Jeremy Barker

Blog

  • Sales Leadership: From the Engine to the Factory Floor

    I learned leadership in a place where adrenaline is cheap and coordination is priceless. On the engine, speed comes from choreography: everyone knows the first move, the hazards, and the handoff before the rig stops rolling. That rhythm translates directly to how we build doors and how we sell them. We start every morning with an eight-minute stand-up. Three questions, same order, no speeches: What did you finish yesterday? What will you finish today? What’s in your way? If a blocker pops up—CAD waiting on a dimension, a quote waiting on a finish—we assign an owner on the spot and put a timestamp on the fix. People leave with a plan, not motivation.

    “Clarity beats charisma” shows up in our definitions of done. Discovery isn’t “good conversation.” It’s a short list of specifics captured in the CRM before anyone moves the deal: rough opening width/height/depth, wall type, floor slope notes, intended load (books, dry goods, tools), hinge handing, swing direction, and a phone photo of the opening with a tape in frame. If one of those is missing, the stage doesn’t advance. The same discipline applies to the next steps. A fit-check call is complete when the customer confirms those numbers back to us and sends the photo set. Design-price is complete when the buyer has a single-page quote with: price band, lead-time window, install duration, what’s included, what’s excluded, and the date/time of the next milestone. No one says “We’ll circle back.” We schedule the next move while we’re on the call.

    We run sales like a crew, so our service-level promises are simple and visible: respond to new inquiries within two business hours, send a written ballpark within 24 hours, send a dimensioned sketch or annotated photo within 48, and—after deposit—lock an install window within 72. If we can’t hit a promise, we call before the clock runs out and reset it with a real reason and a new time. Email is a receipt; the conversation is the commitment.

    The handoff from sales to operations is where most companies leak trust. Our handoff is a “job packet” that ops can build from without phoning a friend: the customer’s verified measurements, the dimensioned sketch, material code and finish, hinge handing and swing, site photos (close and wide), install conditions (baseboard returns, threshold height, nearest power, stair/turn notes), and any HOA or permit requirements. Sales doesn’t “throw it over the wall.” We book a ten-minute live handoff with the project coordinator and close the loop on anything fuzzy. If ops asks a question during the call, sales answers it during the call.

    When something slips, we change the work, not just the wording. A while back, installs were stalling at the door because site photos were pretty but useless. We wrote a “fit-check photo set” instruction we text before the call: one photo straight on with a tape measure across width, one showing height, one floor close-up with the tape on the slope, one wide for the swing path. Compliance jumped immediately, install surprises dropped, and the phone got quieter for the right reasons. Same play in the funnel: demo calls used to drift into show-and-tell. We tightened the path to four beats—goal, constraints, proof, next step—and built a 90-second micro-demo that shows the hinge motion, shelf loading, and reveal close-ups. The call ends with a scheduled fit-check, not a “let us know.”

    Hiring fits the same pattern. I don’t screen for pedigree. I screen for rhythm and follow-through. In interviews I ask candidates to sketch where they want to be in ten years—personal, professional, financial—and we price it. If the math and effort don’t match, we say it now. People deserve that honesty up front. Inside the team, we coach to the moments that actually break: the first question on discovery, the way we ask for the photo set, the sentence that sets a lead-time expectation without hedging. Reps practice those moments like operators practice the cuts that cause most defects. It’s repetitive by design; you don’t improvise at the hinge or in a high-stakes call.

    Recovery is quiet and fast. After a miss, we run a brief after-action: what we expected, what happened, what we’ll change, and who owns it. Then we change a checklist, an asset, or a promise. If a meeting doesn’t result in one of those three, we don’t run that meeting again. The measure of a leader isn’t the pep talk; it’s the friction they removed by Friday.

    None of this is glamorous, but it’s the difference between a business that hopes and a business that ships. Clear promises. Clean handoffs. Small, daily, boring wins that compound. Keep your word on the next cut and the next call, and the big numbers take care of themselves more often than you think. Calm beats chaos—and calm sells.

  • 90 Proof Wisdom: Why I Started a Show for Operators

    I started 90 Proof Wisdom for people who carry the work, not the microphone: first responders, shop leads, small-business operators, and builders who want tools they can use by Friday. The premise is simple. Every episode names a real problem in plain language, gives a play you can run this week, and shows the math behind it so you don’t have to trust my personality. If I can’t explain the move in a couple of sentences and defend it with numbers, it doesn’t make the cut.

