We’re always looking for new ways to feed our obsession with endurance running. And one of our favorite sources for stories, tips, and education is the Chasing Tomorrow podcast.
Chasing Tomorrow explores all things integral to the endurance running world — from health and nutrition to community to the mind-body balance. Hosts Joe & Dave interview everyone from big-name endurance running athletes to incredible influencers who are shaking up the industry.
So you can imagine our excitement when they asked to interview our very own Kay Martin, BOCO Gear Founder and all-around badass.
In this episode, Kay dives into the history of her career in the industry, her trials and triumphs, and the brand story behind BOCO — including where we started and plans for the future.
Take a listen to the interview below and prepare to be inspired! You can also read the full podcast transcription below.
Explore More Endurance Running Tips & Tricks on the BOCO Blog
At BOCO, we don’t just make some of the most sought-after endurance running gear. We’re all outdoor enthusiasts who live and breathe endurance running, both in our daily lives and at the office.
Find more awesome interviews, expert tips, and product reviews on our BOCO blog >
Transcription of Chasing Tomorrow Ep. #63 – Outdoor Industry Superwoman and BOCO Gear founder Kay Martin:
The following audio transcription was made through an automated program and may have inaccuracies.
Joe:
Hi, I’m Joe.
Dave:
And I’m Dave.
Joe:
And we’re the host of the Chasing Tomorrow Podcast where we bring you stories that delve into the science and spirit behind intriguing people doing extraordinary things.
Joe:
Welcome to the Chasing Tomorrow Podcast Episode 63. This is going to be a fun one for me. Dave is off, I think, he’s running a couple Ultra’s today doing some training, getting ready for Bigs Backyards, we talked about last week. And so, he left me with Kay Martin, who is the Founder and CEO of BOCO Headgear. And that’s just one part of this amazing story, which Kay is going to be able to tell us.
Joe:
She’s been in the outdoor industry for longer than will probably admit, live here, because we don’t want to date her. But, for any of you who started in the Pearl Izumi early days, she led sales internationally and in the US, and then followed many of the market leaders in the outdoor clothing industry as we made this move to Performance Gear.
Joe:
And now, four years ago, she started BOCO, and it’s a woman founded, own, lead, and run company, which we’ll get to talk about. And for me, I feel like I didn’t know Kay until recently, but I went on the journey with her as I bought stuff that she was out selling and running and has really made an impact on the industry. So, with that introduction, Kay, welcome to the podcast.
Kay Martin:
Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
Joe:
Yeah. So, it’s like I think for many of our listeners, this is a bit of the dream. We get to do a job that keeps us outside or in the industry. I’m sure there’s some hard parts to it. But before we dive into that, Kay, now, we’d all like to hear a little bit of the early story. I think I read you might have been pretty good at field hockey as a youngster. And maybe, you didn’t actually grow up out in Colorado. Tell us a little bit of how you started and how you got interested in the outdoor lifestyle.
Kay Martin:
Sure. I grew up in Boston and one of six kids. So, the way I grew up in the outdoor lifestyle was…No one would take us. We’re six rowdy, Irish, obnoxious kids. So, my parents took us hiking.
Kay Martin:
So, hiking in the northeast, and we were lucky and fortunate enough to have a house in New Hampshire. So, we did a lot of the Appalachian Trail and fought and hiked along the way. And I grew to really love being out, we skied, we hiked we all played football. We were basically a team. So, we played every sport and usually ended up in fistfights and things like that, like good Irish families do. But a little rough around the edges.
Kay Martin:
But that’s how I started. And my athletic journey, I guess was we were always playing a ball sport. I grew up with street hockey and kick the can and all those things you did back before half these listeners were alive when there were no video games and things. And my sister was the oldest and she was a walk on field hockey player at the University of Michigan. And she was a phenomenal player.
Kay Martin:
And what I tend to tell people, which is absolutely true was she was recruited because she was so good. And when they got me, I was more of the comic relief life of the party girl, not really the athlete that she was. But, I looked a lot like her and played a lot like her and was able to do some things there that were okay.
Kay Martin:
But at the end of the day, after living in Boulder for a long time, I was probably a C plus, B minus, just had a lot of fun. And those years were early title nine years, so unbeknownst to me, we were breaking barriers and we didn’t even know it. So, we were fighting for equality, a little bit along the way and gaining whatever scraps we could. University of Michigan is a D one school. They had Bo Schembechler as a coach as you know, and…
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
…we’re basically like riding advance. We got $20 a day. I mean, we all start laughing about it. We kept the money and parents made us PB&Js, and we thought we were rich and ate that way. But, those were early title nine years, which are really formative now looking back, super fun and I get to play a sport that I love through college.
Kay Martin:
And then, after college, I started a business with a friend of mine in Boston. He had come from Michigan as well and we were basically athletes to the rich and famous. I mean, coaches to the rich and famous back there. I got my degree in cardiac rehab and exercise village physiology and we took people from heart attack settings and basically got them back into shape.
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
So, some of that meant…I was walking, I got people back to their daily life and others where we were just there as a helping hand to coach them on their athletic journey.
Kay Martin:
So, we did have some people that ran the Boston Marathon, or had larger athletic goals. But, we were early trainers, and we all thought we were cool because we actually got a degree in it, and we weren’t going to kill someone. And then, I moved out to Boulder. I got married and moved out here. And my hubby at that time was working for Cannondale Bikes, who had just put people out of the road.
Joe:
Wow.
Kay Martin:
So, they had never had road wraps. And he came out to Colorado sight unseen, and I went along with them. And I was going to be this personal trainer working through the hospitals, like I did in Boston. But what I learned out in Boulder, which is probably still true today is, your coach is best if they have one Iron Man. They’re not always the best because they have credentials and names behind them.
Kay Martin:
That might not still be true today. But I found it fascinating that people are willing to get killed by someone because they had accomplished something athletically. And not for me, who was in cardiac rehab, and all this training, and I could actually keep these people alive.
Kay Martin:
So, I learned the hard lesson. Didn’t want to fight the culture, because I loved it. And we were mountain biking and doing things. So, I went to work for Pearls Izumi. Yeah.
Joe:
That’s so cool. It’s fascinating because I think, maybe, we’ve gotten to a point where I do think there’s the two training methodologies now, which is this type A, alpha male, hammerhead, go as hard as you can every day. And then, there’s this more informed, let’s get more data, let’s think about it, some of the best have nutritionists and massage therapists, and physical therapists, got lots of people in your life helping you optimize the system.
