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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