    The audience shaped the format. I built my career between shifts and on small budgets. I assume you don’t have consultants lining your hallway. You probably have a crew depending on you and customers who are building their homes or jobs around your promises. That’s why episodes are tight. Most land under fifteen minutes. When I bring guests on, I run the conversation like an after-action review: what you expected, what happened, what changed, and what you’ll repeat. The goal isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a usable note you can take back to your team.

    We cover topics that actually move a business: how to set a weekly scoreboard that ladders to a quarter, how to cut lead time without burning people out, how to buy equipment that removes a bottleneck instead of just looking impressive, how to structure a fit-check call that qualifies without turning you into a robot, and how to capture post-install feedback that engineering can act on. We also go into the harder human parts: how to handle the morning after a bad call, how to tell the truth when a shipment is late, and how to rebuild trust with actions instead of speeches.

    Listeners tell me the most useful part is the “do this next” section at the end. That might be a one-page scoreboard template, three questions for your next stand-up, or a short script for a follow-up call that respects the buyer and your time. The tools are small on purpose. You can run them inside a normal week without asking for a miracle. And once you see one work, you stack the next one. That compounding is where momentum comes from.

    People sometimes ask about the name. I wanted advice that’s strong enough to sting a little and simple enough to run sober. The point isn’t to impress you with theory. It’s to help you move something in your world in the next two weeks and measure whether it worked. If it did, keep it. If it didn’t, toss it and try the next episode. No hard feelings. The library is there when you need it.

    If you’re reading this and you’ve been meaning to “get organized,” pick one episode and try one play. Put it on the calendar where you can’t ignore it. Report back to yourself like you would to a customer. That small promise kept is how you start feeling different about the job. It’s also how your team starts believing you when you say tomorrow will be better than today. That’s the quiet win I’m building the show to deliver.

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  • Startups with Stu: How We Built a Category (and What We’re Building Next)

    Dek: I didn’t go on Stu’s show to flex a headline. I went to unpack the recipe—how we went from a bad crash to a durable company, why we chose customer-funded growth over venture money, and how a warm, customer-to-customer sales loop beats cold clicks. We also talked about the next chapter: custom, near-you manufacturing that makes “Prime-fast” feel normal for one-off products.

    Why Stu

    Stu and I have real rapport. He doesn’t tee up softball questions; he goes straight for the operating system. That’s why I like him. He knows the difference between a viral moment and a repeatable motion, so he drags the conversation out of biography and into process. The goal wasn’t to relive a hero arc; it was to pressure-test the plays I actually run.

    Crash, then staircase

    I learned more from losing my first $20M than I ever learned making it. At 21 I had money and none of the muscle to protect it. Lifestyle creep. Loud friends. Dumb purchases. When the music stopped, the friends disappeared and the lessons got loud. I moved into a truck, went back to the firehouse, and rebuilt the staircase one riser at a time. Keep the day job until the system can pay you without wobbling. Build, ship, fix. Repeat. Earn the leap—don’t cosplay it.

    That season set my rules: discipline over dopamine, small daily scoreboards over grand declarations, and a relentless focus on usefulness. Calm beats chaos. When you’re underwater, you don’t need ten ideas. You need one constraint to attack this week.

    Category, not competition

    Murphy Door didn’t start as a brand plan. It started as a problem: hidden doors looked cool and failed in real homes. Sidemount hinges sagged. Piano hinges ripped out. We chased the failure to the real weak points—the top, the bottom, and the fixed shelf—and built a pivoted system that would carry weight for life. Beauty + utility. If it doesn’t earn its keep, it doesn’t ship.

    That’s what people call the “monopoly mindset.” I’m not talking about gouging; I’m talking about being first to define the problem in plain English and solving it so completely that your name becomes shorthand for the thing. Kleenex clarity. We didn’t buy that with ads. We earned it with doors that hang true, installs that stay square and quiet, and crews who answer the phone.

    Early breaks? DIY Network put us on TV off a 10×10 booth. Orders slammed a site that barely deserved customers. We shipped, we learned, and we rebuilt a lot of those first thousand doors at our cost. Expensive tuition. Priceless data. Fail → fix → scale. No committees. Just commits.