Joe:
So, I do think it’s changed a little bit, but there’s still a lot of that. Now, tell me what you want, and you tell me. Now, we know that many times. Somebody is being the best athlete doesn’t make you as the best coach either, right?
Kay Martin:
Exactly. And it’s changed a lot, I tell people, “Yeah, my degree. Are you kidding? I’d kill people now.” It’s just been so long, but I did. I distinctly remember the time telling my parents or something like, “Wow, they don’t even care that I worked at Mass General or through any of the hospitals, or that I could keep these people safe after some traumatic injury.” They just cared that I did some race or I won Boston or something. So…
Joe:
Yeah, it’s the thing. So, in the early days, when Pearl Izumi started, that’s a Boulder-based company, right?
Kay Martin:
I mean…
Joe:
Or was it…
Kay Martin:
It started in Japan. So, it’s…
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
But over here, it was under Spyder sportswear for a while. And then, when I joined, it was on its own as a distributor of Pearl Izumi in Japan. And I think, I was the 11th employee to ever be there.
Joe:
Wow.
Kay Martin:
It was an early days and started in the warehouse. And then, someone asked if I could turn on a computer and I ended up in customer service. And then, nobody wanted to answer the international calls. So, I became…It was the time, right? International, I’m scared of those people. No, no. And I’m like, “I’ll do it. I don’t care.”
Kay Martin:
So, to say like, I started international, I just happened to raise my hand and say, “Okay, I’ll talk to our distributors over there.” But it was fun. I mean, it was those were the early days when people really were just getting to know Pearl Izumi. We’re on a rocket ship. Everybody road, everybody we’re friends. And even to this day, I call it the Kevin Bacon story because everybody that’s worked there is one degree or two degrees from someone in this industry.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
And being there 10 years, I can literally be in a room with four people and say, “Oh, my gosh, we’re the Pearl crowd,” and they didn’t know each other. It was just…We all learn. So, if you look back on my career, I tend to say I learned on people’s dimes. I got enough up courage to do it on my own. But I really learned a lot on from the mentors at those places and the people I met along the way, and just how a business worked, or in some cases shouldn’t work.
Joe:
Yeah, yeah, I think that…So, yeah, that’s one of these life lessons, I think. I’ve had the privilege of…Sometimes, I think it sounds like we had somewhat of a similar start. I had a brother and sister. I think I used to battle with my brother more than my sister. But we didn’t have anything.
Joe:
And I think that my career really developed because those people who are willing to spend time with me. And I always have this story which…There’s one mentor of mine after a number of meetings, how was I doing? And he said, “Better.” And I was like, “Oh. Okay.”
Kay Martin:
Yeah. I mean, a little different there was, this was still early, and hopefully, this doesn’t happen anymore. But I was literally told to my face in a meeting with the HR person of the CEO that they couldn’t have a female as the director of sales. And at that point, I’m like, “Wait, you just, you’re outside voice for that, seriously? What? You can’t say that.” Even back in the day, it wasn’t even that far…Long ago it was like, 19, whatever, ’99, 2000.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
So, then I just learned it was time to go. And this was somewhere like, I grew up, loyal. I was one of six. My siblings, I only knew that loyalty working from a team and someone I had to go, I researched companies and I found moving comfort. And moving comfort was, just I had clipped the hang tag from them. It was everything that I thought of working in the outdoor industry.
Kay Martin:
It was a company owned by two women. They were fast friends. They developed the first running short in the business in 1976. And I called up one of the founders and I’m like, “I need to work from you, I just can’t work with assholes anymore. I’ve done it, I’m good at it. But I’d really like a chance to just take the chill, and work for something I really believed in.” And I had a great time there. I learned so much from women mentors in the industry that could do it right without being mean and threatening and boastful. And all those things.
Joe:
Insecure, I think is the word.
Kay Martin:
Yup.
Joe:
I think, though, maybe Kay, just a minute more on this because I think there’s a lot of listeners who accept this mistreatment, and allow for that. And we shouldn’t. So, how come…I know you said you sort of like, that wasn’t who you were, but still hard to quit from that. What gave you the courage to just walk away from these jerks?
Kay Martin:
Oh, God, it’s not courage. You could talk to my husband. He would say like, “Okay, if you cry one more time about that you’ve got to quit.” And I’m like, “This time,” because you’re Irish. And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to get them.” And then, I stand in front of him and bawl like a baby.
Kay Martin:
But, I don’t know, at some point, you just have to go. Yelling in someone’s face, and whatever, and I’ve got a following story for that, because years later, I told the person that took over for me, “Shame on you. You did the little point the finger. Shame on you. Had I’ve been stronger. I was only 28 or 30. That’s just not the treatment blah, blah, blah.”
Kay Martin:
And I always used that in the back of my mind like NMA, no more assholes. You just don’t have to work for them. But I can’t say when I’m young, and you’re looking for a paycheck. And you’re working for a paycheck, it’s hard to leave.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
But I will tell everybody, every male female out there, you don’t need to be treated like that and look for another job. And, hey, you know, what? Don’t quit before you get another job because why not? They’ve mistreated you or whatever. And I’m not…I mean, I grew up in Boston, so I can be super cynical. But, for me, it’s a two-way street. And it’s just as much your call as theirs.
Joe:
Right. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point here, because someone else behaves poorly, doesn’t mean we have to do that or accept it. And they’re actually the ones that threw the first punch. So, I think it’s always fair. If you get punched in the nose, you can punch someone back. I didn’t do it. I never said anything bad…
Kay Martin:
No.
Joe:
…to whom, like, why are you doing that to me? And I think that more and more…And if we establish that, that bully, which is really what that is, when someone says something like that.
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
Or you take the air out of their selves, the less they can be a bully.
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
Unless they can replace you with another just person unwilling to stand up to it. But if you do stand up to enough, they don’t have much left. So…
Kay Martin:
Yeah, yeah.
Joe:
So, you move on, which is great. And congrats to you for doing that. And then, you end up on this journey of continuing to learn. Now, what was happening in the consumer market as we started to put better quality gear out there? Were you an evangelist for these new synthetics and this new capability called hot sweat, all this stuff? How is that evolving?
