Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there, folks, and welcome to The Roundup. We are a podcast that features interesting people from the Cowboy State. And the conversations that we've had so far with the podcast have just been so interesting, and really opened up the world - and opened up Wyoming - to people that we might not have met in our daily lives, but people that we should meet!
And our podcast guest today is a guy you need to meet. We are coming to you from the podcast space at Gunwerks, which is a pioneer in the long range shooting industry. And the guy who has made this possible - this truly has come out of his brain - is Aaron Davidson. And Aaron is here with me today… I'm actually here with him today at his space, and his amazing facility here in Cody.
Aaron, wow, what you have done, I'm so pleased to get a chance to introduce the rest of the state to you!
Aaron Davidson:
Thank you, I appreciate the compliments very much.
Wendy Corr:
Well, you have earned every one of them - especially, I have to stop and think how young you are, to be able to have put all these things on your list of accomplishments.
Aaron Davidson:
So, I'm not as young as I look. I've got this technique. As I get older, I get fatter, and that stretches the skin. So it makes me actually look younger,
Wendy Corr:
So really, is that the secret to eternal youth?
Aaron Davidson:
It is to the appearance of youth.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, I like that very much. Well, still, I have to say, Aaron, you have accomplished so much. You started out just this kid from Powell. But you have made this truly, I guess I don't know if we call it an empire? But you certainly have made your mark on the long range shooting industry. And this industry is growing and growing.
So tell us a little bit about - we'll come back to kind of your origin story. But tell us a little bit about, why long range shooting? How did you get interested in creating a space and a product that people clamor for and are willing to pay thousands of dollars for?
Aaron Davidson:
Well, I think I can probably do that and give you, like, the short version of the origin story at the same time. So I grew up in a little town 30 miles east of Cody, Burlington. Small town.
Wendy Corr:
300 people, right?
Aaron Davidson:
Or less. And I was into hot rods. I had probably a dozen different hot rods, from Barracudas to Camaros and Impalas and Cadillacs, and Chevys. And I was very into the work, and the investment of time, and the learning experience of creating. And I built cars from scratch, I learned how to paint, I learned how to rebuild motors, and I was into it.
Now, I never had a car to drive in high school. I didn't actually finish any of them until I was out of high school. But I was just working on a lot of them.
And I got married, went to college, and I would start selling cars to pay for books and tuition or whatever, you know, rent. And I might sell a car for $10,000. And then I'm like, ‘Okay, well, now what am I going to do?’ I didn't have a shop to work on cars or anything like that.
So I started buying a gun. I would buy a gun and a scope, maybe for $1,500. And then the next progression is, well, you’ve got to learn how to reload, so you can feed it ammo. And what I found very quickly was that going to the range and you know, developing a load, and shooting a good group, it was cool, but it got boring really quickly. Because once you did that, you're done.
And the idea of maybe shooting this target that was way out there. And how do I do that? That was more interesting. And so in college, as I transitioned from a car guy to a gun guy, and at the same time learning all of those engineering principles and being able to apply that, got me very excited about, you know, the state of the art in long range shooting, and all of the potential upside that existed.
Wendy Corr:
So did you find a community then that were interested in the same things as you?
Aaron Davidson:
No, not yet.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, how did you find your community?
Aaron Davidson:
So there was a little company, a little video production company in our hometown that was doing these hunting videos. And they ended up getting connected with a guy and started doing some long range shooting videos.
And there was a very big energy around that, and I saw that, and I recognized the potential to capitalize on that. So after college, I had run a little business successfully. I had a little bit of a nest egg, and a little bit of resource to start, and I said, ‘You know what, I can do this.’
Young enough not to be scared, and probably should have been, but I walked away from the successful business I was running, and I took the capital that I had created. And I rolled it into this startup.
And it took me a couple years to get it going. But we delivered our first shooting system with an optic and a rifle and ammunition and ballistics, in April of 2007.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my goodness, April 2007, is when Gunwerks really launched.
Aaron Davidson:
We started in ‘05, okay, and in a couple years brought that product to market. But the first delivery was in 2007.