    Why we build here—on purpose

    We manufacture in the U.S. because proximity beats theory. If a jig drifts at 10 a.m., I want it fixed by lunch—not “next quarter.” That rhythm forces one-piece flow, smaller batches, tighter tolerances, and a feedback loop that lives in the same time zone as the sawdust. The factory runs like a fire crew: short stand-ups, long checklists, no drama. Blow a tolerance? Fix the jig. Miss a delivery window? Fix the router and the SLA. Document the win so the next crew wins by default.

    Could we have chased cheaper labor? Sure. But we would have traded speed, customization, and control for a few pennies we’d lose back in rework, freight, and returns. We build in the U.S.—on purpose.

    Customer-funded growth (and the math behind it)

    I didn’t raise venture. Not because I hate investors, but because constraints sharpen judgment. We sold first, collected payment, and built exactly what that customer wanted. Cash in, work order out. That model forced us to be allergic to bloat:

    • Direct to consumer to keep margin and truth close.
    • Payment terms that fund production, not the other way around.
    • Small-batch, flexible manufacturing partnerships before we insourced throughput.
    • Reinvestment discipline: buy machines that remove bottlenecks, not machines that look cool.
    • A lean team measured on first-pass yield, lead time, and customer trust—not vanity metrics.

    That’s how you get from a couple line items to a company with real numbers behind it—without selling your cap table or your soul.

    Pure Brand: let customers sell to customers

    Here’s the piece that surprises people. We were getting millions of site sessions and a typical ecommerce conversion rate—~0.24%. That’s not a strategy; it’s a slot machine. So we built Pure Brand, a customer-to-customer sales engine. Real owners show real prospects their actual doors, on their phone, in their home. No MLM nonsense. Opt-in only. A simple booking link. Clean handoff to a closer. We instrument the handoff, pay the promise, and keep the guardrails tight (privacy, compliance, no pressure).

    Warm trust beats cold clicks. On our tests, that path converted around 47%—roughly 200× a cold visit. Why? Because authenticity collapses the doubt curve. People don’t want a brochure; they want to see the pantry door carrying weight without sag, hear the hinge move quietly, and ask, “Would you buy it again?” The only thing creditors want is your recipe, not your ingredients. Pure Brand protects the recipe.

    The numbers and the next hill

    On Stu’s show we talked about crossing $56M and a public projection to $109M by 2027. Great headline. But the headline only matters if the line can carry the weight. That’s why our next hill is a network of smaller, automated sites near demand. Goal: three-day manufacturing lead times and seven-day delivery for fully custom products. Not four colors on a shelf from six months ago. Your width, height, depth, finish, and hardware—built near you, delivered fast, installed clean.

    Own the dirt when you can. Control beats theory. Facilities, equipment, software, and people in the right places give you options you can’t rent from a container ship.

    People and culture (the part that lasts)

    I don’t screen for pedigree. I screen for a ten-year picture and the willingness to match effort to outcome. In interviews we map personal, professional, and financial goals. We put a price tag on them. If someone wants twenty acres and a Ferrari on twenty hours a week, we’re misaligned. If someone wants to outwork everyone and be measured on output, we talk SLAs, not slogans.

    Inside the plant, mistakes are data. We celebrate fast fixes. We write down what worked. We train it until it’s boring. Calm beats chaos because calm ships.

    What founders can steal from this episode

    • Create, then try to kill it. Don’t protect ideas; stress-test them. Keep what survives.
    • Define the end state. Put your 10-year personal/professional/financial target in plain English, then ladder it to year/quarter/month/week/day.
    • Spend wins on capability, not vanity. Machines that remove bottlenecks. Training that raises first-pass yield. Systems that shorten lead time.
    • Use constraints as design inputs. Customer-funded growth forces signal over noise.
    • Let customers sell to customers. Reward the behavior you want repeated. Measure the handoff. Keep it clean.
    • Keep the paycheck until the system proves itself. Earn the leap. Make rooms work harder. Build in the U.S.—on purpose.

    A word on friendship and accountability

    I trust Stu because he holds me to what I say. He’ll bring me back on if we miss the mark, and I’ll show up with the same transparency I expect from my crew. That’s how you keep the work honest. No committees. Just commits.

    We’re not done. We’re earning our momentum—one quiet, square, inevitable door at a time.


