EXPERIENCE 256 | A Pain Free Conversation - Kris Buchanan the Founder of Phase Three Product Development and Co-Founder and CEO of RedDrop Dx

Today's episode features Chris Buchanan, founder of Phase 3 product development and co-founder and CEO of Redrop DX. Redrop has developed an FDA approved pain-free blood collection device that is used at home. Drung at years of experience designing medical instrumentation and micro-fluidic systems, he and his partner set out to solve the blood acquisition problem as a standalone, scalable solution rather than one-off component tied to a single test. Redrop offers a simple at-home kit that uses heat to bring capillary blood close to the skin's surface, followed by a quick, virtually painless micro-needle activation that creates tiny openings and applies gentle vacuum to collect blood. The process avoids nerve stimulation, reduces contamination and produces a consistent lab-ready sample. Redrop is FDA-cliared and sold business to business primarily to diagnostic companies, healthcare providers and testing services. Chris is one of those sneaky entrepreneurs that fly under the radar, employing 25 leading-edge engineers at Phase 3 product development, which his son Will is now managing, and changing the world of data collection via blood in the medical space. You'll be sure to hear more about him and Redrop DX in the years ahead, but start here and please enjoy my conversation with Chris Buchanan. Welcome to the Local Experience Podcast. On this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits, so pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Local Experience Podcast. My guest today is Chris Buchanan. Chris is the CEO of P3PD or Phase 3 product development, co-founder of Redbox DX. Reddrop? Reddrop DX? Can't read my own writing. It's happened before and the founder of No Co-BioCom, a nonprofit association. That's right. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me here. Sorry for messing up, but it allows me to say what is Reddrop? Well, yeah, thanks for asking. That's your new exciting thing, right? It is. It's the new exciting thing and in my life is Reddrop DX, which is our first product called Reddrop 1, and it's a pain-free blood collection device. Yeah, completely pain-free. Interesting. Yeah. So you describe it to me a little bit when we when we zoomed. But it's hard for me to imagine why it can be pain-free, like it's not pain-free with a doctor. You know, it's surprising to me that it's pain-free. Honestly, I'm probably one of the the key guys as far as the development and invention of the product. But surprisingly enough, yeah, tiny places really tiny holes in your skin. It does it very quickly and your nerves don't sense it. It's kind of crazy. And then do little tubes follow those holes then? Yeah, so what does suck it into the machine? Yeah, also I'll just kind of describe it. You want to do it to me? No. Okay. It's not ready for prime time. It is ready for prime time, but I brought one here with me that's already been actuated. So I couldn't do it. So the way the process works is Reddrop device would come to your to your home in a box and a kit. And their main components of the kit, the first main component is a heat pack. So the style of the heat pack like you use to keep your hands warm when you go skiing. Yeah. So you just click to actuate the heat pack. And then you'll roll up your sleeve of your arm and you'll place it right here just below your blood pressure cuff would go kind of. Exactly. Yeah. Right on right there on your arm and you you'd hold it on there for four minutes. All right. And then after the four minutes is up, then you'd remove it. The next thing in your your kit is... Is it warmed up, Chris? When you were testing, you would say warm it up. Warm it up, Chris. Yeah. Warm it up, Chris. And what happens then is the capillaries on under your skin expand and the blood, your surface of the skin looks red at that point. And that's because the blood's right underneath the surface of the skin. And what Reddrop's going to do in a pain free way is just harvest that that blood. It's kind of crazy. So bring it to the surface and bring it to the surface. There's little teeny holes in there. Yep. And then how does it make it go into the collection device? Yeah. So the way it works is when you actuate it, there's this little button here that you click. So it's kind of like the clicker at the doctor's office where it goes back kind of almost like a catapult feels like it. Yeah. People say that Reddrop feels like a like someone has just touched like gently touched their shoulder when you actuate it. It makes a clicking noise, but it feels like click. Yeah, click and nothing really. Nothing. So it's you peel the the back. Okay. There's a release paper on it and it's sticky on the back. So okay. Just stick it to your arm. And then oh with the gravity really doing the work. And then gravity goes to work. And there's a little a little it creates a little bit of vacuum. Okay. So these little what are called micro needles poking in and out of your skin before you can peel anything. Make tiny holes. A little bit of vacuum supplied by the device. Also comes packaged with kind of almost a vacuum thing. Yeah. The opposite of a compressed CO2 cylinder. Yeah. It sucks a little bit. Yeah, it sucks instead of blows. People call us a little vampires at Reddrop. So you you just stick it on your skin. Click the little button. You can press the little thing you fill up and you'll watch it. It takes about a minute to fill up and you and then you can just watch it. When it's full you peel it off because it's stuck to your skin. Yeah. And then you remove the tube. Then you would cap the tube. And inside the tube will be an anti coagulant typically to keep the blood from clotting. So you would you invert it 10 times and then place it in an envelope and ship it off to be tested. Nice. Or if you're in a doctor's office and there's a blood testing facility. Sure, you just drop it there almost. Yeah, they would test it while you wait. So nice. Well, yeah, it is. Well, can I ask yeah, like how much do you imagine these costing and then what's the average doctor visit to go have a blood draw? Well, it's a very interesting and maybe that's not the question. Yeah. It's the most important here. The most important question I think is that you are now allowing people to kind of take control of their health care. And you know, we all learned during COVID that taking care of ourselves and testing ourselves is something we ought to be doing. And we're and we got really comfortable doing that. Even blood chemistries and stuff. I have a we do a direct care practitioner that they want to take blood samples regularly and see where you're at with stuff. Yeah. And you remember during COVID that you know, you wondered if you were sick and then and then the worst thing that sounded appealing to you was that was to go someplace where there's a bunch of people who are also taking care of sick, right? And have your blood drawn? Yeah, hospital, a doctor's office, a blood draw center. And so well and plus COVID. Yeah, kids like trained everybody how to do more complicated steps than that. Way more complicated. Yeah. So exactly. This they saved you a ton of money in terms of your streamlining of training. Everybody could do it. Your thing asks Olivia. Exactly. And and we all we got comfortable doing the test. We either got the result of the of a COVID test, you know, immediately or else we saw something online, you know, an email came to us. So this will work exactly the same way. So redrops on on the market today. It's FDA cleared. And, you know, just so we're using it for more and more things. They can't stop you anymore. Like you're approved enough to sell them. We're cleared to sell them now. It's working on figuring out who needs them the most. Yes. And each each entity that buys redrops, you know, they're required to go through their own little validation. Oh, so you're not approved. Not a retail seller. We sell business to business. Yeah. Yeah. So I can't buy it. If I want to send my blood samples to my doctor once a week for my because I'm a meathead and I want to make sure I'm not taking too many steroids. Exactly. That's not for me. No. But I could refer my doctor's office. You can look online and see if there's a steroid test that you want to take. Yeah. And you'll probably find one and you'll you'll probably find that you could get. I'm not on steroids. Just. I know. You can tell. So you could. Yeah. So you could order that test. And and we our customer would be whoever is selling the test. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a different kind of selling than having a commercial light light TV being like you could test your own blood at home. Exactly. It's really a more of a like like we do business business cells. Exactly. Yeah. Anybody any entity that is selling a test for that uses blood is a potential customer for red drop. What I was thinking about and but I didn't want to interrupt because it would have enroute is because I do want to hear you also describe phase three product development too. Yeah. And we'll come back to red drop. I promise we won't abandon it. But yeah. Like how much did all that experience of helping other people develop products? How much of that experience do you contribute to coming up with this? Or was this idea of fresh or somebody else's even? Yeah. So or you just spotted a good horse and you're like, Hey, I want to invest in that with you because you don't know how to run a business, Mr. Wagner. Okay. So yeah. Like you said, as you suggested, a really red drop came out came about because of our experience at phase three or P3 PD, which is a an engineering consulting company product development and design company in Fort Collins, Colorado. We're 17 years old. And the business started with just me doing it was just me. And I am a mechanical engineer by background. Okay. And I was really interested. Can we go to the founding moment? Yeah. And you're like, I guess I'm a private development consultant now? Or what was that? Honestly, honestly, I, I thought about, I thought about this for a while while I was working for another company. Okay. And I, it was in the incubator. It was in the incubator. And and I was working for somebody else at the time. And and I had previously before, before that stint, I had, I had had my own little company for like two years. And it was just me for two years. Okay. But not doing product development. And I was doing product development. Oh, okay. And I was looking back, thinking back to those days and thinking, wow, I really enjoyed doing product development consulting. And so I was working for another company for, I guess, about total, about 10 years. Okay. And then I, I was able to have good pay, great benefits, great benefit. Maybe you were having children and stuff. So that was important at the time. Yeah. Like the security of a regular paycheck. Yeah. And you know, managing projects and people and all that kind of stuff. But I meant, I missed the like product design element myself. And so so I said, I had decided to start phase three started with just me. And we can't, I'm a mechanical engineer. I designed like instruments of like instruments in particular, like measure things that measure things like flow cytometers that measure like measure blood interestingly. Okay. And and other, anything that has cells in it, folicitometers typically measure cells. Oh, okay. So what's medical instrumentation is? Exactly. Yeah. And so so when I started phase three was just me and I and I started with a focus on really that that kind of work that I'd been doing similar in instrumentation. And I, and I really enjoyed, especially moving fluids and fluidics. Okay. Tiny volumes of fluid. Yeah. And there was an emerging technology at that time called microfluidics. Okay. That I was really interested in. And so I thought, oh, I'm just, I'm going to really focus in on microfluidics. Yeah. And kind of see where that goes. The tubes that they draw blood with. It seems like they're a micro. Yeah. So a microfluidic devices. What does that work? Yeah. Capillary action. Yeah. So the so microfluidics is is defined as as fluids moving through a channel that's let a millimeter or less in size. Okay. Yeah. So so I started like the head of a pen just about. Yeah. Right. It is. Yeah. And so I started the company and then as I, you know, worked on with different customers, I saw that they needed, they really needed more than somebody who could do microfluidics. They needed somebody who could design a cartridge and an instrument and systems. And they needed this thing to exist for their bigger product. Yes. That they were developing. Because I'd be on part of it as part of a team and there'd be holes in the team. Right. And so I just slowly over time just started building up the capability of the company. Yeah. And so, you know, here we are today, 17 years later. And phase three does product development in life science and med devices, but also in other product areas, we're getting into space and defense or even getting into quantum. And we're dabbling in AI. So you can imagine all the different things that basically where people are trying to develop products, they need a high technical capability. Yeah. And they're either trying to fill holes in their organization or they just have a napkin sketch and they hand it to us and we go make a product. Well, and you're kind of on the frontier of your space in some ways. We are. Like when I think about mechanical engineers, I think about, you know, making airplane propellers or little doors that open and close and stuff. But that's like the easy stuff comparably, even to fluidics, but especially compared to space carbon fiber technologies, old bearings. And as phase three is grown, we cover, we do industrial design, systems engineering, of course, mechanical engineering, electronics engineering, electrical engineering, firmware, software optics. You're kind of an integrator of projects in a way. We are very broad. Come in as a jack of many trades expert in some. Yes. And not all projects and all products have like an optics component or maybe maybe there's no electronics or maybe there's no fluidics. So we, you know, we build the team for the project based on, you know, what it's content is and what, you know, what most of our agents are two or three or four of your crew at a time because they're nitchy experts kind of two, but together they can be pretty broad. Yes. And they're, yeah. And most of the team now has worked together in some cases for 20 years, 25 years. They're folks that I've worked with before. Oh, you approached your previous co-workers. Well, they've wanted to come and work for you because it was way cooler. It's way cooler. That's really true. It's a, yeah, a better situation. Yeah. Fair enough. Well, it's, that was pretty exciting. Like, it's fun to be on the leading edge of things. Plus, Chris seems like a pretty cool guy, you know, for an engineer. For an engineer. Yeah. So, I guess where I was headed was, um, because we do a lot of stuff in the medical field, we would do a lot of diagnostics test cartridges. My original question. Yeah. I have come in back. So, yeah. So they'd ask a customer would ask us, okay, we want you to develop this test cartridge. And it's got to do this and this and this. And we'd say, great, we can do all those things. And we'd say, okay, but what, and what's the sample? They'd say, it's whole blood. And we'd say, where's it coming from? And they'd say, a person. Well, and then the other thing they'd ask for is this test cartridge is something that somebody would use at home. And so the options for getting blood out of a person were stick your finger, which hurts. It's dirty. You damage the blood when you squeeze your finger. Right, there's stuff on your finger. There's, and when you squeeze your finger to try to get the blood out, the red blood cells get squished. Oh. And then they blow up. And then, and then it's called himalosis. Well, and probably even the flow like it's, it's like different parts of it would come out than in the natural flow. That's true, too. Yeah. And so, and typically you like drip it. And so you may or may not get the right volume of blood. And you might also have a lot of air bubbles trapped in the blood because you dripped it and it's just blattering everywhere. So there's that option. Imagine this would be such a gory conversation. I know it's battering everywhere. It's true. And, and yeah, so we would, we would look at each other and over time, we would just, you know, we would say, okay, I guess finger sticks with a, we need a better monster. Otherwise, yeah. So after doing this, you know, five times, ten times, right? This finger sticks is pretty tricky for people to do at home. Yeah. And some people, and I know some people, you can stick their finger as many times as you want, but no blood is coming out. Yeah, old farmers with calluses are half an inch deep. Yeah. So maybe not great circulation right there. So, um, so what we, um, plus still dirty. And dirty, always dirty, no, your finger nails right there. I'll call pad as much as you want. Yeah. It's still not perfect. And so we had one customer, um, it was called Juno DX in San Diego. And the founder of that company, the CEO of that company is a dirt band and boom. And I like that name Dutch perhaps. Dutch. Yeah. He's German, but I think it's a Dutch ancestry probably perhaps. The, um, so Dirk and I, Dirk had a need that they were developing a test cartridge for women who are pregnant and their test would tell you the gender of the baby after just a few days of being pregnant. Oh, wow. Just like really fast. But you can imagine it's a hard sell to pregnant ladies to stick their fingers at home. And so he had this problem, this same problem as other people had had exactly. And so, you know, he and I were talking one day and we said, you know, why don't we just get together and form a separate company and just really go after this and focus on the vessel. And then anybody can use it. We get the vessel approved. Yeah. And then you don't have to do a single use for those particular ladies or whatever, you know, you can do anybody needs any test. Yes, that, that is the whole vision is to, is to create this product that is so reliable, so easy to use, so low cost that anybody would use it and would want to use it. Man, this could be super expansive for human health in general. It really good. It lowers a ton of barriers to, you know, in testing companies could now pop up that will test your blood once a week for you and tell you what you should eat more of and eat less of. Exactly. Just put it right in your little AI machine and the machine will do it in no time. Exactly. And, and, you know, as, as we've developed red drop and it's gotten more and more mature over time, there are all these other applications that I hadn't really even thought about one, one being people in rural areas. Sure. It's a hundred and forty miles to the doctor or the blood withdrawal. And then it charged me a hundred and forty dollars. Yeah. And then I drive home, you know, or whatever. Yeah. Another one that is I think a really interesting one is clinical research and clinical trials. Totally. So, you know, if you think about how drugs and medicine, but in particular, drugs have been developed for the last, I don't know, 50 years, the population of people that are in drug trials are not necessarily the same population of people that take the drugs. Totally. Totally. So, so if you can, if you can make it so that people all over, you know, it's kind of because it's because it's a good thing to do. It's almost like giving blood. Yeah. It's an easy thing. Yeah. Easy thing to do. Yeah. Beautiful. And that, yeah. That way, you know, all the different kinds of socioeconomic factors can be factored in so that so that better drugs can be developed faster at lower cost that are that work and work better. I dig it. Yeah. And it's such a potentially high-value business model. And yeah. And like the dollars that you make may pale in comparison to the dollars that you open up for others to make by doing good things. Right. That's true. Yeah. Like those testing companies or you might not want to do all that. If you sell all those miners, their mining equipment, you should be okay too. A shovel. Yeah. Sell them their shovels. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So tell me about phase three. Do they miss you? Have you abandoned your first child to pursue this or what's well? You mentioned my first child. So my oldest son's named Will. Will. Hey, Will, you'll probably listen to this. Maybe I'll try to encourage you. Well, we'll join phase three about 10 years ago. Okay. And he went to university at CSU in Fort Collins and got his engineering degree. And he since since being at phase three, he's kind of learned how the business works. Sure. And today he's a chief business officer of phase three and potentially the succession plan of this thing pops and you get called away fully. Yeah. So more and more, I'm doing spending my time on red drop and Will is more and more kind of stepping into running phase three. What a validation too though. Like even from a product development company standpoint, like on your website, you'd be like, Oh, and by the way, our founder did this cool product too. We don't just talk to talk. We walked a lot. And I have to say, I have to say, you know, after it, you know, red drops been around for, I guess we're in our seventh year, but it really things didn't get started and really rolling for about until about two or three years ago. And what I can say going through this experience myself is I can really bet much better relate to exactly what the little, you know, startup companies that come to phase three, I know exactly the journey. I know exactly the milestones they're trying to meet your credit. Is it design challenges? Like what were your major stumbling box for red drop? Yeah. I would say in the CEO role, which I was in for like the first five years or so. Okay. Yeah. Um, it's fundraising and then organizing the company and, you know, setting out the charter, you know, what is it we're trying to do? What is our product? What direction are we headed? What are our budgets? Yeah. What kind of people do we need? How much money do we need? What's our next milestone? How are we going to get to that next milestone? What happens when we get to that milestone? And then how much more money will we need? And how soon will we need to start working fundraising for that? Yeah. And phase three doesn't have enough extra bandwidth to just do those things really. And that's not their ballet who either, you know, they're the product designers. That's true. Thankfully, you had really good product designers on your team. We did. And you made a little grabby of Feds to go on thing eventually. We, it was, it really worked out to be a great like sister company relationship because we were co-located in the same space. Right. And so we would have some phase three folks and some red drop folks maybe on in between desks, you know, I mean, not even secluded. Yeah. Yeah. We were very very open about what was going on around here kind of. Yeah. Yeah. And when red drop needed people phase three would come over and help. Yeah. It didn't really work the other way. Right. Right. I've read that. I've never had excess capacity. I've been scrambling the whole time. Yeah. Probably phase three is subsidized. The development significantly. You might say that. But enough such that, you know, presumably other investors wanted to come on board and get you to the place where you need to be. Yeah. So where are you today? Like, do you have X number of customers? Is this pretty new that you're approved? Yeah. Like what's the? So we've been approved by the FDA just a little less than two years. Okay. Yeah. And so we've been our focus since then has just been on scaling up our manufacturing capability. Oh. Today red drop has I think over 200 interested parties and by interested parties that could be a huge multinational company or it could be a really small little startup company that's just got a website that's selling my steroids test kits. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, all these different entities that we're in touch with and they're they're all pretty much all of them are in the process of, you know, evaluating red drop, validating it, proving that using red red drop. They're using your stuff samples now. Yeah. And what you do is you take a vainest draw from a person from their vein and then you'd also do a red drop thing. Sure. Yeah. And then you put that on run those both through the tent. Right. Right. Your machine measures thing, whatever. And confirm that you get the exact same result. And so, um, all these entities are in that process and and they're all medical companies too. And so they've got kind of a high standard of burden Absolutely. They do. Yeah. But come three to six months, you'll have potentially lots of customers. Right. Yeah. We already probably should go faster after that. Yes. It's more of them good. It's just snowballs. Yeah. And where are you manufacturing? Um, we have a manufacturing facility in Fort Collins. Do you do? And what are we started? Love it. And then we've built another one here on shore. So in this hemisphere, um, where, uh, where we're really thrilled about, uh, to our manufacturing partner. Okay. And, um, so that's we've got two, not in the US, but in Mexico or Puerto Rico or in this, yeah, in this hemisphere. Not going to tell you. Yeah. I was reading, I was watching a documentary about Puerto Rico and the mess that the United States has put them in. Oh, really? Yeah. Because we used to give them big text benefit things for manufacturers to be there. Uh-huh. And then it's basically part of a budget-saving thing at some time of a story. They're like, no, we can't afford that anymore. So the manufacturer is left. Like in 1996, maybe. I don't really. I think it really Clinton's watch, even, which seems like a mean thing for democratic presidents. And they were balancing the budget back then. Right. Exactly. So I see my little yeah, it's Puerto Rico. And plus, yeah, people can't ship food directly to Puerto Rico. You got a ship to the US and then take little boats down to Puerto Rico. Oh, really? Like the Chinese ships that go by with honey and fruit and whatever, can't stop a Puerto Rico and offload a portion. They have to come to the US. Jacksonville, typically. And then another boat comes back down to go through customs. So their food's more expensive. Yeah. Um, and you know, they kind of got a depleted manufacturing base. So yeah, anyway, dig into it sometime. It'll be interesting to you too. Probably you seem like kind of a world economics nerd of sorts. I kind of am. And and as red drop, you know, you you point out a couple of things there. There will be customers a red drop that are any place in the world. Sure. And so it will make sense to manufacture in several different places, parts of the world just because of shipping. Right. And of course, tariffs and right that kind of shipping costs. But totally. Um, yeah. So you'll see that it'll grow as time grows by. And I imagine America is your first biggest opportunity because we're so sprawling compared to others. You know, yeah. A lot of denser populations might not see quite as much value. Yeah. Yeah. But it also depends on the culture. It does depend on my culture. It depends on the culture. It creates more tests from home people for stuff. Yeah. So they're in the in the US each year. I think there are something like a billion blood draws for testing. Oh, dang. They're per year, just in the US. And then 300 million people. So three blood draws of person. Or if you think about it, a blood draw could be like one of one event at the bottom is where they pull three different to something. Gotcha. Um, so there's that. Um, Europe is similar in size. And then rest of the world is similar in size. Okay. So you're someplace between 2.5 and in three billion blood draws annually for testing. But that could go up threefold. Sure. Good. Over time. If it made it, if it was that much easier. Yeah. More and more, you know, you're, you're seeing all this stuff in the media about, you know, longevity and personalized medicine. Yeah. And data, you know, this red drop really is the way, way I see it, see it red drop, even though it's a bloody thing. Yeah. It is a data maker. Yeah. Massive data collection device. Massive. Massive. If you just think about how much data we could feed into all these different algorithms thrive kind of thing. Yeah. We could just imagine how quickly you're going to start to see medical breakthroughs just speeding up. Yeah. It's well, especially with, yeah, compute power involved. Yeah. It changes the equation. Right. You've got all this data. Right. It's computing capability. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. Back in like the late 90s pre 9 11 and Patriot Act and stuff like that. Like already the government was, I'm a, I'm a diet in the World Libertarian kind of. And already the government was kind of like starting to collect data on the people more than I really cared for and stuff. And I was like, but they're too stupid to do anything about it kind of. Yeah. And then, you know, Edward Snowden comes out and stuff and tells you the scale of it and they got programs and stuff that make it easy for even dumb people to figure stuff out. Right. Now they got AI. And so the processing capability of the world over the last 20 years or 25 years has just, it must be 10,000 fold or a million fold, what it was 20 years ago already. And it's going to only go, it's still hockey stick in probably. Yeah. And all these data centers that are, you know, totally, they're now limited by how many chips they can buy. Right. And then it's going to be about how much power the data centers. Right. How many nuclear plants we can build to turn on or when when Elon gets the space solar data centers going. That's right. Yeah. They just applied it for that permit recently. Oh, for a space data center. Yeah. Basically, it's just a solar powered data center up there. And you just put your AIs up there. Yep. And the they stay cold pretty easily. Just keep them hidden in the shadow of the solar solar powered. And yeah. Yeah. Solar powered. And then you hide the data center behind the solar panels because that way it's always in the shade because it's creating a lot of heat still. But yeah. It dissipates quickly in 0.0 space. Yeah. Or whatever the temperature is up there. So anyway, I digress. Where do we leave off? Well, I think so. Your son has taken over Will Will's in charge at phase three. Uh huh. And for how long now, kind of the I would say the last year, really, he's he's really kind of just you've slowly worked your way out. It's been, you know, very fragile like almost like every month. He does a little bit more and a little bit more. And you have a plan for this. Do you have somebody guiding you in that transition or anything? Or is it more your engineers and we kind of figured it out? Yeah. Or is it more even organic than that? It's been like, it's been it's been slowly with drying and will somebody's got to do it. Yeah. Okay. And what's it's kind of been very positive, I think, from the standpoint that I've just gotten really, really busy with red drop. And so I didn't have a choice. Right. And and if that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have done it so fast. But he showed the capability. Yeah. And so gotcha. So you're slow rolling up for a while almost in some ways. And then as he showed increasing readiness to take more of the reins, it's like, Oh, okay. Okay. I can see you later. Well, congratulations. It's not an easy thing to transfer those skills and good luck to will out there. Yeah. My my youngest son, Matt, has joined red drop about two years ago. Oh, cool. To be our global product manager for red drop and really get the word out there in interface with all the customers. Yep. And and then Derek Tatman also joined, maybe a year or two ago also to to kind of shore up that effort. Well, there's plenty of prospects. There are. Yes. In fact, um, almost too many. I could, I could just about tell you, it's almost too many. There, there are almost every day. There's an inquiry that maybe, maybe two a day some days just from all all the parts of the world that you might, they might be, you know, we'd love to sell red drops in Turkey. Right. Or or, you know, we'd like to be distributors for you and so and so. Yeah. Yeah. And we'd like to help you get approved and and we'll and we are all set up and we are networked and we know all the customers. Yeah. So, you know, and then there's that and then there's just lots of us. Sure. Based companies and empty. Yeah. So yeah, that's it's just been a lot on your way. Yeah. And and Matt and Derek and and now Tom Briggs. Thomas Briggs joined red drop just last week. We had a press release. Tom Thomas. Yeah. And Tom just joined and he, uh, he came from your bio health, which was a competing company. So, okay. Yeah. So so you're continuing to bring in the same kind of circumstance where they're coming for this cool opportunity. Yeah. It's one of the things the the real entrepreneurs get the benefit of sometimes is having just a little sexier place to work than big corporate. Right. Yes. A lot. Yeah. It's a fun experience for the right person. It's amazing. It is. We haven't talked yet about the the the no co biocom. Yeah. Association. I don't know if that's the title, but tell me about that just a little bit. Yeah. So as as times gone by with with phase three and like I said, it's in its 17th year and it the company just keeps growing. How many people? It's about 25 engineers today. Yeah. It's in many different most locally here, all locally here. Not all. I would say I would say 80% or in Colorado. Okay. Um, one part of Colorado or another. And then interestingly, we have folks on the east coast and west coast. We have some people in Europe. We have some people full staff meetings, a little challenging. It does. We have some some folks kind of in the Asia area also. So yeah, we're all over the place. Um, but no co biocom came about because as I went through this experience with red drop, I could see that I wasn't, you know, I wasn't the only founder in in Northern Colorado that had a little bio company. And so what um, what I did, what I started to see was there, there were there were more companies than you would expect in Northern Colorado that are in the bio space. Okay. And by bio, I mean, life science or med device. Yep. And we, at red drop, we're very fortunate that we, you know, we were invested by uh, industry adventures. Oh, you're okay. I was going to ask that kind of seems like it would be a bit of a concentration of biocom and they got the lab there space and stuff. Yeah. We're very fortunate that those guys invested in us and and continued to invest in us. Uh, Stout Street Capital and Denver also invested in us. Um, but one of the, one of the things that I kept seeing is um, it, it's hard for little startups in Northern Colorado to really get exposed. Because they're not that many of them. It's not that big of a market. Um, and tent, they tend to, it's kind of get overshadowed by bolder companies and Denver companies. So no co biocom, I got the idea to, to uh, really just create this group, which was a, uh, is a grass roots group. Okay. So it, it's all, it's all organized and led by, uh, bio companies in Northern Colorado. So some startups, some bigger companies, uh, the bigger companies, Tomar and Zoetis are founders. Oh, oh, one of my buddies from church works at Zoetis. Oh really? It's quite a company. The, the, the, I'm told I should have the visionary founder guy. Um, yeah. Oh, I could see that. Yeah, they, yeah, they're amazingly successful too. It seems like a huge, um, the, so there, there are those big companies, but also no co biocom has, you know, a little one person startups and two person, three person startups. Yeah. And, and so, you know, as I, as I started to meet some of them, and I met some of them through phase three because they're customers. Right. It just happened to be that they were here too. Yeah, they were here too. And I could see, you know, they could use some help. They could, so the idea was, uh, with no co biocom is, you know, we would get together, um, maybe, uh, and today it's, it's four times per year. Uh, and we got together for four, for mixer events four times a year and the founding companies, um, get to each speak at least one time per year just for like five minutes. Nothing serious, but enough to give you a sense of what, what it is they do. And then the other thing that we ask the speakers to do is to ask for help. Yeah. Yeah. To ask the group for help something. It doesn't, you know, I'm more networking than anything, but also together we're stronger. Exactly. You know, I'm looking for an engineer that knows about this thing or, uh, consultant or I've got just one problem and it's killing us. Right. Anybody have any ideas? Right. This one investor is driving me nuts. What the hell should I do about it? Yeah. And again, you're right. So investors are also, you know, as, as we're in our third year now, no co biocom. Uh, and we've, we've also, uh, the, the economic development group of four Collins has been a supporter of no co biocom. And so as, uh, we, we would have these mixer events, we're there to network and help each other. And, uh, we also have beer. And that's a big draw. That turns out, that turns out, I've got to do a glass I actually bought for my wife while back because I, when I see something that's clever, I give credit by buying it sometimes and it, uh, Odell IPA Fort Collins water. And I don't know if it's supposed to be like a queue like, uh, we, that's, it's delicious because we put Fort Collins water into it or, or it's just a replacement, a substitute for water in Fort Collins. It could be a substitute. It's not a number of handles. That's for sure. Yeah. It's nice if you could just, you could just say IPA. In most places in town, if you just say IPA, they have Odell IPA on tap and they know what you're talking about. That's true, isn't it? You could, you know, if you want the, whatever, uh, even the new Belgium is booted ranger, then you would say that or other beer companies, you would say that. But if you just say IPA, it's probably Odell's part for you. That's, huh. I hadn't thought of that. My wife does that actually regularly. She just tests it just to see what she gets. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. So anyway, the other, the other thing that, uh, no co-biocom. So if there's a, uh, a biocom, out there that you haven't found yet, they should like look up your website and come to the next mixer kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah. We have a mailing list. Uh, we do, uh, we put stuff out on LinkedIn before our events. Our, uh, first one, uh, for this year is November 17th at Grims Brothers Brewery. Okay. Uh, at four o'clock. So, uh, November, um, sorry, February. February. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I was like, that's a long way. No, you're gonna have to. Yeah. Take those three in really fast. Yeah. February 17th. Okay. Grim brother, Grim Brothers Brewery at, uh, four o'clock. And, um, and this week was just in time for that probably. But, uh, yeah. You know the next one after that? Uh, it's in May. Yeah. Well, look at the website. I'm sure LinkedIn page. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. Just reach out on LinkedIn to me or this is an easy. That's great mentality. I, uh, I appreciate that kind of, uh, I've had a model for years, uh, ask of your needs and share of your abundance. Mm-hmm. And you're really sharing that you've got all these collection points of data and stuff like that. And you've, you know, built a business, you've seen stuff all through, Ed, you don't know everything yet either. The one other thing I would, I'd say on Noko Biocom is, is we, uh, we asked our, uh, all the founders and members at the end of last year, or the year before, what more we could do to help them. Yeah. And it was all fundraising. It was, help us with fundraising. Yeah. And so last, last year, we had our first, uh, pitch event. Oh, cool. Uh-huh. And CSU strata is, uh, is one of our founding entities and, uh, partners, whatever. Partners. And, and they hosted, uh, they allowed us to use their facility at the TMI Translational Medicine Institute. Yep. Yep. And we, um, surprisingly, somewhat, there were 23 companies that, that pitched. Wow. And, uh, the feedback and from all the investors that attended was, wow, they were just blown away. Right. This, these, these, these are very investible. Yep. Professionally organized companies overlooked by too many because they're in northern Colorado. Yeah. But with scale, you can make it worth a while of an investor to come up and be like, you know, I'm not coming up to take a meeting with this one dude. Yeah. But to come see 20 pitch decks. And every, and every one of them said high quality. And, and they, they said, and I said, if, if we did it again next year, would you come and every one of them said, yes, so we'll be doing it again. And that's late in the fall or sometime. Yeah. I think it's in October. Okay. All right. Well, I will, I'll put that in my newsletter if you remind me come a couple of months before. That sounds good. Yeah. Or if I meet anybody, I'll send them your way. Um, great. What else, what would you tell me about success? Like, what are the measures of success in your, your, your, your product development company? Like what, what set you apart? How did you keep growing and adding new talents and things? Yeah. We kind of talked a little bit about the sting on that leading edge. But what does it take in your business? Is it project base? Is it time plus materials? Like how does, it's all those things. Yeah. Okay. So it's, it's project based. It's, it's since it's a brand new product. There's always lots of risk and unknowns. But they don't have any money, right? And they don't have a lot of money in it. And so what we do is, um, we, we, uh, people process and pricing are our three P's that we follow at phase three. And people, we make sure that we have the right expertise and people to develop your product process. We've got a really simplified process to develop products. We've really scaled it and made it simple and efficient because again, that drawing on that red drop experience, I understand exactly what people are trying to achieve. Yeah. So does will my son. So we really understand you're trying to get to this next milestone. You're trying to get this inflection point in your company's value. So you can do your next fundraise because your company's not worth more. So that's what you're trying to do. And so we really focus on that in pricing. We were very cost effective as, uh, we are not kind of your traditional big brick and mortar, shiny engineering company that has to charge, you know, $1,000. Well, your engineers aren't in Silicon Valley. They're in Fort Collins. That's exactly right. And so what, what, what we, what we can do is, is cover this broad base of capabilities and competencies very efficiently and help you, you know, move forward with your company. Fair enough. Yeah. When you introduce the not to shift gears on you, but I promise to come back to the red rubbed as well. You introduce that as product one or something like that. Red rubbed one. Red rubbed one. Like, do you have other stuff in the queue in the process? I think we do. Okay. Yeah. I'm not going to talk about it just yet. Yeah. Fair enough. Ready. But yeah. Yeah. There's, um, lots of things that we've learned as we've gone forward at that we'd like to, you know, we'd like to leverage and show the world that, you know, there's even cooler things. Awesome. Hi. This is Clint Jasperson, managing partner at Purpose Driven Wealth. We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning and legacy using a values driven stewardship based approach focused on provision, contentment and enjoyment. With more than a century of expertise through thriving, we offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families achieve their goals and embrace generosity. Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we're here to partner with you every step of the way to learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth. Call 970-330-7411. And we're back. Um, and we have Whiskow. We should have another Cheers. Cheers. I'm glad you enjoyed it. So this is, uh, the Whiskie and Mezcal Hybrid fuel from seed and spirit distillery. Our new spirit sponsor. Thanks guys. It's really good. Yeah. It's, uh, everybody's been saying that. So I think we made a good sponsor choice with that. And they like raised their own corn. Really? And do all the things and then turn it into booze. Like, so they don't only use that. They have other stuff they bring in and stuff. Like, right, we don't grab, right around here at all. Yeah. But they're growing some of their own base grains. Wow. And taking it through the whole process. I had no idea. So as local as you can get, I, it sounds like some place I should visit. Yeah, you should. In about 60 days, they'll have their, their new, so they've been in the back of the funcworks building over by the airport. But funcworks shut down and moved out. And so they have now the whole building least. And so they're taking over the front part there. And I was just in there that today picking up my supplies and they have, uh, they'll have an oyster bar coming in with a really kind of a cool, speak easy vibe kind of place. And then a food truck with barbecue and, um, wood fired pizza. Wow. Yeah. So it's going to be a cool new hangout just in like maybe 60, 90 days. Wow. Okay. Ready for the summer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So head on down there, bring your friends. Yeah. And thank you again, Spirit Sponsor. I'll see you in spirit. Um, we're going to jump in the time machine. Okay. Here we go. Um, we're in, you're in first grade. Where are you at? Okay. My mother just shared with me the other day that, um, when I was in the first grade, I, uh, I got in trouble three times. And I, uh, got sent to the principles of it's like three times in the first grade. This, I, I don't understand why this was. But for whatever reason, my, my teacher, you don't remember you were in a troubled youth all time. So, or he had a problem for it with you somehow. So I, I remember one, one thing I did, I had, um, caps, you know, those paper caps that like you would have been a pap cap gun. Yeah. Yep. I had them in my pocket at school. And just for, you know, just because kids have things in their pockets at school. Yeah. And I remember that I put my hand in my, in my pocket and I just rubbed my fingernail over one of the little cap things and it went off. Yeah. That was enough to get me a trip to the principal's office. There was another one where, uh, there was a group of kids on the playground doing like rock paper scissors. And I, I'd never done rock paper scissors. So I was all excited. And, and I was like putting my hand in and pulling it out. And in the next thing I know I put, pulled my hand out and I accidentally hit somebody, a little girl next to me in the nose. Yeah. Her nose started bleeding. I went to the principal's office. So anyway, I got, uh, that teacher, I guess, had had, had enough of me. And there was another teacher willing to take me. So that's what I was doing in the first grade, getting in trouble and switching classes. Just to another first grade. To another first. And I guess that teacher really loved me according to my mom. So it had a happy ending. Yeah. And, and where were you? Were you in Cincinnati? Oh, hi. Okay. And that's what? Like a maybe half million person town or a million people there or something. And since he, yeah, boy, I don't know, but I don't know. I used to watch WKRP. Oh, you did. Yeah. WKRP and Cincinnati. It was really a good show. I liked it. Well, speaking of shows, um, my parents decided that they, when I was in the fifth grade, they decided they were going to become farmers. And they knew nothing about it. It's unusual. It is unusual. And they knew nothing about it. They were regular city people working regular jobs. Yep. They'd all been just suburban their whole lives. And so they decided they, they bought this little farm. Okay. Indiana right inside the border. It was just like the green acres TV show. They knew nothing about it. They bought this farm. It was 130 acres. Okay. 130 acres in Indiana. And they just tried everything. They, they had cows and sheep and pigs. And hopefully a job in town too. What's that? And hopefully a job in town also because 130 acres is a pretty small farm to support a family. It's, it's, it is not big enough to support a family. Yeah. And so what they, so they did this farming thing for a while. And then, and then my, uh, then my dad decided he wanted to be a general contractor. You were pretty poor. I assumed during these years. Yeah. It wasn't bountiful. Right. Right. Yeah. Brothers and sisters. Yeah. An older sister and two younger brother and a younger sister. Oh, wow. Okay. And so, so we were all, um, or at least, and there's a pretty big age gap, um, between, so I've got an older sister two years older and a younger sister six years older. And I'm not, you know, another younger brother who's six years beyond that. Oh, wow. So 12 years