Kay Martin:
Right. I mean, it was evolving really quickly. Pearl Izumi, even the founders were super technical. And they were the first to make a shammy and things blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, at Pearl, we just had a lot of people that were just out there with what fabrics could do and the functionality of them.
Kay Martin:
And I turned into a real fabric and fiber and performance apparel geek, because we did all run in T shirts, and everybody still loves their T shirts. But it is amazing, just like the hard good gear that, “Wow, I don’t have to put up with a male short, like, really?”
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
And I have to put up with a short, short. I have no business being in, like, no, no split shorts. And remember, the time was the pink it and shrink it. So, the women really had to fight for like, “I don’t want that.” And plus, it’s ugly. So, a lot of this stuff was made by men.
Kay Martin:
So, when I went to move in comfort, it was super refreshing to say like, “Oh, a bra made by women? Who the funk?” And shorts made for women without a seam going, ho ho, ha ha. So, it was a really fun time, because that was all evolving in the fabric and sourcing manufacturers and things like that were all getting involved in it.
Kay Martin:
But again, the broader market was men. So, we always had to take that down and gear that toward women. And now, I’m happy to say there are more women and things, that you don’t have to put up with taking your shirt off at the end of the race and having rubs and rashes and things going on with your clothing, men and women.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
But it’s fun, super fun. And fun to test out some of those things.
Joe:
That’s right. I was going to say, there was early on, it was a little bit of bold when you ditch the cotton T shirt, and the uncomfortable shorts and the suits that didn’t really fit, and socks as well.
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
And there’s always this problem of the small retailer…
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
…in your factory, I should say. The small manufacturer doesn’t get the advantages of scale. So, typically, you get this nice and run. And we can go back in history from the guys who were hanging out at CampFour, who did all the climbing gear and the North Face and Black Diamond and everyone, and then Pearl Izumi.
Joe:
And then, everyone over time, as you get to whatever the $30 million mark, wherever it is where you really get to amp up manufacturing, you start to sell out, and then the quality starts to decline again. So, did you go through much of that cycle as well?
Kay Martin:
Oh, yeah. And early days, I call it push play, actually, when I look back, because there’s thousands of places that open up and I took a very different turn for my business. But one of the things I recognized very early on, and especially in the Pearl days, but every manufacturer I worked for was the inventory is the category killer. They’re going to kill you.
Kay Martin:
So, the time and even people that start a business now it’s great. We’ll build it and they will come. And I just saw inventory as being the killer of all good brands, bad brands, whatever. It just did as you’re told by a manufacturer, you need 3,000 units of the shirt, and you are super happy, you got it right. And it comes in and it’s shitty, and you’ve got to get rid of it. And your garage is full of this one shirt.
Kay Martin:
So, that is push play to me. I see it over and over again. I see it to this day. And I feel like, just reach out to me, just ask the manufacturer to make a 100. Pay the surcharge. There’s just things you can do now that you could avoid that. But it’s just the one thing that the people getting into apparel don’t realize is, this inventory and 700 skews, and oh, boy, I’ve just seen it too much to say like, you’re out of business before you’re in.
Joe:
Yeah, and that’s a good lesson, just generally speaking, which is looking at unit economics slightly differently. Maybe, per unit cost is higher, but you didn’t take on all this inventory, you’re sitting on top of in. And in this industry across the board, friend who owns a cycling store and the problem he has and having a hold inventory, but then the manufacturer trying to do high-end stuff doesn’t sell enough of it to get some leverage.
Joe:
And so, just it is, as the consumer you sort of not educated enough to know what’s going on, but it is certainly evolving in. And I did want to touch on the Headsweats experience because at that time they came out, as I remember, that was at the core of me getting into Ironman and/or maybe a little before that, I was really finding…It was fun to use gear that really worked…
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
.. and things like that. And because now, of course, you’re in headwear category. So, from just…Forget maybe the company itself, but what was going on? What you’ve learned about making headgear? Because it’s sort of a curious category.
Kay Martin:
Yeah, when I worked for Headsweats, everybody made fun of me. One, because of the name. And secondly, like, “Wait, you’re leaving apparel, and you’re going to go to Headsweats? Who’s that?” They had no idea. They’re products snobs.
Kay Martin:
So, I had done it for a lot of reasons. And one is, I had two young kids at home and the founder was going to let me live in Boulder, and I didn’t have to move to Cincinnati, that was a hard deal breaker because I went to Michigan and Ohio, blah, blah, blah. But, at that time, I felt like I could real…I had known enough people in the industry that I really felt like I could grow the crap out of that brand, which we did.
Kay Martin:
And I was fascinated that it was a tight category. It was one that is neglected by every manufacturer. If you’re in a room with a manufacturer in North Face, I don’t care who it is. And you go through their product line, everybody in the room is thrilled when you go into tops and bottoms and jackets and gear. And you get the hats, and it’s like, “Oh, my God, I’m going to kill…” I mean, I just want to…Can we do it tomorrow? Or do we have to do hats? It’s just this throw up of afterthought. Nobody wants to do it.
Kay Martin:
So, for me, if I looked at it as a category, I felt it was really underserved. It had been like the cotton T shirt is to a three layer technical jacket. It’s just didn’t…And yet, when you look at what people do out there, your hat is one of your most important things, you’re running a triathlon, you’re out on the road, you’re spending all this time out in the sun, and heat, and sweat, and dah, dah, dah.
Kay Martin:
So, I really felt like, wow. And Headsweats, he locked onto something cool. There was a following. A lot of things going for him in the triathlon world with sweat, he had the perfect person to test stuff on. And I felt like I could really make a difference there. One, not only selling to like he was to teams and clubs and events, but I could bring the brands in and say, “Listen, I can make this for K2 or Clif Bar, or whoever.
Kay Martin:
So, I felt like bringing my relationships to headwear would help. And what I really found was, at that time, all my friends were the CEOs of these companies, because I’m a female. I wasn’t the CEO yet. I still pay my dues. And so, I could call up the president of X, Y, and Z and say, “Dude, just give me your hats like, you don’t care. And I’ll at least make it look like your brand.” And they were thrilled because they knew I wasn’t going to screw them. They knew that…
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
They always put the lowest man on the Totem pole on that category. So, I had to school little Johnny on turns or margin. And they knew that the category would fit the brand image because I came from brands.
