, you know, like every family in America for the most part, uh, they migrated from Europe, and when they settled, they settled in Brush, Colorado. And next to Brush is a tiny little town called Roggen, and Roggen is a German word and it means rye, which is like the grain. And, um, when my dad was naming me, my mom and dad were going back and forth about, you know, what they should name me. My name was originally gonna be Clay, and they wanted something a little unique. And my dad knew of the town, and he thought that that would be a good name. So I'm named after this tiny little town. I don't even know the population. It might be like 100 people. I've been there. It's small, uh, in Colorado.

And then tell me about the name Bear Iron.

Um, my dad came up with that one too. Uh, he— what, like, I think part of it is because the, the screens are called a grizzly. Like, that's the industry term for a rock screen is a grizzly. But he says he's always had these, like, dreams about bears and these connections to bears because he grew up on a ranch, uh, in Colorado. And so he was always in the mountains and stuff like that, and he would always have all these weird run-ins with bears. And so he's always had this deal with bears and he kind of came up with the name for it. He's definitely the idea guy and the thinker of the business, and I'm the executor and make stuff happen kind of guy.

That's perfect, Mike. Good job. I just want to say to you, your son is amazing. Your VP is amazing, I should say. Good for you, because that's the creativity, the way you represent yourself. I, I, you know, if I could, I'd call all my contractor friends. Hey, but I don't know anyone who's a contractor. Uh, Cindy Stumpo, uh, is, uh, comes on the Chatter app often, so we get a master class when she comes on. She's a, uh, well-known developer out of Boston. I don't know if you know her, but, um, yeah, she's great. But that's, that's like what I know. But Ragan, thank you for being here today. I really enjoyed it. And I'm going to connect with you. I will be your new stalker. You'll be like, why is this woman who does podcasts? She doesn't even know anything. But I really found it fascinating. So thank you so much and have a great day. Have a great holiday too.

Yeah, thank you too. And thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thank you all for watching. Rogan Frick. What the frick? Sorry. But yeah, you hear that 100 times a day, right?

Oh, I do. Yep.

I— yeah, it's just too good not to. Um, and like, there's plenty of names that you should be very grateful that your parents didn't call you, right? Like Dick, Frank, like that. Like, oh my God.

Oh yeah, I know.

Some parents could be mean. All right, have a great rest of the day. I'm gonna end the stream, and I really appreciate your being here. Thank you so