Wendy Corr:
And what was your method of delivery? How did you get the word out that this is the product that I have?
Aaron Davidson:
So, capitalizing on that same excitement that I saw around that video, was to create a television program, and to broadcast that nationally and show people what you could do with this equipment in a real hunting situation.
Wendy Corr:
So you gathered the people that you needed to create this television production, and then took that - and you were on the Outdoor Channel? Where were you?
Aaron Davidson:
We broadcast on a couple different places, we did Outdoor Channel and it changed a little bit, we did Sportsman’s Channel, there's a channel called Pursuit Channel. At one point, we were on - shucks, I’ve forgotten, there was a couple of bigger distributions. Careco media would distribute us, there was one that started with a We.
It was big distribution, we would run at 10 o'clock in the morning and get all sorts of impact for that. But we would do this hunt, and it was a documentary style hunt, and you would maybe find an elk at 800 yards, and you'd take one shot, and you would kill them and you'd go collect them - and people were just amazed, because that was the stuff of legends at that time.
Wendy Corr:
And so then you transitioned, and you took that - I'm sure people were like, ‘Well, how do I learn to do that?’ And you say, ‘Let me teach you.’ Tell me about the long range shooting schools that you guys have.
Aaron Davidson:
So in that same year, we recognized a need to also teach people how to use that equipment, and be successful. So we started our training part of our business, which is called Long Range University. And I mean, since then, we have three full time trainers today that work all year doing this, day in and day out. There's 12 people down there right now getting trained tonight.
Wendy Corr:
I pulled up, too - I could not find a place to park in your parking lot, because there are cars everywhere! And people loaded up, and they've got rifle cases, and you can tell the excitement on their faces. I mean, this is like they're going to Disneyland.
And so this is something, then, that you're getting every day. You get this excitement from people every day for this. How does that make you feel, knowing that you've, that this all came out of your brain? And it's like, this all evolved from just an idea that you had.
Aaron Davidson:
I get this question a lot - how does it feel to be successful? And I never have viewed us that way. We were very aggressive at growth, we invest everything - there's not very much that stuck to my bank account.
So I've always felt like this, I felt like the gauge of success is how much money's sitting in the bank account, and so far not so much.
But to me, the business itself and the infrastructure, the organization, the people, the systems, you know, the products and the product plans, the r&d, that stuff is very exciting for me.
I like things to be organized and neat, and I like to build, and so, like, that infrastructure is doing very well. And it has a lot of upside potential for us. Hopefully someday, landing some dollars in the bank account.
Wendy Corr:
So it's the creative process that drives you, it's something new and something relating.
Aaron Davidson:
The building also, I mean, creating and building, I think are near related, but not quite the same.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, but you have done both here, though. The building we're sitting in his proof. You walk in here, it's a beautiful, beautiful entryway. And do you guys think - anybody can just walk in and get a tour, right? You can just call up and say, ‘Hey, I'd like a tour of Gunwerks.’
Aaron Davidson:
Yeah, you can walk in and we can take care of you.
Wendy Corr:
So if you are a long range hunter, even if you just enjoy guns, you’ve got to come to Gunwerks.
Aaron Davidson:
Or if you're interested in manufacturing.
Wendy Corr:
There you go. Because you manufacture everything here. Let's kind of transition there, because the building that we are in is meant for all of those things.
You walk in, you’ve got a beautiful entryway, you've got wonderful taxidermy, you've got all these great things. You got some products on the walls, but then you get into the nuts and bolts of the place.
And there are dozens of people here that are manufacturing - they're creating the product here in Cody, Wyoming. Tell us how you managed to get from, ‘Okay, we're gonna put all this together,’ to ‘Let's put it together here.’ Tell me about that.
Aaron Davidson:
So back to that, a little bit of that origin or history. So we had a shop in Burlington that was about 4000 square feet. We did a lot of business out of this, we built another facility that was about that same size on 250 acres, built our whole training facility there. And we worked there for quite some time.