Kay Martin:
So, I love that. I absolutely just loved. I felt like I was an extension of every brand we worked for. And then, I felt like great, let’s drive this category forward, which is what I was used to at Pearl Izumi and Moving Comfort.
Joe:
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. And, yeah, did the hat category…Because if we think about today, a little bit, and we’ll get to that in a second, it feels to me at least, more people wear hats even when they’re not exercising. It’s just like, I know we’re on enough Zoom calls. And I’d say, half of the guy every once in a while have hats on. Certainly, it’s a little more worn by men, I think, than women. But, now, even women.
Joe:
And so, it seems like the hat category has really evolved. And we could talk about BOCO in a second. But just generally, have you seen…Is that just an observation on my part? Is it really happening?
Kay Martin:
No. I mean, this was the culmination of like, we all grew up with those relaxed fit baseball hats, right?
Joe:
Yup. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Kay Martin:
Whatever. And so, my thought was, why not bring them together, right?
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
Headsweats to me was that traditional old man white race hat, right?
Joe:
Yeah. Right.
Kay Martin:
And it was always for a purpose. You’re not going to wear that out, dear God don’t be shown in a bar like, no, no. Mm-mm (negative). So, when I started BOCO, it was just that. Man, there’s an opportunity here to have that. My favorite baseball hat be my favorite Performance hat without looking like a runner geek.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
And we did that a couple ways. It was the year I started it, Ironman, one of the Ironman finishers finished in a…He finished in a foam trucker hat.
Joe:
Oh.
Kay Martin:
One of the Ozzy’s. And so, it became this, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” It’s not this dorky hat.
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
And it’s cool. And he was able to dip his hat in water and put ice underneath it. So, it was cool and cool. And both sayings. So, I worked honest to God with athletes in Boulder, and they were calling saying, “Hey, Kay, you made this great.” This is when I first started. “You made this great trucker hat for me, but it’s falling apart.” And like, “No way. Wow. Really?” And like, “What are you doing?” And they’re like, “Training for Ironman.” And I’m like, “It’s cotton. That’s like putting it in the dishwasher.”
Kay Martin:
So, we just switched it to Performance fabrics. And we invented this technical trucker. Trademarked it, did whatever. And it hit at the right time. It hit when athletes didn’t want to look like their dad. So, they didn’t want this old man running hat. And yet, they could wear that when they were out and hanging out and working out. And you could wash it. So, it doesn’t have these sweaty, nasty lines, which all of us girls thought was disgusting.
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
So, it wasn’t just, this is my running hat like, your running shoes, or your running T shirt. It became a hat that you’re proud of, that you can now wear out, but you can also train in it. So, the trucker hat is what kind of tie that fashion kind of hangout thing to, “Great. I can wear it for performance and function.”
Joe:
Yeah, and in full disclosure to our listeners. I have a lot of BOCO heads. And I find them to be just truly incredible. They feel like a feather. They don’t weigh anything. What’s interesting, Kay, is like a lot of giveaways are really a shame because…
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
…they get thrown out, right? That’s all that happens…
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
…in closet and they go into trash. The BOCO heads, in all seriousness are like when we give them out to people, they love getting them.
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
They look good. They feel good. They’re like, “Oh, wow, this is just different.”
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
And so, yeah. Congrats for getting that to happen. And I can tell you that for sure, that is really, working.
Kay Martin:
Right. And…
Joe:
More so into the technical stuff. And just when you started the company, though, this is always like, so you’ve been doing stuff like this for a long time. The first time you do it yourself, it’s always really hard.
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
Okay, you have the product idea, which lots of people say, “Oh, I want to start a company, I have the product idea.” But this is a lot harder work than just thinking that through. There was some other themes that you brought to doing this, correct? When you started the company?
Kay Martin:
Yup, yup. When I got fired. So, getting your ass fired, kind of, whatever. And I don’t know, part of that could have been ego, mind and the founder. A lot of it and it just got to like, “Hey, at the end of the day, it’s your company, you can fire me,” and he did. And then, my Irish side came back in like, “Okay, if I…I know I can do this better. And I knew there were things that were left undone that I had. I just hadn’t done.” The trucker hat hadn’t come around yet.
Kay Martin:
There was stuff happening in fashion that I always wanted to bring to functional headwear and Altra’s were coming around, and people had needs, especially some of the guys that ran just, I love this hat, but it’s cotton. So, there was like, things happening. And I just knew that I had been in the industry for a long time. How do I mitigate my risk? Because, of course, my first daughter’s entering college. Of course, my husband has a…I was the breadwinner.
Kay Martin:
So, it was like, dang, this is like, go big or go home. And so, I called some friends who actually worked at a sock company at that time, just to say, “Can you hire me, so that I can start this on the side?” Like you had said with Performance team, you need a job to start it.
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
And with that is years of having connections enough to find a factory, and I found a guy that I call him my brother from another mother. He lives in China and he was doing socks at that time. And we just basically taught him how to make headwear. And he was a small little factory that now is same size as us and growing and whereas only thing. But it’s just weird how stuff like that happens that round the clock and pressure, pressure, pressure getting some early prototypes out.
Kay Martin:
And with being older in the industry and starting a business, my first customers were my friends. And they would call and say, “I know the logos not exactly right. And it’s upside down in purple, but I love the hat.” You’re just so nice to me.
Joe:
Oh, man.
Kay Martin:
So, I don’t know if I’d get that latitude now. But, I felt very humbled from coming from this, “Hey, I’m running a company or whatever, to go to the very lowest low and ask for the smallest purchase order.” It’s just really humbling.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
And it was amazing to me to see who reached out. You’re getting fired, you feel bad for yourself. You’re all those things and self-doubt. And, but, I don’t know, deep down whether it was my athletic side, or what being a competitor. There was a distinct time when I just knew I was going to make it, and it wasn’t long after…I mean, I knew the product I’d get right. I just knew the factory was right.
Kay Martin:
I had called some people that had left Headsweats early and begged them to work with me, who were great designers, and one was a technical sewer. And they’re kind of like, “All right, Kay, I’ll do it.” But, they’ve been with me since the start. So, it was this great little team of like, “Yeah, let’s get them.” It was this like, “Rah, rah, rah, rah. We’re going to win.” And, yeah, so it just worked out. It just work…
Joe:
Yeah, you built a mostly female team, I believe that the company, is that correct?