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  • Well Being Walks: Discovery of Your True Self

    Most interviews chase numbers. This one chased nerves. On Well Being Walks with Kip Hollister, we left the factory and talked about identity after bankruptcy, the tension between ambition and presence, and what “calm beats chaos” looks like when you’re not standing on a shop floor. Success didn’t fix anything in me. Clarity did. Crew did. Doing the right things for the right reasons did.

    Kip asked about the year I lived in my car, and I told the part I usually skip: the shame. A lot of people had watched me make real money early. The same crowd watched the crash. That season taught me that the only way out is forward, but not frantic. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Call people first when the news is bad. Tell the truth while the problem is still ugly. You stop fearing failure when you keep your promises inside it.

    Work-life balance came up. I don’t measure it in equal daily blocks. I front-load my life—heavy on work during my strongest years—so the back half can be free and useful. That view rubs some people the wrong way, and that’s okay. Time compounds like money. Stack hours now and you buy decades later: decades for kids, grandkids, and projects that don’t need your pulse to keep beating.

    We talked about raising kids who understand money. When they were little we used a simple envelope system for long-term saving, short-term saving, giving, and spending. It wasn’t about being cheap; it was about being free. One daughter sells painted rocks by the roadside and saves like a CFO. Another wants the CEO chair. Both are learning that money is a tool you can master instead of a force that controls you.

    Culture matters just as much. At Murphy, mistakes are data. If we blow a tolerance, we fix the jig. If we miss a delivery window, we fix the router and the checklist. We keep stand-ups short, keep checklists long, and write down what works so the next crew wins by default. That habit lowers blood pressure in ways yoga never will. Do both, but start by fixing the process.

    If you are looking for a “well-being trick,” I don’t have one. I have a handful of rules that moved the needle: breathe before deciding because panic makes dumb decisions; put hard things on the calendar first and keep the appointment with yourself; choose crews who tell you the truth quickly and thank them when it stings; and spend wins on capability, not vanity, because capability makes tomorrow calmer.

    Walking with Kip reminded me why I’m building what I’m building. It’s not just about revenue; it is about room—space in people’s lives to do work they’re proud of and still have energy left for the rest. Calm beats chaos. Earn your momentum, and then keep earning it.


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    Source: https://hollistergroup.com/cultures/cultures-resources/jeremy-barker-discovery-of-your-true-self/

  • Lost $20M. Slept in a Truck. Built a Brand Anyway. (UtahPreneur)

    I don’t hide the losses. I lost $20 million before 22. Went bankrupt. Lived in my truck for a year. Went back to the firehouse and started over. On UtahPreneur, we got past the hero narrative and into the operator math that actually travels. Dreams are cheap. Discipline compounds. Define the end state. Attack one constraint at a time—machine, skill, supplier, cash. If it doesn’t move lead time or first-pass yield, it’s noise.

    We talked doors, sure. But mostly we talked utility. People don’t want to feel like they’re walking into a movie set. They want a bookcase door that carries real weight and doesn’t sag. They want a pantry door that stays quiet and square. That’s why Murphy Door works: utility first, then the magic. The best “design” disappears and earns its keep every day. When we forget that and ship cute instead of useful, the market corrects us. Quickly.

    The “first break” story matters because it shows the cost of learning. DIY Network put us on TV off a tiny builders-show booth. Orders hit a site that barely deserved customers. We shipped, learned, and rebuilt a bunch of early doors on our dime. Expensive tuition, priceless data. You don’t hide misses. You fix the jig, fix the checklist, and make it right. That habit is boring. Good. Boring wins.

    We also hit numbers because the internet loves numbers. The show page frames Murphy Door north of $50–60 million, and the trajectory tracks when you stack years of small process gains. I’m not a valuation guy. I’m a backlog / margin / returns / lead-time guy. When those four hold while I take a paycheck, the system is working. If they wobble, I go back on shift. Calm beats chaos. Process carries the load.

    Work-life came up. I don’t do 8/8/8. I front-load life. Seventeen hours a day for a decade so the back half is free and useful. People call that extreme. I call it arithmetic. Time compounds like money. Stack the hours while you’re strong and you buy decades later—decades with grandkids, not chasing benefits. That’s not moralizing. It’s a choice. It’s also not for everyone, and that’s fine.