But we filled the space and it was time to do something. And we looked really, really hard at, ‘What should we do? Where do we go? Are we going to be able to, you know, satisfy our workforce requirements into the future? Could we get any of our employees to go with us somewhere else?’
I mean, a lot of these discussions. And we looked at some surrounding states, we looked at a lot of different programs, and we settled on Cody. Okay, a little bit of hometown, you know, home area pride that's involved in there.
But also, our customers want to come to Cody. It's a very special place in the West that is very renowned with - at least with the customers that we deal with - everybody knows where Cody is at. So those things combined with that, that desire to remain in the state and to be a part of growing Wyoming and creating jobs in Wyoming, we chose this as a location of final location.
So we kind of went through a process to get here. And to work with the state and one of their programs to do some infrastructure investment, sure, and create and build this building.
Wendy Corr:
So you've got the building built, but you designed it to make it what you want it to be - able to do everything here. And you took the money that you were spending in other places to bring things here, and you decided we need everything we need right here.
Aaron Davidson:
We were running most of the original manufacturing of our parts outside of the state and with different suppliers and vendors. And then we would bring those components in and do kind of the final assembly, manufacturing, you know, chambering, painting, assembly, et cetera, and then the shooting and configuration.
And, you know, once we made that commitment to grow, and to be here, you know, my personality is, I want to control more of it. Right? Quality, you know, throughput - a good example is, for the last five years, we had averaged about a 60 day delivery time for a rifle system from order to delivery.
Wendy Corr:
Custom order.
Aaron Davidson:
Made to order, that includes almost 4 billion different SKUs and options. So we had this great system of delivery. And we had to carry a lot of safety stock, because our vendors sometimes were pretty slow delivering, and so being able to onboard more, to make barrels, to make rifle stocks, to make actions and parts and scope rings, and everything in house, really shortens those lead times, and helps us to be able to afford those quick turnarounds.
Wendy Corr:
You make those things, you make the barrels here, you have the raw materials, and you create them here.
Aaron Davidson:
Yes.
Wendy Corr:
I mean, I've toured the place. And I've seen where you got the carbon, I mean that it's hard to describe, folks, you just have to come and take a tour to look at it. But it's an amazing process, that to me, you only hear about in, you know, back in Pennsylvania and things like that, that are creating and manufacturing those, in those manufacturing hubs. But you're doing it here.
Aaron Davidson:
And the reason why they do that is because there's skilled people that exist, right? That you can draw on in the workforce. And it really, I've really felt the pain over the years of trying to build the workforce that we have.
We have such a great crew of people here. Like, truly, an amazing, talented set of dedicated employees that are truly what Gunwerks is - it's not me, it's it's the team that does the work.
But to assemble those people, to find those people, to either recruit them and bring them into Cody, to make it work, it has been a huge, monumental achievement. Like, that's probably the biggest thing that we've done, is to be able to track those people and to create the infrastructure and organization to bring them here.
Wendy Corr:
And to bring them here. You've got almost 100 employees now, this is more than you've ever had, right?
Aaron Davidson:
Yes.
Wendy Corr:
And this is kind of the culmination of what, maybe, is this the culmination of what you dreamed of when you were first thinking of, what this is going to look like?
Aaron Davidson:
I think we're just barely getting started.
Wendy Corr:
Really?
Aaron Davidson:
Wendy, we have 75,000 square feet over on the other side of town. And we have plans to expand a whole other business into that space and to build it out. And to do this all over again.
Wendy Corr:
Oh my gosh. So you’ve got plans for that building? Locals have been wondering what's going to happen with that building for forever. For folks that don't know, it's the old Walmart, the way, way old Walmart. I mean, like the original Walmart. But it's been just sitting there vacant since Cody Labs was there. So this is something that you've got plans for.
Aaron Davidson:
We're renovating about 30,000 square feet of it right now. And we're going to start moving our Revic optics brand and company and all the things that we do into that space.
Wendy Corr:
You read my mind, that's where I was gonna go next. Keep going. Yeah.
