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Monkey Business Radio
Welcome to Monkey Business Radio, the go-to podcast for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to take their business from the ground up to a multi-million dollar success. Hosted by Rusty Dripedge and Dennis Siggins—better known on the Cape and Islands as Bobby Downspout—this show dives deep into the real-world strategies, hard-earned lessons, and fundamental truths behind building a thriving business from scratch.
Each week, we cut through the noise of trends, quick-fix solutions, and empty advice to bring you the practical insights you need to grow and sustain a successful company. From candid conversations on overcoming challenges to expert interviews with those who’ve made it big, we’re here to give you the tools, tips, and motivation to build your own success story.
Whether you're starting your very first business, looking to break through the $1 million mark, or aiming to scale even further, Monkey Business Radio has something for you. Join us as we share the journey, from the humble beginnings to the highs (and lows) of reaching multi-million dollar status. Tune in, get inspired, and let’s build your dream business together!
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Monkey Business Radio
Episode #13 - The Island of the Blind
What if the secret to market dominance isn't competing with others, but finding spaces they've completely overlooked?
"On the island of the blind, the one-eyed man will be king." This powerful business philosophy—discussed by hosts Chris Collins and Dennis Siggins—reveals how smart entrepreneurs identify untapped markets and position themselves as the only solution, becoming leaders by default rather than through direct competition.
Dennis shares how Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys became the region's only dedicated gutter cleaning service by recognizing a need homeowners themselves didn't realize existed. Eleven years later, no competitors have emerged, demonstrating how identifying and owning an overlooked niche can create lasting market dominance. The hosts examine similar success stories across industries: how McDonald's revolutionized fast food with innovative service models, how De Beers created the diamond engagement ring tradition, and how companies like Rotor-Rooter and 1-800-GOT-JUNK invented entirely new service categories.
The conversation explores how true market leadership often comes not from superior talent or resources, but from recognizing opportunities others miss. Dennis explains how this principle guided his earlier business as an innkeeper, targeting specific recession-resistant communities rather than competing in overcrowded marketing channels. The hosts also highlight how companies that prepared for unexpected market shifts—like Seafood Sam's restaurants developing delivery systems before COVID hit—can turn challenges into opportunities for growth.
Whether you're starting a new venture or reinventing an existing business, this episode reveals how identifying genuine unmet needs and positioning yourself as the specialist can help you create a category where you're the default choice because few or no alternatives exist. It's not about being better than everyone else—it's about being the only one solving a particular problem.
Ready to find your own untapped market opportunity? Subscribe for more insights on building successful businesses through strategic positioning and market awareness.
Some say success is all about competition, but sometimes it's simply about recognizing an opportunity that others overlook.
Speaker 2:The philosophy that we're talking about here. Chris is on the island of the blind. The one-eyed man will be king.
Speaker 1:When a market has an unmet need, the business that steps in and delivers with excellence becomes the leader by default. But identifying the right opportunity is only half the battle. You also need to position yourself as the obvious choice. Whether it's junk removal, gutter cleaning or fast food, the companies that recognize a need, deliver the best service and make themselves the obvious choice are the ones that win. Today, we're breaking down how smart businesses dominate their space, create demand and build unshakable brands. We have a great show for you, so grab a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and welcome to Monkey Business Radio. Hello everyone, welcome to episode 13,. Island of the Blind. I'm Chris Collins and, as always, I'm here with Dennis Siggins of the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys. Hello, dennis, chris. I'm here with Dennis Siggins of the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys. Hello Dennis, chris. How are you doing Good? Good Now, dennis. Some say success is all about competition, but sometimes it's simply about recognizing opportunity that others overlook. I know this is one of your core principles.
Speaker 2:Favorite topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm sure you're chomping at the bit to expand on this idea. So why don't you take it away? The philosophy?
Speaker 2:that we're talking about here, chris, is on the island of the blind, the one-eyed man will be king and I don't know where I first heard it, but it was a long long time ago, and what it basically means is this refers to somebody who's not maybe naturally gifted, doesn't have real special talents, but he or she could become a leader, an authority on a topic if he's in a situation where everyone else is weaker or less capable.