    Hiring? I screen for a 10-year picture and a willingness to match effort to outcome. In interviews I ask for personal, professional, and financial goals. We draw them. We cost them. If you want 20 acres and a Ferrari on 20 hours a week, we’re misaligned. If you want to outwork everyone and be measured on output, welcome—let’s talk SLAs, not slogans.

    If you’re underwater, here’s the play we ended on: stop chasing ten ideas. Pick one constraint and fix it this week. Call people first when the news is bad. Spend wins on capability, not vanity. And when you blow a tolerance, don’t “make it work.” Find the root. Change the cut list, change the CAM, change the training—whatever actually removes the cause. Then write it down so the next crew doesn’t have to learn it twice.

    You don’t have to be special. You have to be consistent. I’m living proof.

    CTAs: Listen to the episode • Join the newsletter • Shop Murphy Door
    Sources: UtahPreneur (Buzzsprout) episode page; companion YouTube clip.

  • Behind the Hidden Door (Business Elevated)

    Utah is built for builders. Short lines. Tight crews. Real accountability. On the Governor’s Office “Business Elevated” podcast, we got into why that matters and why I’m stubborn about manufacturing here—on purpose. If the feedback loop lives in the same time zone as the sawdust, you move faster and you ship better. If a jig drifts at 10 a.m., I want it fixed by lunch, not “next quarter.” That’s not a slogan. That’s how you scale without burning the trust you worked years to earn.

    We opened with roots. I grew up here, learned to work here, and built my first wins and losses here—construction, sheds, the big-box lessons, then back to the firehouse when the economy face-planted. I’m not anti-global anything. I’m pro-proximity. Pro teams who can walk the floor, hear the cut list get called, and make the change while the wood is still warm. That’s hard to beat. It’s why we build in the U.S.—on purpose.

    We talked about doors—but really we talked about space. Murphy Door isn’t a movie trick. It’s anything you can build into a doorway that makes a room work harder. Pantry doors that actually carry weight. Bookcase doors that hang true. Utility doors that stay square and quiet. Beauty + utility. If it doesn’t earn its keep, it doesn’t ship. That line keeps us honest when a shiny idea tries to sneak past the checklist.

    Policy came up. I’m not a politician. I’m an operator. Tariffs, incentives, training grants—those are tools. Use them to buy time and build capability, not to get lazy. Utah’s edge is simple: the base is strong, the workforce is willing, and we still shake hands like it means something. If we add smart automation to that—cells that do repeatable work, data that shows drift before customers feel it—we can be faster and more flexible than any container ship.

    Where it’s going: a network of smaller, automated sites near demand. Three-day manufacturing lead times. Seven-day to your door. Same playbook in multiple regions so we can flex when one site is slammed and still keep lead times honest. You shouldn’t have to pick from four colors sitting on a shelf 6,000 miles away. You should pick your size, your finish, your hardware—built near you, delivered fast, and installed clean.

    Here’s the play we kept circling back to: keep the feedback loop short, and spend your wins on capability, not vanity. If the line gets faster, buy the tool that removes the next bottleneck. If quality drifts, fix the jig and the training, then write it down so the next crew wins by default. No committees. Just commits. That’s Utah for me. Not chest-thumping. Just work.

    I’m grateful the state gave us the mic. But the point isn’t airtime. It’s output. We’ll keep building in Utah, keep hiring in Utah, and keep proving that proximity beats theory. Calm beats chaos. Earn your momentum. Day after day.


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    Source: Utah Governor’s Office “Business Elevated,” “Jeremy Barker — Behind the Hidden Door,” Apr 11, 2025.

  • Earn Your Momentum

    I started Murphy Door in 2012 while pulling 24-hour fire shifts. Nights and weekends. Sawdust and spreadsheets. The first year was small—thirty grand—but we learned fast. In 2013 I put it online and listened. People didn’t want movie props; they wanted hidden storage that worked every day. Beauty + utility. If it didn’t earn its keep, it didn’t ship.

    I kept the day job. No leap-of-faith montage, no victory selfie. I built, shipped, fixed. Repeat. I paid myself last and I paid myself late. In 2016 we crossed $5 million and I finally took a check—that was the line I was waiting for. Not a vibe. Math. Enough backlog to cover payroll and materials. Margins that held without me hovering. A return rate we could stomach. If the system can’t pay me without wobbling, I don’t quit the shift. Calm beats chaos. Let process do the heavy lifting, and momentum shows up when it’s ready, not when you post about it.