Aaron Davidson:
Okay, so, Revic optics is a technology company that we've started, we technically started in 2013, with a project to build a smart rifle scope. But if you trace back a few years, my company, Gunwerks, launched the first smart rangefinder in the world for the consumer space, that did ballistic calculations in real time on the device. We had five years where there was not one competitive product in the market.
Wendy Corr:
Whoa.
Aaron Davidson:
The very first ever in the world.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, so you had the corner on the market?
Aaron Davidson:
We did.
Wendy Corr:
And so now you've got competitors.
Aaron Davidson:
Yes, lots of them. And they're billion dollar companies, so it's a real competition.
Wendy Corr:
So how do you keep up with that, then? Do you just keep working on the next piece of technology? Because that seems to be, Aaron, that seems to be your MO is, ‘Okay, this is what we could do. Now, how do we make it better?’ What's the next generation of that?
Aaron Davidson:
Yes, that is, that's where all the money goes. But that idea of moving fast, being nimble. Fortunately, for us, for the longest time, these big companies that we compete with weren't as interested in our space as they are now. So that gave us a little bit of a window to grow and build the business to, you know, to get out ahead in some technologies and some product developments. And so there'll be recognition.
And sure, and we're still very, very small, and Revic just doesn't have that brand recognition, that Gunwerks has. Gunwerks is world renowned. It's made that household status in recognition. So we try to ride the coattails of Gunwerks with Revic, to try to bring those products to those same high end customers.
Wendy Corr:
Excellent. That's fantastic. So your optic system now is, that's going to be part of your expansion. In the meantime, you're going to continue to do what you do here. You just launched a - do you have a new - Skunkworks? What's that?
Aaron Davidson:
Sure. So we started this about eight years ago, oh, my gosh, seven, eight years ago - time starts to slip fast. And we do these, we call it limited runs of creative genius. You think about all those SKUs we have, you look at these machines, it's not very easy to go outside of those boundaries, those options
are set up for just your typical long range.
So the skunkworks was an avenue for us to say, ‘Hey, look, we want to do this thing. Maybe learn a little bit, maybe try something out.’ And we'd put together these packages. And we would just do, you know, so many units one time, and sell them, and then move on and take from that.
For example, a couple of years ago, we did a project called The Cut. And so we took our Climber rifle system, this is a standard rifle system, and said, how light can we make this?
So we went through and reengineered every single piece of that system, like all this lift, and cut weight here, we cut weight here. And we ended up with a really cool product.
And we found that a lot of stuff we didn't want to incorporate in our production, but some of the things we did. So the barrel contour, we loved it. So we brought that into our main production. And now, every Climber system we make today uses that barrel contour.
Okay, we've done that with some chassis systems, where the stock - instead of being out of wood or composite - is out of aluminum. And so we tried a few of those things on and we learned a few things. And we brought some of that into our production.
So essentially, it's an r&d opportunity. It's also an exercise to do something that maybe we don't do in our normal lineup, and it's pretty exciting. The one that we just launched is called The Accountant. And yes, everything fits in a briefcase. That's the cool story about that. So you open the briefcase, take it apart, assemble it, and you've got this really cool rifle.
Wendy Corr:
Oh my gosh, okay. So yeah, I saw that ad. And I'm like, ‘What is this?’ This is fantastic. So you're taking real life ideas, and basically throwing them at the wall and seeing what sticks?
Aaron Davidson:
Yeah, yeah. Give the engineering team a chance to learn a little bit about our market. Here's a good example - we haven't shown a picture of that gun yet. We've just shown a few pictures of the case and a few little tidbits - we've already sold the entire production run. And it's not even supposed to launch until tomorrow.
Wendy Corr:
Oh my gosh, okay!
Aaron Davidson:
Skunkworks has a really good following, because the people that are in the loop, want the next one.
Wendy Corr:
So who are the people, who's your customer? Who are the people that really, really grab on.
Aaron Davidson:
I think the core customer of Gunwerks is a slightly more affluent hunter, a successful construction business owner, an oil executive, a doctor, you know, and entrepreneur. You know, I got a guy down in Park City that does snow removal and landscaping, and he's bought four or five guns from me.