Kay Martin:
Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Joe:
So, that’s cool. We love that idea. We need to balance the scale a little bit from all the other…
Kay Martin:
Yeah, I wish I could say I’m doing my share. And we do have…We have a few males, but they have to be able to live in our environment. We’re 20 some odd mothers. So, when I started, I couldn’t afford real time, real full-time employees. And it just so happened that a lot of these women had kids at home, and they were the primary caretaker.
Kay Martin:
So, I would promise them 10 and 20 hours a week. And then, when they were doing 40, and 50, and crying, I would say, “Okay, I will hire someone else.” So, I did get to a point where my lead designer, Kim, will tell you that when she cries, I’ll give her a new employee. But, outside of that, no, we just work.
Kay Martin:
And it’s a very interesting model. I had done a pitch fest early on. And I just remember, I think it was Dan Nordstrom or someone from the other panel was like, “You can’t work from home, it’s just not going to be a thing.” Right?
Joe:
Got it.
Kay Martin:
You need to be there, and you need face-to-face time. And I’m like, “When you’re smart women, you don’t need face-to-face time, you need…Get the hell out of your way and GSD, get your shit done.” So, that was our model was just get your stuff done, I don’t care. And we’re dealing with China. So, you actually have until about 7:00 p.m. to get it done.
Kay Martin:
And unlike me, who missed my kid’s soccer game, because I was scared of my CEO or President, I never wanted to be that. I was like, “Hey, you know what, I don’t care. And if you miss a day or three days, our factory can make up for that because we just can.” Nothing’s going to be more important to that.
Kay Martin:
So, we tended to find people that wouldn’t screw up that culture. And if you’re not the right fit, you won’t make it here, right?
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
We’re not mean. We’re not nasty. But if you’re the cog in the wheel that’s holding it up, it’s like a light bulb. It’ll flash up, right?
Joe:
Yeah, I think this…Of course, we know that the past 18 months is sort of spun the world around upside down and challenged a lot of convention about how we work. And look, there was no more lifetime employment 20 years ago, and we didn’t need in the strictest business world where someone had to stand in front of the machine, okay, so maybe there was a need for that style of work.
Joe:
But, in 1890, 98% of Americans were farmers. Now, 2% are farmers. So, we’ve evolved, and all of this mindset has to evolve. But there are some who are still stuck in this world of these preconceived notions as if they were the only way to succeed number one, and if they actually even worked, number two…
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
…which is, I don’t believe that they are really working because the way we measure, the irony, I heard one of the tech CEOs recently say, “We’re going to go back to the office.” And so, the interview is a bit, “You guys have made more profit, working remotely than you did when you were all in the office.” So, what’s the rationale? We can do better? We’re sometimes so stuck, that it’s a shame, because it really does limit what’s possible. So…
Kay Martin:
Right. And the other thing is, my team doesn’t need to lie.
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
They’re like, “Hey, you know what? I’m going to go for a run right now, I’m going to go walk the dog, and I’ll be back for the meeting, or I’m not feeling good, I got a headache.” And no one lies because no one’s scared of that. I don’t care. And most of the people on the team will say, “Hey, do you need some help?” If it’s a headache, or like, “Hey, my kid got stung by a bee, whatever.” There’ll be five people on Slack saying, “I’ll do that for you.” It’s amazing how collaborative the group is. And that’s the team we have because they don’t want to screw up the culture, right?
Joe:
Yes. This is beautiful. I love this story, because it’s multidimensional story. So, you go through this technic gold gear stuff, now you evolve into really, this intersection of fashion and technology and purpose and functionality. And then, the company level you’re saying, we don’t have to do this, the way that everyone else does it. And we can actually be more successful at that.
Joe:
Now, how about the community piece? Because BOCO is not like, advertising all over the place to generate brand recognition. What are you doing to grow the business? And how are you challenging that model?
Kay Martin:
We started since, you have no money when you start, right?
Joe:
Yup.
Kay Martin:
The mindset for me was we were a source. This wasn’t a pound your chest BOCO gear on the latest and greatest of all time. This was…I had an angry guy that was mad at me for starting a competing company. So, I didn’t want my name’s BOCO gear splashed out there, because he’s trying to sue us and chase us and all those bad things that people do.
Kay Martin:
So, for me, I said, “One of the life lessons is money’s green, whether your name is on it or not,” right? So, for us, the easiest way to start was to build stuff, cross dock, and then sell it. No inventory, you get paid in advance. So, for years, that’s what we did. We sold to brands, clubs, retailers, and we didn’t keep any inventory. We didn’t have an office, it was at my house. And if we did bring an inventory to sell on the website, it was really just for samples.
Kay Martin:
And I would say, we didn’t start to really brand BOCO as thinking of it as a marketing entity manufacturer on its own until just before the pandemic. I mean, we were well-known, and we were known for quality. And there’s plenty of stories when people took off our brand name. And then, the brand would call me saying, “Oh, my God, can you sell it back on because people think I dropped BOCO, and I have a shitty hat.” And I’m like, “That’s your fault, no.”
Kay Martin:
But, at the end of the day, it was more about the partnership and being a source for someone to come to. And our goal was, I want Performance-T to look like Performance-T. I don’t want you to look like Clif Bar, GU, everybody else in the industry.
Kay Martin:
So, we never have copied a design and we won’t. We say when someone calls and say, “Oh, my God, I love the Performance-T thing.” We’re like, “Call up Joe and say to Shay, and you can have it.” And sometimes, those conversations are hard like, when HOKA called and wanted 4,000 of some hat that GU had had 50 of, I literally was like, “I can’t do it.” They’re like, “What?” It didn’t come out.
Kay Martin:
But, at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do because since I came from brands, this is your brand. So, I feel like we’re protectors of brands, whether people think that’s important or not. I think it’s important. My staff thinks that’s important. So, we just came at the category different. And now, to build BOCO as you say, I have the biggest ego on the staff and it’s not about BOCO as much as what BOCO has been standing for.
Kay Martin:
It’s standing for quality. People get it through a different event or retailer and they can’t find it, and I get it and they want it. So, we’re trying to build out the brand. But it just wasn’t, that just wasn’t why we started the brand ever. It wasn’t about building it up, so it can be sold in the traditional way of manufacturing brand.
Joe:
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that being principles is a bit of a struggle sometimes because it’s so easy to not be principled, and you can even have better financial outcomes if that’s it. But really, at the end of the day, we all have a responsibility, I think, to try to improve on all that we do whether…
Kay Martin:
Yup.