between me. Yeah. And then a couple. Yeah. So, um, but we as, as our age allowed, we worked on the farm. And I, uh, you know, got kind of, when you're farming, you're always trying to solve problems because things break and you've got bailing water and you've got dad developed so many products actually. Oh, he would build things to do something. This is the gate opener device thing that when I do this or whatever. And then sometimes years later in the farm magazine, we'd be like, Hey, dad, there's the gate opener thing designed to build. Yeah. And so it's make solve your own problems kind of a industry. So I'm a farm farmer's good too. Oh, really. Interesting. Um, my, uh, my dad also went to law school. Okay. And he didn't finish a reticence man. He was a renaissance man. So he went to law school. Um, that was before the farming thing. And then after, after while we were living on the farm, you went in the contracting to build and sold houses for people. Okay. And then eventually you bought a bar and it was a bar restaurant owner. Interesting. Yeah. So a lot of pivots in his world. Lots of pivots. And how was little Chris adapting to all this? Were you a good student? Were you on the baseball team? Well, what was your after the first grade? I got better. That's good. That's good. I don't want to have you expelled. It was close there for a while. The, um, so after, uh, when we moved to Indiana, between fifth and sixth grade, it was really interesting because in, in Indiana, this school that was in a really, really small town. Okay. And there were two, we just done a farm, but then in the very small town. Very small town. Very small. I think around 600 people in the town. And 28 people in my class. Yeah. So just 28. And it was a K through 12. Good thing it wasn't the past of that town because they didn't have another first grade for you to go to in this one. That's true. That's true. Only one. So they, um, um, that K through 12 and one building. Yep. And, um, I guess, uh, we're, where I was headed with that is the whole different experience for you. When we, when we moved, when we moved, um, basically, I was really fortunate in that the stuff that we'd covered in fifth grade in Cincinnati was the same stuff they covered in sixth grade. So you were on ghost mode. I was in super coast mode. And, and for the first time in my life, people looked at me and say, oh, that guy's smart because he'd already done it. It was crazy. And it was such a small school that stuck. Well, and tell me this, do you think that those kids telling you you were smart actually made you helped you become smarter? Like that encouragement motivated you to be smarter. To try harder. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I, I, I really, it's an interesting thing. I think it, you know, whether you think you can or think you cannot, you're correct. Yes. You know, and that's a fascinating element of life. And so I guess the message out there to listeners is encourage somebody once in a while. Right. Have your kids be encourages. Yeah. You know, where's going to go? Exactly. That's cool. Yeah. And my, my dad, another kind of thing that happened my dad when he went to law school, he would talk about patents a little bit on the, on the farm. And he was, you know, kind of instilled in me, you know, and inventors mentality and, you know, patents are a cool thing. And, you know, something that's happened to me along the way through, you know, my career and true phase three and even red drop is I've got now today lots of patents. Lots, which is more than 50 or no doubt. Yeah. I think that's more than anybody else. I've dealt with it's a lot. Yeah. But one thing I would tell people out there when you, you know, when you're starting a career, use the same name when you file for patents because you, you can find patents for, for me, under crisp Buchanan, Christopher Buchanan, K, Scott Buchanan, Chris Scott Buchanan. Oh gosh. But if you search all of those permutations, you'll find some things over 50. Yeah. When was your first? In the, you always remember, in the, I do, I do actually remember it is in the disk drive business. So look, my first, my first floppy disk, hard drives, computer hard drives. In my first job in Colorado was an 83. It's kind of interesting. I worked on the original IBM PCs hard, older than you appear hard drive. The first, the original IBM PCs hard drive. Wow. I worked on that. And I stayed on that computer hard drive business for 10 years. Okay. In Longmont, and what was really, really cool about that experience was that industry was growing like crazy. And I was able to do, in that 10 years, I did, I would say like six different jobs. And so it was just like training, you know, you know, do this for a year, year and a half, do another thing for a year, year and a half, do another thing. They were equipping you for your future job. They really were. They were training me. And I also got to live in Asia. I got travel a lot in Asia. Single guy at the time, I guess. No, I was married. Did you find living college or I did. Actually, so when let's flash back to that, like, did you go to, where did you go to college? Yeah. And where did you find her? Yes. This isn't, this is somewhat interesting before Collins listeners. So my, when I went, when I was going to college, I knew I wanted to study engineering. I was here. I was living in Indiana. So the really, this bow hung town. What was the closest real town? Probably Aurora or Lawrenceburg, Indiana. All those, those, those big, big, big places travel places. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so the two choices really for, I mean, they're more, but there were two choices for that I was considering in Indiana. And I had to stay in state for finances. So one was Purdue. Oh, sure. And then the other one was a little, a little private school called Rose Holman Institute of Technology. Oh, interesting. Our HIT. And Rose Holman at the time only accepted one out of every seven applicants. Well, it was really hard to get into it. Yeah. And I was just intrigued by how hard that was to get into. So I tried really hard. I really wasn't smart enough, but they ended up letting me because I got, I tried hard. I tried hard. And, and so I got into Rose Holman. And at the time, it was all male. And you, and looking back on it, you, you think, why, why didn't you just go to Purdue? Where are your girls at Purdue? Why would the college at North Dakota state? Yeah. Which was about 70, 30 boys. And, but thank the Lord. Well, I didn't affect me necessarily, but across the pond and more head across the river, that was like a teaching school and in Concordia too. So they were girl heavy. So we were boy heavy on the North Dakota side and girl heavy on the Minnesota side. We had a similar thing in Terrode, Indiana. Oh, okay. Saint Mary of the Woods College was just up the road and my wife or they both Catholic back schools. Rose Holman was not not religiously affiliated. And Rose Holman, the the Holman part is from the Holman family, which owned the Indy 500 before Penskeye bought it. Oh, cool. So at the time, it was, you know, kind of leading edge tech kind of stuff. See them from that dough. Yeah. Okay. And so my wife went to Saint Mary's. I would like you to write it to that. And she was from Fort Collins, Colorado. So she was born and raised. I'm not born, but raised from from a very young age in Fort Collins. And her her family owned hallmark stores in the area. Okay. And rollies and cards and gifts. It was the name of the stores. And so, uh, yep, we met in college and I I sure didn't enjoy the Midwest as much as she loved Colorado. And so I chased her back to Fort Collins. And I've been here before the end of school. Are you both finished up school? We finished up finished up school. I spent a year in Oklahoma trying to figure out what's my job in Colorado. Yeah. And I really did think that it was a very short drive from home. Right. In the Midwest, one state over is a two hour drive. So, but that's not the same in the West. This was like nine hours or at least. Yeah. It was, it was long. So you didn't see her as much as you wanted? Not for the first year. Yeah. And then, um, and then I ended up getting a job at many scribes. Yeah. And then, yeah, many scribes, 10 years. And all these different experiences, it was super great training. Yeah. And, uh, really lucky. And were you with like a more broad spectrum product development company before you founded phase three then? Or was that still in the no, no specific sciences kind of not really. Um, so you just developed enough different kind of projects and stuff and saw enough of the breadth of the business that you could launch it more. And after 10 years in the district business, I, I noticed that there were some other engineers who worked at for med device companies in Colorado. I think maybe like Cobb Labs or Valley Labs, those companies. And I saw those guys seemed like they did, they didn't, they didn't have to spend all their life on airplanes going to Asia and back and forth in late night conference calls and all that. You got some littles by this time, probably. And I said, you know, maybe trip days are a cool one. You're even married. Yeah. Yeah. But once the first time, the second time, the third time, the tenth time, it's not that, not that great. Fair. Yeah. So you moved over. Yeah. So I was focusing on trying to get into the bio world from the district business. And then, um, my first experience with that was, um, was a company in Fort Collins called Cytomation. Oh, sure. Do you know Cytomation? Yeah. Cars. No. Yeah. I knew of that company. I actually used to work at that bank over there just nearby. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. And I think I even met the owners at one point in time because I was a banker for 15 years. Yeah. And we were always trying to meet cool companies, right? Yeah. They, I was really lucky that they didn't. I was like the first engineer that didn't turn into the wolf robotics. Did it? It didn't. No, it's a different one. It's a different one. Okay. Yeah. So Cytomation ended up being acquired by Docko, which was acquired by Beckman culture. Okay. Which was acquired by Danaher. Okay. So I stayed with that. I learned all about, you know, product development of instrumentation and medical devices through that process. And again, very lucky. Did it grew? And I got to do lots of different jobs. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I, I'm thinking about, well, Bob, the founder of Colorado Youth Outdoors, he was in a little bit of a similar kind of journey and stuff. And it was that the amount of variation in different kinds of stages and levels and having those acquisitions and phases and it just kind of creates a sauce that's great for starting something new. Yeah. Sometimes. So that lots of different flavors. Talking about product development, would you like to engage with me in a taste test of our new hot sauce? I would, I would very much like to do that. Perfect. So this is, this is crazy ginger or will be this collaboration with Matador Mix can grill. And so this is, I'll give you number two. Actually, I'm going to give you number three first because it's, well, to me, to my tongue, it's a little less hot. Okay. That way the number two can be more hot. But I'm going to let you pour if that's okay. Yeah. And you know, grab a couple of chips, set them aside is what I'm going to do and just kind of put it right on. Yeah, put it right on there and try it and we'll have some some tasting notes. This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank. Loco Think Tank provides pure collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage of the business journey and we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features give back minded business veterans and the role of Loco facilitators. We're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, local community or to feature on this podcast listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Loco Experience Podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locothinktank.com. That's l-o-c-o-thinktank.com. This is going to be our, you know, you don't actually I'll send you home with whichever of these you prefer because by the next end of next week, what are my next podcasts? Oh, no, Nate's coming on on Monday. I'll owe you. I'll owe you a bottle. Okay, thanks. So that was that was the number three is that right? Yeah, okay. It started out sweet and then it's got a slow burn kind of like all around the outside edges of your tongue. Nice. Yeah. So we're looking for it. So we're calling this crazy ginger. Crazy ginger? Yeah. Because we all know a crazy ginger, at least one. I know like five of them. My roommate, when I met my wife was a crazy redhead guy from Ireland or his dad was from Ireland proper, but so it's carrot, oh, peach, garlic, ginger, habanero, and a dash of ghost in the number two. So that's your next one you're going to try. Okay. And then and a little lime juice. And lime juice. Oh wow. So that's the outline of the recipe. I'm sure there's other stuff in there that Paul didn't tell me to make it delicious. In a few weeks here, we'll have crazy ginger available to you. So yeah, that's the one with the ghost. I think that you just tried. Yeah. And which one makes your mouth happier? It's interesting. It's hotter in a different part of my tongue. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you've noticed this is like the front tip. Yep. Yeah. It hits harder sooner. It does. But it doesn't carry quite as long for me. Same here. And so yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I like them both. I really do. I'm basically having a next test batch of basically halfway between them. Oh, really? It takes down the punch of the ghost a little bit. The number three has double the habanero of the number two, but no ghost. And it's more, more citrusy. It's brighter. It's amazing how much different they are to have so many similar ingredients, but just that little bit of peppermix different. Uh-huh. To me, the number two has a richer flavor kind of, you know, isn't it bright and citrusy? It's less friendly. It's making me sweat a little bit. I do that anymore. Um, so yeah, you would buy it. I would buy it. Yeah, I would, for sure. Anything that you would like to experience is not in there, but it has to stay this color roughly, because it can't be crazy ginger if it's not kind of orange. Pineapple? A little more sweet would be good by you. Yeah, maybe. Oh, there's a little peach in there already. Is there? Okay. But we could put some pineapple in too. That might be nice. Actually, I could see. I'm imagining it as a multi-tool sauce, but especially for like a really good fish tacos or something. Oh, yeah. I feel like in the pineapple, make it happier there. Long as it doesn't get too sweet. Right. You don't want to go too sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, those are really good. I've already been in touch with you, Paul, with tasting notes and recipe thoughts. So I'm looking forward to our next taste test, and then we'll put it in production. So fantastic. Two of those to Paul at McSkin Grille. Matador McSkin Grille for putting this together. Yeah. And I think we'll have a Sean at Old Town Spice Shop is going to carry it for me as well, like my own branded little thing, collaboration hot sauce, because I don't want to pay sales taxes. I'm a service company. But if I can inspire sales, right, of a sauce that Paul makes through Sean's store, and they can both make a buck. That's great. It is great for everybody. It's crazy ginger online soon. That I look forward to that. Do you want another local experience right following up before we get into the closing segment? Yeah. So I'm going to go grab the infinity bottle. Okay. You can tell, do you have a go-to joke? Like that you can just grab it will anytime, somebody's people are telling jokes, you can just like grab this one that you've been telling for 25 years. I don't. You don't. But you did ask me to what's my like craziest experience. Oh, we'll get into that after the shot. Oh, that's later. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Don't worry. I'm already back. So you know what you're doing. Yeah. So this is our infinity bottle. And it does not include more whizcal or the high rye bourbon that I just picked up from seed and spirit, I'll add them soon. So this is roughly 5% gin 10% whizcal in 85% either bourbon or rye whiskey or tequila. And you're going to be surprised. And why the ore? It varies. It's probably like 30, 30, 20. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. You know, it's been changing over time and now it's going to end up with a more whizcal. So that's a little half shot there. So tasting, no, it's on the infinity bottle is what we'll seek first before we get into the local crazy. Okay. I'm sweating so much. Man, can you edit that out? You could taste the gin can you? A little bit. Yeah. I always can just even though it's only 5% or so. Yeah. I feel a, I'm tasting a lot of the whiskey. Yeah. A lot. Well, because it's rye whiskey or bourbon is like 60%. Yeah. And what were the other pieces? Some tequila. Tequila. Okay. Yep. Reposato, I believe. And then the whizcal. So the tequila maybe makes it smooth. I don't know. I think I'm going to bottle up something like this and sell it though. Are you? No. Probably. I like what I don't even want to play sales taxes on my product developments. That's true. I just want to be a services company. Yeah. So and I definitely don't want to navigate that kind of regulatory burden. Then how is that? How is that navigating the FDA approvals and stuff like that? Or do you have people like you don't have to really do too much of that part? You know, it's interesting on red drop. I've been the guy really. I mean, okay. I'm like you're filling out the application thingies. Yeah. But I don't know what I'm doing. So I like a good honest guy. It's my first time doing regulatory stuff. So we're really lucky. We've got a fantastic regulatory consultant, Robert Dittulio. Hey, Robert. Robert is, I'd say maybe semi-retired. He lives out in California. And but he I think he says that he has 40 some years of regulatory experience navigation, navigation with the FDA in particular. So much so that when we talked to the FDA, they they know him. They're on a first name basis with Robert and a lot of them. And so there are lots of products and a lot of history. Yeah. But what's what's really nice is as you can imagine, red drop is kind of a new thing. Totally. And the FDA there isn't a framework there to prevent you from developing it kind of. There's no sorry to put words that you might have played. Yeah, but that's what it amounts to. And so yeah, so that the folks at the FDA can see. If we'd have thought of your idea first, we'd have put a bunch of barriers up, but that's we didn't. There's the FDA is super. Well, they're protective, and they should be. They're protective, but they're also very friendly and helpful. Yeah. And they they recognize that people want this, right? When we first talked, I was like, that's a dang good product. Yeah. Yeah. And there's no doubt about it. The consumer health consumers in the US, they want this. They want this capability. So it's just a matter of proving it. Well, if we can turn a bunch of the fatties into health consumers as well, that would be good too. It would be great for budgets, not to generalize or whatever, but I mean, there's a lot of people that just don't pay any attention to their health. And it's like more than half probably. Yeah. But if we could get them to start paying attention, and you know, have a beaded driven. Yeah. And you bring up a really good point. GLP1 is, you know, when you develop. It's magic, because perfect. It's the best drug ever. It's it's a lot of people