Speaker 2:Right, remember, in the very first movie, planet of the Apes, charlton Heston. They landed on a planet and he looked around and all the people had been pretty much mentally and emotionally castrated and all they were doing was out in a field farming. And Charlton Heston said on this planet, if this is the best they got, we'll be running the place in two weeks. Okay, that's the theory of the island of the blind. On a more realistic level, if a large market exists, if there's a need, or at least if there's a perceived need, and your product or service is not available anywhere else they have nowhere else to get your product or service then you'll be king of this product line. You don't have to be great at it, you simply win by default, right, right.
Speaker 1:So today we're kind of talking about something a little different here, because in the past we've talked about how to be better through competition. This show is a little bit different this time because we're kind of talking about, you know, recognizing and owning spaces that others, either by choice, don't get into or don't recognize.
Speaker 2:Sure, now there's the product that simply doesn't exist anywhere else, and you and your team, your company, are the only ones who make it produce it and sell it Right.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite examples is De Beers Diamonds We've talked about that before in the past or De Beers in the 1900s in 1947 actually, as it turns out, they actually ended up. Creating the idea of a diamond is forever Prior to that. Diamonds weren't engagement rings, they used rubies and sapphires and whatnot. Diamonds weren't that popular and they weren't even that expensive.
Speaker 1:So in a combination of going out and buying up diamond mines and making this idea of diamonds being an engagement tool. They filled a need that people didn't know existed. It's a great example, I think, of one of those island of the blind companies.
Speaker 2:When my partner, andy and I. We were kind of in our sort of semi-retirement, early to mid-50s mode. We were looking at a business that we could do and I said you know, nobody on Cape Cod cleans gutters. Nobody does it. And there's a huge need and in fact the need is so huge that it's overlooked. The people who need it the most, the homeowners, don't even know that gutter cleaning is part of your outdoor maintenance. They got window washers, they got the landscapers, they got lawn cutters, they got people shoveling or plowing their driveways and a lot of them didn't even realize that the reason their basement is flooded is the gutters get filled up and plugged up.
Speaker 2:And within months of launching our radio campaign, it became very obvious to a lot of people that this should be a part of their regular annual maintenance. And what we found was no one else does it. Still, here we are, 11 years in. There is not another company on Cape Cod that cleans gutters. We have a lot of companies that install gutters, but no one cleans gutters. And that's when I revisited that philosophy. And we are one-eyed men.
Speaker 1:Right, and now you've kind of like the beer. You own the diamond mine. Right, you own all the diamond mines. You're so big now it's hard for someone to come into this market now and start throwing the weight. It's hard.
Speaker 2:When you become a local leader or regional leader, it is it's hard. When you become a local leader or regional leader, it is it's hard for somebody to crack in there. First comes the innovator, then comes the imitators, then comes the rest. It's hard to crack into that market. And of course now you will hear occasionally on a radio ad or something like that that this construction company also cleans gutters. They only do it in the fall, during the fall foliage season. We do it year round. So it really it hasn't taken root. But in my own personal journey I've seen us. We are the one-eyed man on the island of the blind. And going back to the beginning, I said someone who is not naturally talented or gifted in any special way could do this task. And it's true. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to clean gutters. What it takes is a pretty good crew chief and one or two assistants and then they can clean. We can teach them to clean, repair and maintain gutter systems. Installing gutters is a whole different category. That takes a lot of talent and a lot of skill To do it right. It takes a real lot of skill, but cleaning doesn't. We are the one-eyed man in that category.
Speaker 2:Other businesses I've owned. So I was an innkeeper. My wife and I were innkeepers back in the 80s and 90s and the word on the street back then is if you're going to be an innkeeper and this is up in the ski areas of New Hampshire Every business consultant said here's what you have to do If you're going to be an innkeeper, you have to join the local chamber of commerce. You have to join ski 93. You have to join and become a member of ski the white mountains. You have to join and become a member of white mountain summer attractions, white mountain summer guide, the white mountains summer chamber of commerce. You have to join all. Become a member of White Mountain Summer Attractions, white Mountain Summer Guide, the White Mountains Summer Chamber of Commerce. You have to join all these clubs. Now, if I joined all these clubs my inn, my business, I'm one of 350 lodging facilities and I'm not the one-eyed man on the island of the blind, I'm just another fish in that pond.