So it's generally people who are very busy and very successful, that are also interested in hunting, and still want to be successful. And they're willing to make that investment in our equipment, so that they can have the performance without having to invest a lot of their time - and still expect the success on the other end.
Wendy Corr:
That's awesome. You know, speaking of success on the other end, you have been able to take your hunting, you've been able to take your products, and take them around the world, and really test them out. You've been to some amazing places, Aaron, and you've met some amazing people. Tell us what's maybe your favorite place to go to, to really get the most out of your long range hunting?
Aaron Davidson:
Favorite place, hands down, it’s South Africa.
Wendy Corr:
Really?
Aaron Davidson:
Yeah, my friend down there, Carl Van Sell, his family has a storied history in serving customers on Safari. And they've built an amazing business. And we've been a part of that growth, and some of those changes over the past 12-14 years.
And I've been down there a dozen times. I missed a COVID year, took a year off here and there. But I've been down there almost every year for over a decade. And that place has such a connection in the style of hunting, you know, compared to the west. Okay, in the West, so, big, wide open spaces, long shots, lots of glassing, you know, lots of hiking, it's just such a great experience to the place that we go in South Africa.
I've made a lot of mistakes. And I've learned a lot and I've failed equipment. And I've learned a lot and generated a lot of the product success and the product roadmap from my experiences there.
Wendy Corr:
That makes sense. Because how do you know if something's going to work, unless you go try it out. And then when you find out what doesn't work, you know the direction to go.
Aaron Davidson:
It's so interesting. So we have a new product that we're launching next year, it's an aluminum chassis folding hinge, really cool product, we've been working on that, we probably have 1500 engineering hours so far on that, done all the tests.
So the guys are in there, they do 1000 cycles of this, 5000 cycles of that, they do, you know, they fail, they drop tests, they do all these things. And everything's great. And then the engineer, he takes it out to do our shooting event that we had, where we brought all those people into Cody and we did this competition. He takes it out and he participates in the shooting event. And it fails. The catch mechanism failed.
Like, in all the testing, I had it in Africa, even, it didn't fail, but he goes out and that one day it fails. That field testing brings out the worst possible outcomes every time, and so I think it's very important that our customers know how much we work, you know, in the field, in real situations, and how many times we failed before we can bring them a product that works for them. That's proven to work for them.
Wendy Corr:
Yeah, you know, you've talked about the competition shooting - in the news, just this week, Cody has been selected as being the location for the statewide shooting complex. This $10 million complex is going to come to just south of Cody - what does that mean for you, and for your business here?
Aaron Davidson:
You know, that's a good question. The governor appointed a task force, and we went through a process. I was able to sit on the task force, that was really cool. And there was 12 of us, and we went through a process to evaluate the communities, and went through a lot of submissions, and narrowed down to Cody.
You know, I've got a little hometown advantage here for me, but I tried very very hard to evaluate the benefits for Wyoming, to put on my Wyoming hat, as we wanted to be impartial.
Wendy Corr:
To look at it from that bigger picture.
Aaron Davidson:
You know, for us, I'm not sure if it's good for Gunwerks or not. You know, we do accomplish - on our shooting range up here on the other side of the reservoir, we bring hundreds of people in. It's a great marketing opportunity for us. It's very likely that that competition gets pulled over into the new shooting complex. The NRL guys were a big part of their exercise, and it's likely that it moves over there.
We talked about the nexus for economic development with other manufacturers. And one of the biggest challenges that I've had here in Cody, is, we invest all this money to recruit people, to hire them, to bring them here, to train them, to teach them about the industry, to expose them to, like, the cutting edge equipment.
And it's very tempting for a competitor to say, ‘Hey, look, I'll pay you 20% more if you come work for me.’ And to, with very little investment, to steal all of that and pull that into their company. And we fought that - our wages that we pay are very high for the market, I think our investment in wages this year is going to be on the order of $7 million. And that's just getting fed right into this community.
But for somebody that's outside, that maybe doesn't have that knowledge to say, ‘Hey, well, if I hire this guy for another $5 an hour, he'll come. And I get to save the hundreds of thousands of dollars of r&d, and hard earned knowledge.’