are saying for sure. There's going to be a bunch of negative consequences for sure. But it is something that we didn't see come in when we started development a red drop. But yet, when people are on this GLP1 medication, you have to monitor their dosage. Really? You do. Yeah. And you want to make sure that it's a tailor. Oh, tailor. A certain blood level to. Yeah. You don't want to shrink their heart too fast. And test lipids or whatever to make sure that the the bodies work as function. Is the lipids what clears that kind of stuff out a little bit? I honestly don't know. But I guess what I was thinking. Yeah, they could be spraying a ton of demand for you. But when you're developing a product, you can anticipate all the ways that it could be used, you know. And so that's something that just kind of came out of nowhere for us. And there's this huge demand just based on GLP1. Let alone all the other things that you tell. That's so cool. I talked to a lot more kind of Main Street kind of, and not that you're Wall Street or Silicon Valley. But you've raised investors. You've gone through kind of a more exotic journey than a lot of my guests. But Heather Rubin was a guest probably just a year or two ago now. And she invented or not. She's the CEO of a company that made rapid cure epoxy. Oh, like it's got a flash. They can cures this fast. Oh, wow. Yeah, to the point where you can like make a spring out of it and then the spring works. Really? Yeah. And like at the time, my first talk to her like the use case wasn't quite clear. You could make windmill things on site instead of having to transport those big windmill things. You know, you could line natural gas pipes that are starting to leak with quick dry epoxy. Yeah. If that's useful. And all these other, there's tons of use cases. And it's that same kind of open-handed space where you're like not sure who needs a bunch of this. But I'm pretty sure a lot of people need it. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of hard to define the market. It reminds me of Steve Jobs. I was lucky to meet during my disk drive journey. Yeah. But I remember Jobs, you know, when the Ipad came out, he, Job said, I'm not sure what you're going to use it for. But I use it for some cool stuff. It's cool. And you know, you're right. Yeah. All kinds of things. They use the crap out of it for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. Oh, by the way, I forgot. Here's your thanks for coming on the local experience podcast. Okay. Thanks. Some beer pong cups and custom stickers. Nice. And a actually a pen from Thrive and Financial. One of our sponsors is Purpose Driven Wealth with Thrive and Financial. And some shades. Shades too. Oh my goodness. Very cool shades. Nobody's got a pair like that in your neighborhood. No. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. And now we're not there yet. The local experience is the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners. Man, I wish I had put more thought into this. Any near death experiences? Any Asian massage parlors? Just kidding. I was trying to get into those stories. One kind of one comes to mind. My dad and I were painting the barn in the farm. Yeah. On the farm. Yep. And this had taken several weeks. We had this air, you know, one of these big airless compressor things. And basically my dad got all the time. It would clog up all the time. My dad kind of operated the machinery. And I was the sprayer. I was learning the value of work. And so, you know, we did the whole barn except the last very last part to do was on the end of the barn at the very top of the peak. And the ladder did not quite reach. And so you're like on your tippy toes on the top step. I was. Sorry. And I've actually seen barns that are almost painted all the way. And that part isn't painted. Really? That would have been a smarter move than what I did. Because I, you know, I was in high school. I thought I knew everything. And so I painted everything in front of me. And then I stuck my fingers in between the slats. And I stood on that top wrong. And I was reaching, reaching up. And I kind of lost my balance. And then I, my fingers slid out because it was wet. Right. Well, of course it was wet. Long way down. It's a long way down. And did you interact with the ladder on the way down? I didn't. I was very fortunate. I'm very. Or maybe it would have been better to slow you down. I don't know. It was a, what were you 30 feet up or something? It was a, it must have 30 to 40. I mean, it was a double, one of these double things. Yeah, it's probably close to 40. And if it's kind of hard, I'm thinking of. And you know, there's that moment where you're, you know, you're kind of living your arms. Yeah. You can't reach back in because it's a slat. And at that point, you're, okay, make a decision. What am I doing? Yeah. And I remember jumping backwards. Okay. A little bit to try to clear the ladder. There was also the compressor and all that below. There was also cinder blocks. Lucky for me, I missed all that stuff. I just hit the ground, laying on my back and I'm just laying on your back. I landed right on my back. Damn. Yeah. And I remember laying there for like five minutes. Of course, my dad, you scared that I'd hurt myself. Yeah. Of course, you know, what's the natural thing to do with when try to get you up and move? No, you started yelling at me. Okay. I told you not to do that. Great dumbass. And I'm just laying there and, and, you know, it took a good five minutes before I could breathe. Not to wind out of you, probably. I meant that a few times. And I remember just laying there thinking, I guess I'm not dead. I guess I'm not dead. I didn't, I didn't hit any blocks. I didn't feel like anything's broken. Damn. And then I got up and good. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, if you think about the chances of that going successfully. Oh, right. Or if, or if me or you today. Yeah. No, no way. Yeah. That'd be so much wrong. If not dead. Yeah. But and grounded a little softer. Then concrete. A little, a little, not much. Every, every tiny bit counts when you're, and how big were you? I think I'm like a hundred pound kid is a lot different than a hundred fifty. One fifty. I was a pretty big kid at that time. Yeah. It's sophomore. Yeah. Yeah. School. So yeah, that's amazing. And, and what happened when you started moving? Was your dad still yelling? Or was he like, let's go to the hospital? He didn't say, let's go to the hospital. But I was, I was able to like get up and walk. It's like, okay, we're good. Oh, yeah. I told you not to do that. And, and you're right. The rest of that gable didn't get pending. Really? Nope. And then he finished it. No. There's, I've seen, I, I lied earlier. I've seen at least three or four barns in my lifetime where that little part is not painted. Never noticed that. Just kind of out of reach of the normal ladder. Uh-huh. And nobody's, and plus it's not subject to much weather. That's true. You've never seen a barn rot out from the peak down. No. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Nobody really cares. No. That's a pretty crazy story. I'm going to be credit for that. That's a, that's in my top 10. Is it? For sure. As far as just sheer death defying crazy, like I, like I jumped off a 40-foot waterfall in Costa Rica. And that was crazy. That is crazy. But that's not falling from a letter onto your back. You know, that's so much more violent with lots of obstacles. Lots of possible ways to they go back. Yeah. Your head could have landed on any one of those obstacles. Oh, wrong. Even that. Yeah. Anything you want to listen to us to know, look up, uh, find phase three. I assume you have a website or something. Yeah. Phase three is P3 PD. The, the number three. So P3 APD dot com. Easy. And is our website. And you can do more investors in your product or your good know for red drop. Yeah. Can people still get in before it blows up? Maybe it depends. We're kind of getting to that point. If that manufacturing scaling, right? Yeah. So it's bigger investors now. Right. More institutional style. Yeah. But with a proven demand for it, look at the reason. And I'm trying to, to, um, take all the investors that I met along that journey and, um, bring them in to the noco biocene and expose them to the northern Colorado companies because they're looking for places to invest just like most companies are looking for investors. Right. So it's just a matter of finding each other. So this is like usually different, different than what sometimes do. But like lately this week, like Gold, Silver and Bitcoin are all way down. Yeah. What's going on there? I wish I knew. I, and no, I can like has the world the risks lately. It doesn't seem like it. You know, when they would not, they should not travel down together. Right. Right. It does not make sense. Right. I know what the dollars could go down. But that's because Bitcoin went up. Right. Or the inverse. Right. Right. Or if the dollar is, I don't know what the dollars do. But it, if Gold, Silver and Bitcoin are all going down the dollar should be dropping like a rock too. Right. Unless there's some shenanigans. Yeah. That's probably the most likely. There's some shenanigans. There's some hot brothers stuff going on. Yeah. I digress. Appreciate you being on. Really enjoy the conversation. Thank you, Kurt. Yeah. Thanks for, really appreciate it. Yeah. I look forward to our next comment, Jason. You too. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Logo Experience podcast proudly produced and sponsored by Logo Think Tank, Colorado's premier peer advisory organization. This is your producer, Ava Menus. To find all of our episodes or nominate a future guest, check out our website at thelogoexperience.com. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X.com and LinkedIn at the Logo Experience. To support the show, be sure to follow, subscribe and share. Until next time, stay Logo. Bye.