Speaker 2:One of the things we did this was pre-internet. I had a really good business consultant. His name was Bill Matthews. Hey, bill, if you're out there listening long time, no see, bill was really great. He lived in Sharon, massachusetts. I lived way up north in the town of Bethlehem, new Hampshire.
Speaker 2:Bill was a marketing consultant and he had access to information that I didn't have. What he had access to was little pockets in New England that even during recessions were almost recession-proof. So what he did for example, he saw this county over in Connecticut that has a lot of government work. They build ships and he would say, hey, they just signed $7.8 billion worth of shipbuilding over the next 14 months. So we would hit that county, we'd hit their newspapers, we would hit their radio stations, we would begin advertising ski packages and white mountain golf packages and hiking and this and that we were perceived in that county as the only avenue to ski New Hampshire. They didn't know 300 other inns and lodges existed. We were.
Speaker 2:What we did was we created the image that we are the only place to go. And then when they come up and they would meet my wife and myself and my staff and we're super friendly and we had a whole different shtick going on up there they would feel like they're at home and it was like the Bob Newhart show and they would come back year after year after year and this is what we did. So we didn't blanket the Northeast. And yes, I joined Ski the Whites and Ski 93. I joined all the clubs you're supposed to, but I never got much business out of that. All of my business came from this little micro marketing projects that we did Back then. I was spending probably more than everybody else on marketing, but it more than paid for itself.
Speaker 2:We created the image at the Northern Star Inn of Bethlehem, new Hampshire. We created the image that we're the only place to go. If you want to do this you got to call us, because it simply doesn't exist. And remember, there was no internet back then so you couldn't just look stuff up. You had the yellow pages, which was local, and so they're looking at a newspaper ad, we take out a half a page in the local paper. Or we did a lot of direct mail, marketing and other stuff. They have my direct mail coupon in front of them. They're dialing that phone. They're not going to research it. So there was a case where we really weren't the only caterer in town, but we were perceived at that. So if you're the only company that sells a product or service, first of all it has to have some broad market appeal and it has to be affordable. It must fill a need, and other people either can't or won't do that task.
Speaker 1:I love that topic. There's one company I was actually researching for this. It's a company called Trauma Services LLC. Can you imagine what they do? So they're basically a biohazard and trauma cleanup and they do crime scenes, suicides. Oh yeah, you know, you name it, they do it.
Speaker 2:See, I'm thinking septic tank cleaning, but no, this is even worse. These guys are unbelievable.
Speaker 1:One of their biggest things unfortunately for society today, but it's an interesting one is fentanyl cleanup in a house. So if the fentanyl lab, you know how poisonous and dangerous it is, oh yeah, so this is the kind of stuff they do. So talk about a company. You know a niche that people just do not want to do. Servpro is another big company that's in that field too, probably a familiar company that people know.
Speaker 2:Mold remediation and other stuff like that, sure, and affordability.
Speaker 1:One of the ones I was just thinking of when you were talking about that is I don't know about Harbor Freight. You ever go and shop at Harbor Freight. I know who they are. Yeah, I love Harbor Freight. We go through and kind of go through their stuff Great prices on stuff that.
Speaker 2:You know that I'm not a professional carpenter or anything, so I don't need the top of the line stuff, but another great company for affordability too. So, creating the image of being the only company that sells a product or service, that's something that we hit on a few minutes ago. If you, the business owner, can wrap your mind around this, we're all just a commodity business, and creating and designing and implementing is going to be your differentiator. I talked to a lot of young business owners and a lot of them say, oh, no, I'm not a commodity. And I say, well, actually you are no. No, because we're better than the other guy and we're different from the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you're still selling cheeseburgers, okay. You know, mcdonald's has the special sauce, and at Burger King you can have it your way, and Wendy's is fresh, never frozen. There's still. You're just selling a cheeseburger. That's it, the fresh, never frozen. Or you know, five Guys has handcrafted burgers and fries. Guess what that's called the differentiator. We're all for the that you choose is what's going to make you appear to be the only guy that sells this product, and that's when marketing and creativity and that sort of design comes into play.