Joe:
…it’s directors to community, or it’s the way we treat people. It isn’t okay to just acquiesce to the mass, and let that win. I think, it’s a question a little bit of where are we with the sports that you support. One of the biggest questions in most industries, I think you sell into, these rapidly to have to have jobs because they’re really not paid.
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
There’s a couple who are, but most Altra runners and most triathletes, and really competitive people in these kind of other sports, not basketball, football, et cetera, you have athlete relationships as part of what you do, or do you just have brand relationships?
Kay Martin:
We do. Yeah, we definitely do just with athletes that come to us too that want to develop something or they work within the confines of different brands. We haven’t been out there, just from whatever we’re reinvesting in the people and the product. But we haven’t been out there sponsoring big athletes and things like that.
Kay Martin:
But we do have a fair share across most of the endurance spaces, and especially with people in the company that have friends that are runners or people that are out and about or teams and clubs. And I tend to lean a little bit more towards the charities and some of the younger youth sports, some of the heartstrings stuff because we’re girls, and we were like, “Oh, God, did you read that one, Mon?”
Kay Martin:
And I think that is a real struggle for the pros, because there’s just not a lot of money out there. And I’ll say this to Ironman, too. They go after the endemics. We’re not the ones with the deep pockets. I mean, why aren’t you going after the insurance company and the airline and the whatever, because it’s just, you’re piecing together stuff. Sure, I’ll pay for your flight or whatever. But at the end of the day, I’m not going to make an impact in your life.
Kay Martin:
And it’s a real hardship for me to watch all these athletes at the end of whatever, they get injured and their career ending injury and like, “Ah, it’s so bad for the sport,” that we just can’t sustain these athletes with sponsor cash and stuff. But I just feel like the endemics, you’re not in this industry and manufacturing to get rich, right?
Joe:
No.
Kay Martin:
Or we have the…We can have a blip in the radar. We were doing great. When the pandemic hit, we all hunker down. And the survivors right now are all high fiving. And we’re wondering when the dust settles, who’s left. So, there’s real struggles on the manufacturing side, too.
Kay Martin:
So, what looks like we’re big because we provide all the Ironman hats or the lifetime hats or whatever that is. It’s like, hey, at the end of the day, we’re giving back as much as we can in ways that we can make a big difference.
Joe:
Yeah, and it’s fun. There are some other brands I think that are doing a nice job of supporting these sports. Certainly, Solomon with Courtney…
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
I mean, with their performance at UTMB this past weekend…
Kay Martin:
Unbelievable.
Joe:
Oh, my God. She was on the podcast. There are a few characters that are just so truly differentiated in who they are as a person. I don’t know, I’ve run over 100 miles, I’ve never smiled that much.
Kay Martin:
I know. Amazing.
Joe:
Not only she makes it look easy, but she carries this…She has joy in her soul at a level that I’ve never seen. It’s just great for sports. It’s nice to see she gets some support too because…
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
We want to see that for sure.
Kay Martin:
Right. Yeah, we’ve got a fairly large ambassador group which I just love because the true joy of the sports they’re engaged in, just amazing to me to read. And I get…I used to say like, or I do say like, guys in their hats, it’s like the most precious thing for them. Women get it because we all love shoes. But the guy hat thing is crazy.
Kay Martin:
But if you see the ambassador walls and how many BOCO hats they have, you’re like, “What? That’s just nuts. It’s crazy.” And I wear this one for that, and that one for that. So, that’s super fun for all of us. And I tend to say that to the designers too, they design this stuff on paper.
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
So, when I first started the company, my friends in the industry would take pictures of people on planes, or they’d be in Asia and they’d find someone with a hat on a plane, and I was giddy about it. And I’m still giddy about it, if I see a really good design and a hat, and I have to go up the one side of there, I’m stocking them like, “Oh, that’s ours, thank God,” because that was a really good design. I just don’t see him every day anymore. So, I think that’s super fun for us.
Joe:
Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh, that’s like, I was sitting in a Whole Foods one day, and the brand will go nameless, I suppose the Kombucha brand. And the two women were sitting there, and they’re drinking this Kombucha, and they were talking about…They were actually the founders, and like, “This is just incredible that our stuff is in Whole Foods, and they just couldn’t go stop going on about it.”
Joe:
And it was so cute, because like, they were talking about…They started selling in Farmer’s Markets and how it moved along. And when you get to a big company, we lose some of that….
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
And some of us who can still carry the childish enthusiasm for our whole life. But yeah, there’s nothing more fun than seeing or hearing a story. Someone writes you, “Oh, by the way, I was running in this race. And I had my hat on, it started raining and it just helped me get to the finish line,” or whatever it might be.
Kay Martin:
Yeah. I mean, we’ll get like the worst is like it’s my Ironman, and I went through thick and thin and I finished, and the dog ate it. And they show the shredded thing. And, Oh, my God, my staff will dive through dumpsters to find that hat. I don’t have the year, but I have…It is those heartstring things that come through our info, it’s like, “I will love you forever, if you can get, whatever.” We get it. It’s this, oh, my gosh, yeah, we totally get it.
Joe:
Yeah, that’s the reason to be really combined. At the end of the day, that income called psychic income that we get back is, is what some missed. When we get into the neurobiology of life, there’s a lot of dopamine that triggers when we do something beautiful like that. In the category, Kay, a little bit like…So, if this amazing, technical trucker hat, you guys have quite a few if anyone jumps on the website, you’ll see some evolving designs, you’ve done the masks as well. Where does like, what happens with hats? Where are you guys going with this stuff?
Kay Martin:
Right. We watch a lot of industries surf and skate. Altra is really hip right now. So, we watch a lot of stuff coming out of that. And now, that we’re more established across endurance, that’s the niche we do best in.
Joe:
Yup.
Kay Martin:
It’s funny, if someone asks us to make a cotton hat, we can, and we do. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t light us up like some solving a problem from an athlete. I want to flip up cap or I want smaller, larger, things like that. And for me, I want to keep driving that have a fashionable hat in running. And, where it used to be…It was always surf and skater that Altra guy is someone that everybody’s kind of watching.