Wendy Corr:
Because that's in this person's brain, their experience.
Aaron Davidson:
We had to learn how to build barrels on our own. Yeah, I didn't get to hire somebody that knew how to do it, we did it on our own. And somebody could come poach that employee, and gain a lot of that knowledge, just that quick, without that investment. So if we build this development hub with all these gun manufacturers, all of a sudden, like, I have that challenge of retaining employees. And it just, it makes things a little harder.
So again, I'm not sure that it's good for Gunwerks. But I do know that it will be good for Cody.
Wendy Corr:
That's a really well balanced way to look at it. And I think that's fantastic. I, I have to say the culture here at Gunwerks, when I come into the building, and like I said, you walk through - and you (Aaron) a're everywhere. I mean, I was hanging out in the video room with Christine and Nate there. And you come in and you pop down and you sit next to Christine, and she's working on a logo, and you said to her, ‘Yes, send that to me.’ And then on our way over here, you stopped at another person's desk. You are involved in every aspect of this business. How do you balance all of that in your brain?
Aaron Davidson:
It's not, there's no balance there.
Wendy Corr:
It just seems to me, time management has to be a thing for you, that you just have really, really excellent people that you can completely trust.
Aaron Davidson:
We do have excellent people. But we're still a growing company. Like, our success is not assured. And I think that, that very close attention by a founder personality sometimes is vital, to get a company over that hump, and to and to get it to that successful stage.
Like, it is my responsibility to manage a successful company that continues to support 100 families. That's a big lift for me. And that's why you find me everywhere - we just can't afford to make mistakes. And I try to keep my fingers in a lot of the different pieces of this business, just to make sure that we can maintain, and we can get there.
Wendy Corr:
That's absolutely fantastic. So what's next? What's next for, I mean, you're talking Revic Optics and moving big places. Do you have things in your head that's like, ‘Well, this is the next big technology boost?’ Or can you not say, because it's proprietary information?
Aaron Davidson:
We're probably pretty early, but I will tell you that there is a massive opportunity for bringing more manufacturing into Wyoming and into Cody. And that's what this Revic Optics frontier is all about. That's, I cannot wait. Another hundred jobs.
Wendy Corr:
I love it. That's fantastic. And this has just been a fantastic conversation. I've been so pleased to introduce people who maybe haven't - I mean, if you're in the hunting world, you have heard of Gunwerks, but there's a lot of people out there who haven't, and who maybe don't appreciate or understand truly what you've built here, and what all these wonderful people who work for you have built here.
I just have to say, thank you so much for doing what you have done for Wyoming and for Cody and for the business as a whole. And where can people, if they want more information, if they want to know more about what you're doing, if they want to know what's on the ground floor, wheredodid you want them to go?
Aaron Davidson:
Website is good. So go to the website, Gunwerks.com. That's a great spot to start. If you want to learn about the shooting and get a feel for the products, our YouTube channel has almost 800 videos. That is an awesome place to go consume a bunch of media. I mean, our podcasts are there, our instructional videos are there, our product launch videos are there. A lot of our TV show episodes are there, you can watch my kids shoot antelope or elk, as they grew up. So there's a lot of media there. And I think, truly, that's probably a really great way to know Gunwerks.
Wendy Corr:
That's awesome. Gunwerks.com
Aaron Davidson:
Yeah, Gunwerks.com. If you go to YouTube, you just search Gunwerks and our channel’s there.
Wendy Corr:
Aaron, I know you're really busy. So we won't keep you any longer. But thank you for this time. Thank you for this space. Thank you for again, what you've done for the community - and thank you, folks, for tuning in to The Roundup and to really kind of get a sense for the incredible people that we have in the Cowboy State.
And there's more to come! This is episode 33 of many more to come. But if you've missed any of these episodes, you want to go back to cowboystatedaily.com. Go to our video page. You can catch up on all of our previous guests - and tune in next week, when we've got another amazing Wyoming personality. But until then, have a wonderful day. Thank you, Aaron.
Aaron Davidson:
Thank you.