Speaker 1:Great companies out there that do that like. Kleenex is like the classic example, right? Sure, there's millions of Kleenex. Everyone calls it Kleenex. I mean it's just Right.
Speaker 2:Give me a tissue Because they've done such an unbelievable job. Coca-cola.
Speaker 1:Coca-Cola.
Speaker 1:Yeah unbelievable job. Coca-cola, coca-cola yeah, velcro is a perfect example, right, yeah, I got a good one for you, though You'll get a kick out of this. One is dumpsters. You know, dumpsters came about. I don't I have a dumpster out in the parking lot, but anybody's got a dumpster. But it was two brothers. This one guy, george Dempster, back kind of in the depression era, actually came up with an idea of you know, they've got their trucks out there all the time and they're filling them full of stuff and the truck's got to sit there, right, so you can't use the truck. So what they decided to do is they would leave the bin, the dumper, on the back of the truck.
Speaker 2:Sure the back end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he invented a way of hydraulically loading that onto a truck. He called it the Dempster Dumpmaster. But people over time and he finally latched onto it ended up taking a dump and dumpster, putting them together and you end up with dumpster. So that's how you actually end up. They actually had the trademark on it, but evidently I'm not familiar with trademark law. After a point, if it becomes so generic and so reused, you can't claim it as a trademark any longer.
Speaker 2:That just means they did a great job. It was unbelievable. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:During the Depression they were selling these things. It was huge.
Speaker 2:You know they were making money during the Depression A lot of the younger guys and girls that I work with and it's a high percentage they don't view themselves honestly. They view themselves as entrepreneurs because they started a company. I don't believe that to be true. I was 35 years, 40 years into my. Work life began when I was 8, delivering newspapers. I was cutting lawns by the I was 35 years, 40 years into my. My work life began when I was eight, delivering newspapers. I was cutting lawns by the time I was 10.
Speaker 2:I never agreed that I was an entrepreneur until I was in my fifties. And I look back on my career and I say, okay, I've done some interesting and creative things. I'm not a Mark Cuban, I'm not an Elon Musk, I'm a good local entrepreneur. But so many kids they start their company, kids in their 20s, and they call themselves entrepreneurs. And I tell them don't do that. And they have their business card. It says you know, chris Collins, ceo. And I said you're not the CEO, the chief executive, you're the only employee. And if you just start your company, don't tell me you have a brand, because nobody knows who you are. You know you got to define brand. And here's another one. I hear this all the time oh, I'm not a commodity. I'm better than everybody. Yeah, there's other people out there doing what I do, but I'm better. That's actually the definition of a commodity that there's a lot of other people out there doing it and because you believe you're better, that's called the differentiator. We're all in the commodity business, for the most part, or nearly all of us. I have a lot of friends in the restaurant business. I know some who are thriving and booming and I know a lot of them who have failed. Okay, the ones that are thriving, the ones that are booming, even during COVID. And I have a lot of friends in the restaurant business. Some of them boomed because they're brilliant entrepreneurs and they redefined their commodity, their food product, when the rest of the restaurant and the food service world didn't, and that's why they thrived and that's why they survived. More on that later.
Speaker 2:But when you're building a brand, you want to create the differentiator, because that is going to make you appear like you're on the island of the blind and you're going to be the one-eyed man. So you want to define what business you're in. You're in the restaurant business and where are we located? We're located here and what makes us different or better? And if you can find the combination of those three things and then convey that to the general public. Hey, we're a seafood restaurant on Cape Cod and if you want authentic seafood you got to come to my place. Now that's a hard thing to do because Cape Cod has way too many restaurants. We have way too many landscapers and way too many restaurants and we who live here are blessed we can go out and have high-end dinner seven nights a week for a month in a row and never overlap. But what does the restaurant do to convince the public that they are better than the other guys?
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the burger thing. Mcdonald's has the special sauce and Burger King said you can have it your way. And they got the new thing going on now with that whole that wrap sort of style that they have. The McDonald's brothers opened the first McDonald's in 1940. And you know what it was. In Southern California it's warm all the time, they didn't need indoor seating and it only rains in like March and part of April. The McDonald's brothers designed a restaurant style that people would come up to the window and take their food through the window and go sit in outdoor picnic tables.