Kay Martin:
The Ironman’s kind of man, along a long distance, whatever. It’s just not the same vibe. And yet, they want to be hip. But I haven’t seen the crossover where the Altra hats are really working toward Ironman. You’ll see more flat bills now than we probably produced. But what’s interesting for us is, and we learned this early on is, we can actually drive trends that are happening.
Kay Martin:
So, we had the running, we call it the running trucker because we are just kind of out of time, and it’s a laser cut back hat. And it’s so wicking. It’s kind of the next step up for trucker hats. And when we launch something, we can get it on a 100, 200 manufacturers, teams, clubs, and events to be able to drive trends. That’s how crazy that is because we’re the one watching it, right?
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
And if some young little brand is coming up, we can adapt, make it more technical, whether it’s coming from a totally different category or in fashion. We can get that out really, really quickly, which I just find fascinating and fun. The consumer may never know it. But at the end of the day, that consumers at the end of a race going, “Wow, Clif Bar has that. And so, as Hoka, and so as, whatever. And yet, we made them all.
Joe:
Right.
Kay Martin:
We don’t have our name on them all, but we made it all. So, those have been interesting to kind of drive a category that’s been so stale and so neglected. And we’ll watch the bigger brands because I don’t have the bandwidth. So, Outdoor Research does some cool things, or new technologies with sustainability. And we want to bring in more recycled fabrications. We get rid of, as much plastic as we can just some of those pet peeves that I’m on top of.
Kay Martin:
So, we’re just trying to find new things that we can bring in. And from that, it’s almost extended the product line, because my original model was no sizes. I had been in an industry full of sizes.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
And with hats, it’s kind of sweet, you have one or two sizes.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
Same with masks, how easy. And so, we’ll see. I don’t really want to dip my toe in apparel. I still have a thing about sizing, but…And I think, a lot of people are doing the right thing with apparel. I don’t want to take my foot off the focus. But I feel like it’s a category we can continue to really drive.
Joe:
Yeah, I think that, there’s always room. This is one of the…
Kay Martin:
Sure.
Joe:
…magic parts of both the consumer psyche and the evolution of an opportunity. If you can describe a reasonably good value proposition, find the right target customer. There’s always a way that you can drive that. And, if you said there was a BOCO technical T shirt that I could use, I would probably be like, “Yeah, I connect it to that really quality brand of hats.” So, yeah, that sounds like it makes sense to me.
Joe:
And I think that that does allow you to outfit the character out there, whether they’re running 50 miles or hiking 20 miles or running the marathon. All of our hope is that, some of the gear gets more people out there because…
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
…it’s right of the gear, the better you can handle the environment. So, I think that’s part of what’s fun, is to figure that out. The gear makes a difference.
Kay Martin:
Right. Yeah. The mask thing was interesting, because we were on the…Just like everybody else, we were going 90 miles an hour and hit a brick wall, and business was done in a day. And we were fortunate enough to have a factory that was not shut down, that could turn around masks in four or five days for us.
Joe:
Wow.
Kay Martin:
So, the big tricky part for us is, we have all these mask companies that don’t know we make headwear. So, I mean, all these mask customers. So, we had about 30,000 mask customers come through, and they have no idea who we are in the industry, but they love our masks.
Kay Martin:
So, that has been our new challenge of, okay, where do we convert them back and forth. And super funny, from pharmaceutical companies, or municipalities. Everybody came to us because we were one of the few that were making masks at a time when, basically, the supply chain had just stopped. And now, it’s like, “Wow, you make a really good mask.” I’m like, “We make them in China. And these guys wear masks. We have no idea.”
Kay Martin:
So, we really lucked out. And it kept us in business. And we were super thankful for it. And now we have an opportunity with these people that were introduced to great quality masks to convert them to headwear. And we’ll see. We’ll see how successful we are at that.
Joe:
Yeah, anytime you’re in that kind of dialogue, I think people will listen though, from quality begets quality. And you don’t have something that prices you out of the range.
Kay Martin:
Correct.
Joe:
I mean, this is…While quality is not like Louis Vuitton, which has a very small target market, you can range from that person pushing the envelope to just want to wear something that looks good, and is comfortable. And so, that is a nice place to be. I think that if there were more companies like yours, maybe we would all have just a little bit better stuff, the [inaudible 00:54:37].
Joe:
And I do think that, as we’ve explored the guests on the podcast, a range of people, from the Olympic athlete to the yogi, to the Altra runner, to the Navy Seal, whatever we’re doing, if we’re prepared better, outfitted better, with the right community of people, it just improves the experience. And BOCO seems to be doing a fantastic job at that. So, what have you been doing yourself? Do you still get out running? Are you Altra running? What’s your jam when you’re not making hats?
Kay Martin:
Right. I run, and my new thing is my gravel bike. I love my gravel bike.
Joe:
Oh, yeah.
Kay Martin:
And out here, is a perfect place for it.
Joe:
Yup.
Kay Martin:
And you get your Boulder car taken away if you didn’t do all of that and ski and do everything. So, I play it. But I’m the average Joe in Boulder. You have to leave your ego at the door and then play, but I just did Steamboat gravel, and that was really, really fun. I mean, I still love my road bike, but with the option of gravel and exploring some of the gravel roads. In Colorado, it’s been fantastic.
Joe:
Yeah, I’ve bought quite a few bikes in my life. And I have a gravel bike now and that there’s none that ever matched this thing. I don’t even want to get on anything else anymore. Unless, I was on a technical mountain bike trail.
Kay Martin:
Yup.
Joe:
You just change the air pressure in the tires, and it changes whether around the road or on gravel or it’s just like, “Oh, wow.” This is not just like a cross bike kind of thing.
Kay Martin:
Right.
Joe:
They’ve really come a long way. So, I’m definitely with you on that.
Kay Martin:
Yeah. But I’ve always been a runner and not from a more to stay in the same size pants than anything else. I can eat whatever I want. But it’s where I process everything. So, my whole staff knows, if you ask me an on-the-spot question, I just will give you a shitty answer, and I’ll change my mind, if I do it on-the-spot. So, that’s always the place I process is out on a trail.
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
There’s three or four right from my house and I can’t say I love it yet, but I’ve done it for so long that it is easy to do on the road like you would, you travel a lot.
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
I just bring my shoes and I can go and just get lost.
Joe:
Explore as we were talking into some of these places that are very memorable and it’s nothing. And I think, we’re all learning that. A slow jog is as good as anything. We don’t have to be trying to do intervals and six minute miles to have really a great time out there.