    Early on we made a lot of “panic room” noise because it was flashy. Cool? Sure. Big market? Not really. Customers kept asking for bookcase doors, pantry doors, utility doors—with real storage and clean lines—so we pivoted. Utility first, then the magic. The door should look like it always belonged there and make the room work harder. If a design reads like a gimmick, it’s dead on arrival.

    We build in the U.S.—on purpose. Shorter lines. Faster fixes. Tighter tolerances. I want the feedback loop inside the same time zone as the sawdust. We grew the crew in Ogden, Utah, added Kentucky, and pushed into Texas to keep lead times honest and the quality bar high. Own the dirt when you can. Control beats theory every single time.

    Inside the factory we treat mistakes like data. Blow a tolerance? Fix the jig. Miss a delivery window? Update the router and the checklist. We don’t shame people; we tighten the loop. One change at a time so we actually learn something. Material switch? Test it on ten doors, not one. Hinge spec drifts? Cycle it to failure, then decide. No committees. Just commits. We run short stand-ups, kill long meetings, and write down what worked so the next crew wins by default. Fail → fix → scale. That’s the whole game.

    Same mindset I had on the engine: slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Panic makes dumb decisions. Measure twice, cut once, then cut a little better next time. If a part doesn’t fit, we don’t “make it work.” We figure out why it didn’t, change the cut list, change the CAM, change the training—whatever removes the root. You protect the crew by protecting the process. Customers are building a home around our door; we don’t get to be casual about that.

    The numbers tell their own story. We went into COVID at around $7 million, then demand spiked—$14 million, $22 million, and nearly $28 million in 2024. We crossed 100 teammates and kept reinvesting in equipment, jigs, and flow so we could ship smarter, not just more. Dates matter because momentum is earned, not assumed. The internet loves overnight success; operators know it’s four years of nights and weekends before the first real paycheck clears.

    Here’s the play: keep your paycheck until the system proves itself. Build it, ship it, fix it. Earn the leap. Know your constraint—machine, skill, supplier, cash—and attack it first. Buy gear to remove a bottleneck, not to feel big. Hire to shorten lead time and improve quality, not to collect titles. Then scale what works and kill what doesn’t. We’ll keep making rooms work harder, keep building in the U.S., and keep choosing utility over gimmicks. If we do our job right, our doors look inevitable and your space gets smarter without shouting about it. That’s the point. Beauty + utility. Day after day.

    CTAs
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    Source
    Entrepreneur — “This Former Firefighter’s ‘Hidden’ Side Hustle Turned Full-Time Business Helps Keep Homes Safe — and Saw ‘Explosive Growth’ to Over $27 Million Revenue,” May 30, 2025.

  • The Upside of Tariffs

    I wrote a Deseret News op-ed saying I’m pro-tariff. People were surprised. I’m not chasing a fight. I’m chasing workable math for teams that build things here. Tariffs aren’t a religion to me; they’re a wrench. Use them right and you buy time to compete on quality, speed, and pride of work. Use them wrong and you just tax your own customer. Both can be true.

    Here’s the simple version. For a decade, “cheap” beat “good.” That race to the bottom wrecks local shops because low wages and lax standards abroad don’t show up on a price tag. Tariffs force some of those hidden costs into the open. That tilt helps U.S. plants stand a chance—if we actually execute. That was my point in the piece.

    Utah is built to capitalize. Manufacturing jobs here have grown faster than the national average, with the state leading the country in manufacturing job growth from 2019–2023—about a 12% jump. Exports hit $18.2B in 2024 and support tens of thousands of jobs. Translation: the base is here; the wind is at our back if we don’t squander it.

    And the world is watching. The EU’s ambassador came through Utah this spring—multiple stops, lots of conversations—because our state sits in the new middle of the map. Tariffs aren’t just D.C. theater; they touch real employers, real crews, real grocery receipts.

    Now the trade-offs. Tariffs can raise prices. That’s not controversial; the New York Fed showed the 2018–2019 rounds hit U.S. households—about $831 a year then. That’s the caution label. So if we run this play, we owe customers the return: better product, tighter lead times, stable supply, real jobs. Otherwise it’s just a tax with a flag on it.