Speaker 1:There was nothing else like it. It's a great movie. What was the movie's name? I can't quite remember.
Speaker 2:The Founder. I did my senior project on Ray Kroc. My senior project was the McDonald's.
Speaker 1:Corporation. Yeah, that was a great movie about Ray Kroc.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of fake stuff in there. They made him look bad and I was watching it with my wife and I said that's not true, that's not how it went down, and I know that. But the McDonald's brothers had an idea and in their county, their little territory, they were the one-eyed man on the island of the blind. If you want to go out and get a burger quick with a milkshake back then it was mostly milkshakes you got to go to their restaurant and guess what? You're going to sit outdoors in the beautiful Southern California weather and it's nice all the time. If you've ever been to Southern California other than, like I say, six, seven weeks in the spring, it's beautiful. They had created a situation that simply didn't exist in food service. You can eat outdoors and think of the cost savings. They don't have to build a restaurant Right.
Speaker 1:They don't have to clear tables, do all that sort of stuff. Hire waiters and waitresses.
Speaker 2:Ray Kroc was a world beater All through the Depression. He was selling cars, he was selling cameras, he was selling hats. This guy was selling stuff to make money.
Speaker 1:Malt machines at the end there.
Speaker 2:This is how he met the machine. He was selling restaurant equipment and he had a client out in Southern California that was buying way more milkshake machines than he could ever believe. He got in his car and he drove there. He drove from Illinois all the way out there to see what the heck is going on and he was blown away by this.
Speaker 2:So you know McDonald's in 1940, the McDonald brothers basically created the Island of the Blind and they were the one-eyed men. And Ray Kroc took it further in 1954 when he and the McDonald brothers came to agreement on national franchising. So now Ray Kroc was going to take this model nationwide and eventually worldwide. So now they're going around the country and they're opening little islands of the blind and local people could a local guy or girl, a local couple could buy a franchise and they could become their own one-eyed man on the island of the blind and all around the country he went and of course, after the innovators comes the imitators and then the rest of them. And yes, you had the Burger Kings and the Wendy's and more and more of these fast food restaurants, if you will, started to come into play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wendy's is one of my favorites. I love Wendy's myself. But it's interesting how they kind of attacked them too. Attacked them. They came up with a fresh you know never frozen beef. That's their differentiator Square patties Even a square patty was different Frosty desserts. They came up with the first drive-up window, which I didn't know who did. 1970, Wendy's. Wendy's had the first drive-through window.
Speaker 2:Well, McDonald's started with the drive-through in 75. I was not aware that Wendy's had one before that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when, of course, they did a where's the beef? Yeah, they did great commercials and they have a lot of actually they do a lot now, but they even started out very early. They did a lot of really savage like social media not tax, but parodies on Wendy, on McDonald's and Burger King as well. So that's kind of how they approached it. Try to weasel their way in there.
Speaker 2:Well, their differentiator was a higher quality product fresh, never frozen. But by the mid-70s Ray Kroc recognized, as Americans were becoming more and more focused on efficiency and convenience, that a drive-through might be a concept that would be accepted nationwide Out in California back then you could pull up to the clinic and you could get your flu shot by rolling your window down and hanging your arm out, and you never had to get out of your car. And Ray Kroc took this same philosophy into the fast food world and probably most Americans you know, probably 90% of Americans have had a burger while driving down the road. And Ray Kroc made that possible when he began implementing drive-thrus in all of the restaurants other than those that were in the mall. That was one of his objectives, and this was 1980 that I did my project on him and it was. He wanted all of the McDonald's locations that weren't attached to a mall to have a drive-thru. And you could see the change back in the 80s. You're on the road, you're making good time, mom and dad and 2.4 kids. We don't want to pull off the highway for an hour. Nope, you pull in, you hit the drive-thru and you're right back out on the road Once again.