Kay Martin:
I checked the box. I did do the working for Ironman. I was able to you know get into Ironman. And early on when there were only like eight of them or whatever, 10 years ago. And I laugh because I’m like, “No. In Boulder, I told everybody just like any first timer would say like I’m doing it to finish.” And I said I had a couple goals and two, were like, I wanted a vein to stick out that wasn’t varicose. And I want it to finish very last because then my time per cost was going to be so much better. And I had all the snacks to myself.
Kay Martin:
So, trying to say that down at the rest with all these Uber athletes was like, “Wait, what? Nah, come on, not. I don’t really care. I’m just proving that a normal schmo can decent athlete, right? Can finish an Ironman, check.”
Joe:
Oh, my gosh, I was saying in Boulder, what is? The place you go to find out how slow you are.
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
But yeah, I did Ironman six years. And it sometimes got a little tiring. There was like, there’s only so much more money, you get spent on a bicycle or on whatever else it might be. And everyone, it’s so funny in the industry. Everyone asks, like, “What’s your time?” You talk to anyone else, no one has any idea the difference between eight hours and 16.
Kay Martin:
None.
Joe:
Is that good? They don’t even know the distances. So…
Kay Martin:
No, no.
Joe:
We got a little bit too round up about it, sometimes. But, at the top end, these people I got to say, that it’s like as if they’re driving a motorcycle and driving a car to finish in the times that they’re finishing in because…
Kay Martin:
It’s amazing to me.
Joe:
Wow.
Kay Martin:
It really is amazing to me, yeah, yeah. And my dad, he’s my barometer and my brothers. My dad was, he’s a surgeon, and he was telling his staff when I was running or doing my Ironman. They’re like, “Oh, Dr. McCarthy, what’s the distance?” And he said, “Well, it’s a 4.8 mile swim.” And I’m like, “Sweet.”
Kay Martin:
And then, he totally nailed me. He’s like, “It’s an 86 mile bike.” I’m like, “What? No.” And then, the only thing he got right was a full marathon. And he said, “Oh, my God, his staff was laughing.” He’s like, “They are so cute.” I’m like, “Oh, God.” But that, you’re so right. Nobody outside of Boulder cares about your time.
Joe:
No.
Kay Martin:
And here they asked your T1 and T2 splits, right? So…
Joe:
Oh, I got it. Yeah, yeah that was…I once had this debate with someone about “Oh, what’s your time?” And our time ends up being similar. And he said, “What was your time and transition?” So, how serious I was for a while. I had spent 18 minutes in one transition. He said, “What were you doing? Going out to dinner?” I’m like, “I don’t know. But I was there a long time.”
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
Hey, cut off the top if you want.
Kay Martin:
Yeah, it was fun to experience. I mean, it was definitely a check the thing for me and I love watching it. And I’m just amazed at the times and these athletes these days, at every level top of any sport. I love that, right?
Joe:
Absolutely.
Kay Martin:
Yeah. So, I do love that. And I love being part of the sport, it drags you in. And I get to keep that. I feel like we’re supporting all those sports. So, for me, I stay in it, it stays young, it stays super fresh. And hopefully, I can keep as a team, keep inventing things that help us get faster and better and feel better and all that. So…
Joe:
Yeah, if there was a purpose that we could all have, that would help people achieve their potential and do more than they thought they could. And if we do that through whatever the means starting a company that sells amazing gear, or being a coach or just being a friend, or whatever we can do in this life that that helps bring us back to center a little bit.
Joe:
I think there’s a little bit too much of…I don’t know, sort of commercialized life that is driving. I’ve fallen in love with this, Andrew Huberman podcast who is a neurobiologist out of Stanford, and I run for these long runs, and listen and get so much smarter about why we behave the way we do. And, sometimes, just that understanding can ratchet back how we get a little bit more upset than we should and enjoy this journey.
Joe:
And so, yeah, it’s been fun. I just want to say thanks for what you’re doing at every level through performance gear with a woman led founded and owned company, with the attitude that you bring, it’s a pleasure. And so, we’re like, Dave and I always, and I hope he had a good test run. He always makes me feel about as slow as anything possible.
Joe:
But, there’s like just sort of end with this idea. When we started the podcast called Chasing Tomorrow, because I used to always say to people come chase tomorrow with me like, let’s go do something. So, if you had it, what you’re chasing tomorrow?
Kay Martin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I don’t know. I think, for me, I want to hope to pave the way in our industry for women or people starting out, that won’t be as bumpy as I had it, right?
Joe:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kay Martin:
I think, for me, I’m always thinking about that now. It’s not this, I’m chasing money, I’m chasing fame, I’m chasing some acquisition where everybody gets fired and things like that. I feel like I want to provide just a pathway and opportunity for people to better their career, miss a couple of those steps that I had to take. Miss a couple of those bumps along the way.
Kay Martin:
It’d be a whole lot nicer if my kids which are kind of your age kids, too. And they’re both daughters, didn’t have to have some of those bumps that I had, right?
Joe:
Yeah.
Kay Martin:
To learn the harder lessons, and can walk away from some of the stuff that I didn’t sooner, yeah.
Joe:
That was good. We’ll root for you in that regard.
Kay Martin:
Yeah.
Joe:
We’ll keep track of what you’re going on. I promise you, I’ll be running in the morning with my BOCO head on. So, it’s only because it’s so beautiful and so amazing. So, thanks for that…
Kay Martin:
Yeah, thank you.
Joe:
…a gift, and we’ll talk to you soon. Thanks, Kay.
Kay Martin:
Yeah, thank you.
Joe:
Yeah, really a big thanks to Kay. All I have to say is, we need more Kay Martin in our industry. I mean, she’s just an impact player and a role model for sure. And, even as good as today went, I look forward to having Dave back on with me next week. Maybe, we can ask him how many miles he ran while I was recording the podcast. That’s a laughing out loud, for sure.
Joe:
There you have it. That’s a wrap for this week. As always, a big shout out to our sponsor Performance-T. You can find them on www.tperformance.com, and they’ve given us a discount code for any of our listeners to get 20% off their purchase. Just use CHASING20 at checkout, and we would greatly appreciate it if you could follow us on Instagram and give us a review on Apple podcasts. That would be awesome. And as always, a huge thanks to our listeners for coming with us on this journey and chasing tomorrow with us. Thanks!