This is Billy from Main Street Forge. I'd like to take a minute to tell you what Main Street Forge is all about, how we got started, and what we're trying to do moving forward. It is a fairly long story from start to finish, but I'd love to explain our origin story to you. I'm one of the owners along with my best friend Kyle. We've been best friends since the age of 14 and we're both lifelong entrepreneurs. Every business model you can think of we have tried. From experiencing the good, bad, and ugly; we've been through it all as a team. WHERE DID IT ALL START? In 2014 Kyle and I both got the bug to start an e-commerce business since we could see the shift to more and more people buying items online. We really wanted to get in on the e-commerce business model, but we didn't know a ton about it. Diving head first into selling online was the only way to get started and learn more about the inner workings of the business. We decided to start learning as much as we could about every aspect of selling online. Conventional wisdom back then and still now is to find a manufacturer in China to make products dirt cheap, sell them online here in the USA, and live happily ever after. So, we followed the conventional wisdom back then and started a company and decided to do what everyone else was doing at the time. We found a decent supplier in China and did our due diligence with sampling products, and working really hard for our end goal. Throughout this whole process we always had that feeling that we'd rather be sourcing and selling American made products instead. We grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, where Made in the USA is a BIG deal. Around here, some friends and family don't let foreign cars park in their driveway. It may not be the same for you, but we've always wanted to make products here in the United States. THE JOURNEY FOR AMERICAN MADE PRODUCTS Over the years, we tried reaching out to some American manufacturers to help us make our products. To be honest, most of the companies we reached out to wouldn't even return our phone calls. They weren't setup to take orders from small businesses like us, most of them were setup to take big orders from large companies. That is not us. Even to this day, we are friends and family, a small business employing mostly people we know and love. We struck out multiple times trying to land a deal with an American manufacturer. Through learning our lessons dealing with Chinese manufacturers, we realized that this wasn't what we loved doing. One day, we had an epiphany. We realized that if the big companies didn't want to take a chance on us, we should start reaching out to smaller companies and one-man businesses that would be more interested in working with us. From that point on, we started hitting the pavement. Going to flea markets and trade shows, trying to find manufacturers that believed in what we were doing, and that were willing to take a chance on us. Eventually, we found someone who was willing to take a chance on us and we started selling our first American Made products! We then saw that this was the path we wanted to be on moving forward with the business. SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY Throughout this process, we realized that we really loved working with these small businesses and loved what they were about. To see them change as our orders grew in size, they were able to hire more employees, sometimes quit their day jobs, and start working for themselves full-time. We took so much pride in creating manufacturing jobs here in the USA, and being able to help small business owners live the American dream. This is when we realized we were on to something and decided to start a company focusing on only working with those type of businesses, not following what everyone else was doing. This is where Main Street Forge was born.