Speaker 2:After Ray Kroc established McDonald's and himself as the island, and him being the one eyed man in the mid fifties the imitator started to come on and catch up to him. And what did he do? He came out with the next new innovation that set McDonald's apart again, and this is nationwide drive-thrus. So now you're driving down the road and you see the sign and there's a Burger King coming up and there's a McDonald's. And you're looking at that and you say I know, if we go to the McDonald's we can hit the drive-thru, and that gave them the leg up on Burger King and everybody else. I think that's all kind of come full circle in the fast food. They all have drive-thrus and they all have it going on now.
Speaker 2:But Ray Kroc just kept staying ahead of the pack and he was constantly recreating that island. If you look at other businesses 1-800-GOT-JUNK they made a new industry where the average homeowner could get rid of junk. Who else would you call back then? Right, would you call a local contractor? I don't know. Do you call a handyman? You know what, when you see 1-800-GOT-JUNK, you just call them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's stuck in your brain too, you hear it over and, over and over again. You can't get it out of your brain.
Speaker 2:It's a piece of marketing genius number one and the timing was right. And then, since then you've got hunks removing junks, two men in a truck. There's a bunch of others that have come along, but back in the beginning they created an island and they were the one-eyed men on that island.
Speaker 1:1-800-gut-junk A rotor-rooter is another one.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 1:Another company started in the Depression, actually 1933. They started. He was trying to find a job doing all kinds of things but he took a mechanics correspondence course and he learned basically mechanical engineering. His son had a clog in his sink so he went over his house and they tried to get rid of it. It took him about two weeks to get rid of this thing because it was roots in the sewer.
Speaker 1:Because it was roots in the sewer, so he basically ended up working on it for about two years and he ended up taking a washing machine, motor, roller skate wheels, a cable and some things that he designed sort of these blades, these C-shaped blades and turned it into a rotor-rooter as it is known today, basically patented it, trademarked it and during the Depression, was selling them you know, $200 a piece during the depression and they were flying off the shelves because it was a completely new, again, one-eyed man on the high end of the blind. No one had this, but everybody needed it because even during the depression, sinks clogged, sewers clogged. It was a great way of developing a product. And so, yeah, by 1935, he had a full-size company and the rest is history.
Speaker 2:I have some friends down here. They're customers here on Cape Cod and they own a handful of restaurants and they're called Seafood Sam's. Now, if you come to Cape Cod to vacation, you want to eat seafood and these guys they got it going on. They got a great system. The food is good, it's reasonably priced, service is great. I love them and I was doing some work for one of the owners and he's my age and we just got talking about. We were cleaning his gutters about two or three years ago and he was telling me about COVID and what happened was Seafood Sam's. I think they owned about five of them at the time and these guys are true restaurant guys. Right from their teenage years and it's an amazing story the two brothers and prior to COVID, around 2018, 2019, these boys had come up with an idea for curbside pickup of meals and also delivering high-end meals. This is before Grubhub and any of this other stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly Way before that. And so what they were going to do was they were coming up with a plan so that if people had come to Cape Cod on vacation and they wanted to have a big dinner at home. So the boys at Seafood Sam's decided to set up a platform for that and they had the design in place and they were considering a launch of this and then COVID hit and two things happened. All the restaurants shut down. And the second thing that happened is Seafood Sam's didn't shut down. So I think he told me they had. One or two of their restaurants were much more of a sort of a sit-down style. Some of them, like the one here in the town of Sandwich, which is where I live, is right on the canal. It's really beautiful. Big old parking lot. You can look out over the canal. You can see ocean-going vessels coming and going through the canal. Sounds good. We should go there after the podcast.
Speaker 2:It's actually very good, I haven't been there this year, but they closed for a couple of months and I think they reopened March 1st. But what he was telling me was this system that they were designing, all of a sudden, a great need for it. It was no longer an option, this was a need. Chance favors the prepared oh, right here, Chance favors the prepared. And when I was talking to him, I'm going to say it was the fall of 2020. And he said, yeah, we just had a record year. And I said what? I know restaurant owners that went under. I know restaurant owners that shut down in April and May of 2020 and tried to figure out a way to reopen.