    So what should Utah actually do—operators, mayors, schools, the whole crew?

    Here’s the play:

    • Shorten the line. Push production and suppliers within a one-day truck haul of the customer. Freight eats margin; proximity prints speed. It’s why I argued for a network of smaller, automated sites near demand.
    • Instrument quality like sales. Track first-pass yield, rework minutes, and warranty rate. If tariffs buy breathing room, spend it on permanent capability, not bloat. No committees. Just commits.
    • Skilled pipeline now. Double down on shop classes, dual-credit machining, and paid apprenticeships. Utah’s growth is real; feed it with welders, CNC techs, and industrial electricians.
    • Use the help. WTC Utah, the Salt Lake Chamber, and state programs are actively guiding companies through tariff turbulence. Grab the playbooks and the intros.
    • Measure net CAC of reshoring. Model total landed cost vs. local make: material, labor, freight, tariff, inventory risk. If your Utah cell can’t beat the all-in import within a year, fix the cell, not the customer.

    Reality check: this isn’t zero-sum. Utah sells to the world. EU leaders warned us face-to-face—you escalate tariffs forever, consumers feel it, and some sectors get squeezed. That’s why execution matters more than headlines. Build the local system while D.C. and Brussels argue about the rules. Then, when deals land, you’re already faster and better.

    Bottom line? I’m pro-tariff as a tool, not a talisman. We build in the U.S.—on purpose. But pride doesn’t pay the invoice; process does. If tariffs buy Utah time, we turn that time into tighter flow, better tolerances, and careers our kids want. If we don’t, we deserve the price hike we handed to our own neighbors. Calm beats chaos. Earn your momentum. Then keep earning it.

    Sources

    • Deseret News (Opinion), “Why I love tariffs — and why Utah should, too,” May 1, 2025.
    • Salt Lake Tribune, “EU ambassador warns Utah leaders that the state will feel economic impacts of tariffs,” Apr. 13, 2025.
    • Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, Utah International Trade, 2024, May 2025.
    • Axios (Salt Lake City), “Utah leads U.S. in manufacturing job growth,” Oct. 17, 2024.
    • New York Fed, Liberty Street Economics, “New China Tariffs Increase Costs to U.S. Households,” May 2019.
    • Deseret News (Politics), “EU ambassador visits Utah as Trump negotiates trade deal with Europe,” Apr. 20, 2025.
    • World Trade Center Utah, “WTC Utah responds to tariffs,” Feb. 3, 2025.

  • On the Mic: Build, Ship, Fix

    I don’t go on podcasts to relive the origin story. I go to pressure-test the playbook. This one did. Ideas. Execution. Money. Work-life. And why I’m betting the next decade on fast, custom, near-you manufacturing.

    We opened with “disruption.” My favorite thing is to birth a new idea. My next favorite is to try and kill it. That’s not bravado. That’s shop discipline. Early Murphy days we tried side hinges, then a piano hinge. Both failed. We chased the failure to the real weak points—top, bottom, fixed shelf—then built a hinge that carries real weight. You hunt the break until it can’t hide, then keep the piece that survives.

    What’s Murphy Door? Not a movie prop. Anything you can build into a doorway that makes the room work harder—pantry doors that hold weight, bookcase doors that hang true, utility doors that stay square and quiet. Beauty + utility. If it doesn’t earn its keep, it doesn’t ship.

    First break? DIY Network found us off a little builders-show booth. Orders hit a website that barely deserved customers. I owed people better, so I rebuilt a pile of those early doors. Expensive tuition. Worth it. Don’t hide misses—fix the jig, fix the checklist, make it right.

    Discipline came up. Everyone has dreams. Very few have the daily reps. I don’t worship vision boards. I set a 10-year end state—personal, professional, financial—then ladder it down to year, quarter, month, week, day. Miss a day and you’ll miss the week. Miss the week and the month is gone. Compounding doesn’t care about your feelings.

    Work-life? I don’t do 8/8/8. I front-load life. Seventeen hours a day for a decade so the back half is free and useful. Time compounds like money. Stack the hours while you’re strong and you buy decades later—decades with grandkids, not punching a clock for health insurance. Not romance. Arithmetic.