Speaker 2:I mean, there were laws in place state to state, no more than this. Many people gathering indoors at the same time Must be so many feet in between parties who are sitting down. A whole plethora of newly implemented regulations and the compliance was wicked. And Seafood Sam's just overrode the whole thing. You just come here and you're going to get great food and you can pick it up or we can deliver it. And they didn't miss a step. They didn't miss a beat. And what they did on one of the restaurants? They didn't even open it to the public. They used it just for cooking food. It was an amazing story. I haven't really revisited them yet and I really ought to. Next time I see them bring that up with them, but I thought it was a stroke of genius. Again, right place, right time, chance favors the prepared and that island. They didn't form the island, it was formed for them and they happened to land on that island on both feet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in that case yeah, yeah, we had that similar experience with a company up in New Hampshire called Top Notch Glass during COVID and they basically set it up. So they were very good for their vendors and stuff like that. They took very good care of their vendors. They had a very deep set of vendors, duplicates in all different areas for the different materials they bought, and what was their product? Top Notch Glass. So they were a glass company.
Speaker 1:So we just happened to be doing during COVID, like a lot of people, we decide, oh, let's do a little renovation. So we renovated our bathroom, put in a glass shower, and they would come by the house and we would talk to them and I started, caught up a conversation with this owner and it turns out he had the best year he ever had. He had best, I think, the two years that he had, or three years of the best he ever had. And it was because, again, he was prepared. He had very deep vendors, very established vendors, and so when the shit hit the fan, he basically was on top of their list For what.
Speaker 1:He was able, for all this material, for the glass and stuff that he was buying, oh, plexiglass, yeah, plexiglass To set up in the stores and in the he set it up around banks.
Speaker 2:Right, of course, super bank tellers, supermarket cashiers. Everyone needed plexiglass. Everybody needed plexiglass.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, and he had this deep, deep set of vendors that he could get the plexiglass from, and he had the best couple of years of his life, wow. So again he became the one-eyed man. But it didn't happen just because he happened to be the only guy in town. It was because he had done all this work before, similar things setting up this sort of island that he could sit on and sort of dominate in that market when you look at innovation, when you look at change.
Speaker 2:You know sports is a great analogy, because sports you can make a movie out of it, you can. It tells a story and you can tell a story about life in one season. You know, Tiger Woods changed the game of golf so fast. He was young. He was a black man playing a white man's game. He was big and he was strong and he was athletic. Golf didn't have big, strong athletic guys and he started training when he was two. He came into a dusty, old, well-established industry and he rattled their cages. They didn't even want him playing in the masters because he was the wrong color and that course was closed to blacks. But he had the best golfer in the world was black and they had to let him in. In fact, when he won his first masters, I don't think he was 21 yet, so he couldn't even drink the champagne.
Speaker 2:He changed the game. You know, bobby Orr changed the game of hockey. A defenseman is not supposed to lead the league in scoring. He changed the way the game was played. Then there's the situation where somebody goes even bigger and Chris and I here we were high school teammates, right, yep, chris and I ran cross country and track together for four years in high school and great teammates, great coach. We really we were blessed. And there was a couple of guys out of Worcester area and Dick Hoyt began pushing his son in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2:Ricky, oh yeah, ricky was a young kid, a teenager who had cerebral palsy, and his dad so the story goes pushed him in a charity three-mile road race. It wasn't a 5K. Back then, remember, we were in three miles, five miles or six miles.
Speaker 1:No 5K.
Speaker 2:Pushed him in a three-miler, loved it so much they just started doing it. They didn't mean to build a brand, they didn't mean to build a business. He was in the service I don't know it was a Marine Corps or Army, I don't really remember but he was still a serviceman and he had a wife and kids and one of his kids had cerebral palsy and he started. They started going to road races every weekend and we watched them from up close. I used to see those guys at road races all the time back then because they were Massachusetts central mass, local people. They created something that didn't exist. Now, rick and Dickie each passed away in the last several years, but the legacy they left behind it's simply. It can't be overstated. It's amazing what they did. They created something only out of passion. There was no money involved. They weren't doing this as a business. They were doing it out of their passion for running and their passion for one another.
Speaker 2:Mr Hoyt Dick Hoyt is the most decorated father in the world. Mr Hoyt Dick Hoyt is the most decorated father in the world. He has the most Father of the Year awards. I think I'm a good dad and I'll often throw that out to my kids. I remember back then who's the greatest dad? And they would say you are Dad. And I would say no, no, I'm not At the very best, I'm a distant second to Mr Hoyt. I love him.
Speaker 2:I never knew them. I, I love them. I never knew them. I knew them only at a distance because they were always so busy when they got to the road race he had to take out the chair and he had to pick up his son and carry him out and set him up in the chair and he was so busy and I was just a young teenager at the time. It was so amazing that it was intimidating. He was such an amazing man and even then, as I got through my college years and into my post-college, I was still running competitively. I would still see the Hoyts out there.
Speaker 2:And just an amazing group of guys. When you talk about the Island of the Blind, these two guys were amazing. They created something out of nothing and something that is going to exist for the rest of time, even though they're not here anymore. That will never go away. So here's my little shout out to the Hoyts. And, by the way, whenever we travel, my wife is from Ashland and we would travel back to Ashland or Framingham, that area If we're coming in off of Route 495, we come in Route 135 every time we stop at the starting line of the Boston Marathon and we would walk over and there's a statue, there's a bronze. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2:There's a bronze statue of Ricky and Dick Hoyt oh really yep right in front of the library by the starting line.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that we always go over and say hello. I lived a couple miles from there. I never knew that it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:It must have been a more recent thing.
Speaker 1:I kind of want to end on that, actually, before you go up the street from where your wife grew up was actually the original start of the Boston Marathon. Yeah, exactly, probably about a half mile from our house.
Speaker 2:It changed over the years to its now current 26.2 miles.
Speaker 1:It was right down there on Pleasant Street, right down the street from her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, think of the Hoyts when you're out there. Think of the Hoyts when you're out there. Think of what they did.
Speaker 1:Google them, yeah, anytime you see someone pushing someone in a stroller and running.
Speaker 2:That's basically they created that whole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have, and they did an awesome job. You see everybody doing that. Nowadays it's so common.
Speaker 2:Yes. So when you want to create your business, when you want to create your brand, when you want to become the one-eyed man on the island of the blind, go to their website, go to the Hoyt's website, see what they did, see what they're all about. When I was building my most recent group of companies here, the gutter monkeys I went to the uh, the duck boats up in Boston. I spent days on that website because they have a crazy quirky thing going on up there that I. It just intrigued me.
Speaker 1:It's amazing they're. They're drivers. Every single one of them is quirky different.
Speaker 2:Funny, funny stuff.
Speaker 1:It's a whole different experience. So you can go over and over again because it's a different experience every time you go, because the personality it's not scripted or anything. They all have different personalities.
Speaker 2:And then I also spent a little bit of time on Jordan's Furniture, Elliot and Barry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man I came back in the 70s and 80s and these guys took over a business, a one-location business that their parents started, and they turned it into a. They created the need for specialized bedding. Yeah, they told the public, hey, you shouldn't be sleeping on the mattress that everyone else sleeps on. We have a mattress that we can design for you. And boom and I spent a lot of time on their website too. Whenever I'm doing something like I'm going to start a business, there's so much data out there. Look around at these companies that you respect. Look at around at these companies that are different. You know what makes them different. How did they create the island of the blind and then land in the middle of it? And in creating this company that I, these small companies that we own now spend a lot of time on those websites. And give Ricky and Dick Hoyt a little bit of a look. Check out their website. A lot of cool stuff out there. And with that, chris, I'll we'll sign off.
Speaker 1:I guess that's it for this episode. All right, thanks for listening and, as always, no monkeys were harmed in the making of this podcast. That's right. We'll catch you next time. See ya. Making of this podcast. That's right, we'll catch you next time, see ya. Thank you for tuning in to Monkey Business Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to subscribe, like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us reach more aspiring entrepreneurs like you, and if you got a question or topic you'd like us to cover, leave a comment or reach out to us on social media. We'd love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going. Don't forget to leave us a five-star review if you found the episode valuable, and make sure to share it with anyone who might benefit from our tips and stories. We'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by American Gutter Monkeys LLC. Build real wealth through business ownership. For details, visit us at AmericanGutterMonkeyscom.