    We traded real-estate plays because the math is clean. My first big commercial buy was $2.9M. I locked pre-leases before close, refi’d, pulled cash tax-free, and let the building pay me while I worked on doors. People call that risky. I see more risk in overpaying for “stabilized” assets with no room to force value. I like zeros I can turn into millions with a lease and a mop.

    Hard chapters? I made almost $20M in my early 20s, fumbled, lived in my car for a year, went bankrupt—twice, years apart. I didn’t die. I learned to call people first when the news is bad. Learned cash discipline. Learned to celebrate misses so my crew isn’t scared to try. Protect people by protecting process.

    Hiring. I don’t screen for pedigree. I screen for a 10-year picture and the willingness to match effort to outcome. In interviews we sketch personal, professional, and financial targets. If you want 20 acres and a Ferrari on 20 hours a week, we’re not aligned. If you want to outwork everyone in the room, great—let’s talk SLAs, not slogans.

    What separates winners? Reps. Define the end. Pick the constraint—machine, skill, supplier, cash. Attack that first. Buy gear to kill bottlenecks, not to feel big. Hire to shorten lead time and improve first-pass yield, not to collect titles. No committees. Just commits.

    We hit Pure Brand—the customer-to-customer sales engine I built because big-box “showrooms” eat 40–50% of margin. I’d rather pay real customers to show real prospects. Warm trust beats cold clicks. Keep it volunteer-only. Give them a clean booking link. Track intros, answers, closes. Pay what you promised. Repeat.

    Then the future. Murphy is my lab. We ship a fully custom product every six minutes—width, height, depth, color, hardware—all different, all day. That system scales: beds, nightstands, cabinets, tables. By 2027 I want three-day manufacturing lead time and seven-day delivery, built near you in smaller, automated plants. Not four colors on a shelf. Your color. Your size. Your material. Built in the U.S.—on purpose.

    Would I sell? I build to be sellable—clean books, empowered teams, written SOPs—so I’m always ready. I take every meeting to learn what buyers see coming. But if I could keep one thing, I’d keep Murphy Door. The mission’s bigger than a wire. Let people design what they actually want and get it fast, from crews in their own time zone. That matters.

    Here’s the play: create, then try to kill it. Keep what survives. Set the end and back into today. Front-load life while you’re strong. Invest where you can force outcomes. Celebrate the miss, fix the root, document the win, teach it until it’s boring. Calm beats chaos. Earn your momentum. Then keep earning it.

  • About

    Jeremy Barker is the founder and CEO of Murphy Door, the Utah‑based manufacturer known for hidden doors and space‑saving furniture that blend craftsmanship with everyday utility. He started Murphy Door in 2012 while working as a firefighter/paramedic, turning a one‑off hardware idea into a fast‑growing American manufacturing company.

    Raised in Utah and rooted in public service, Jeremy spent years in emergency services before pursuing entrepreneurship full‑time. That path wasn’t linear: he weathered early bankruptcies and kept the company a nights‑and‑weekends side hustle until 2016, when Murphy Door crossed the $5M revenue mark and he finally paid himself his first paycheck. The lessons from those years—discipline, readiness, and calm under pressure—continue to shape his leadership style.

    Under Jeremy’s leadership, Murphy Door has grown from a garage project into a national brand with U.S. manufacturing at its core. The team builds in Ogden, Utah with additional facilities in Kentucky and expansion into Texas, and the company’s products have earned industry recognition, including the NAHB “Best of IBS” award for Best Indoor Product (2022). In 2024, Murphy Door approached $28M in annual revenue while adding jobs and capacity—momentum Jeremy attributes to relentless product iteration, vertically integrated operations, and a commitment to domestic supply chains.

    Beyond manufacturing, Jeremy is an active real‑estate investor who used creative deal structures to scale from his first commercial building to a portfolio of 30+ properties. He also hosts the podcast 90 Proof Wisdom, where he distills what he calls “hard‑earned lessons”—from product-market fit to operational discipline—for founders and operators. In 2024 he was named a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year (Mountain West), and he contributes perspective on American manufacturing and reshoring through public commentary and interviews.

    At Murphy Door, Jeremy frames the mission simply: build beautiful, functional products, invest in people, and keep making more room—for families, for privacy, for better use of space, and for American manufacturing. He and the team summarize it as a two‑word directive: Be More.