The Entrepreneurial Journey: From Curb Painting to Creating America's Finest DIY Railing

In this episode, we interview a longtime friend of the Harvest Growth team and successful entrepreneur, Dave Brown, who shares his 40-year entrepreneurial journey from humble beginnings to building a thriving aluminum railing business. As a natural entrepreneur since his teenage years, Dave discusses how he's consistently identified market opportunities and built successful ventures by focusing on quality, service, and specialization.

Dave takes us through his evolution from car washing and curb painting in high school to building a glass repair business that differentiated itself through after-hours service. He then explains his transition into the railing industry and the development of his latest venture, Ridgeview Railing—a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) aluminum railing solution that brings commercial quality to residential consumers at affordable prices. 

In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we cover: 

• How small ventures can develop into specialized, industry-leading businesses
• How to identify market opportunities and offer solutions that competitors don't
• The surprising benefits of domestic manufacturing in today's global economy
• And so much more! 

Ready to transform your deck with commercial-grade railing that lasts a lifetime? Visit www.ridgeviewrailing.com today to discover aluminum railing systems that are American-made, rust-proof, and designed for easy DIY installation. Whether you're seeking modern elegance or classic style, Ridgeview Railing delivers superior quality at prices that won't break the bank.

To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today! 

 Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling over $2 billion in revenues? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and set up a free consultation with us today! 

Transcript

Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
Today I interview one of the smartest entrepreneurs I know. I've known him for almost 40 years and he's been a great entrepreneurial example to me for decades. He discusses his latest business venture and you'll hear some nuggets of advice from someone who is a true natural entrepreneur. Watch for tips on how to notice trends and opportunities that can help ignite more growth into your business.

Announcer [00:00:21]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know. Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare.

Jon LaClare [00:00:42]:
Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to be speaking with my good friend and client now after so many years, Dave Brown. I'm gonna typically, I like to let them introduce themselves, our guests as they join the show. I'm gonna do a little bit more intro this time just because Dave and I go back so many years. I don't wanna say how many years it's been, but I, I think we probably became friends when I was, well, certainly a teenager in high school and we spent some years together in high school back in Westlake, Ohio. And since then our careers and family lives have taken us in to opposite corners. Not opposite, I guess, but far corners of the, of the country. I'm in Colorado, Dave's in Oregon. But we've kept in touch and have had the chance to work on a really fun project together that I'm going to share with you guys, our listeners today and we'll talk about some great learnings. Dave is the consummate entrepreneur and he's really. I gotta credit Dave for getting me into entrepreneurship. I'm so grateful for the time we spent frankly learning from Dave back in the day before I did all my schooling and everything else and eventually I ended up as an entrepreneur. But Dave, Dave has been one since day one, frankly. So welcome to the show. First of all, Dave, I really appreciate you joining today.

Dave Brown [00:01:51]:
Thanks Jon. Great to be here.

Jon LaClare [00:01:53]:
So I want to talk a little bit about the story. My earliest memory of entrepreneurship is part of probably, you know, maybe your tenth, I think ever since I've known you, you've always been an entrepreneur, always like kind of doing businesses on the side. But the first one that we ever did together wasn't really a business but it was a money making opportunity. We did a car wash, just got, went to a gas station. I think you're the one that set it up. Me, you and another buddy went there together, washed cars and made, you know, had people pay us directly different than my, you know, jobs that were W2s that I worked at. Subway, you know, typical high school jobs, whatever. But this was my first taste of entrepreneurship. So I really, like I said, credit it to you. And I think. Did you ever do sidewalk number painting as well? I think you might have got me into that as well.

Dave Brown [00:02:36]:
We did that. Yes, that was. That was a good money maker too. You know, I, I enjoy doing that. You kind of work when you want. And spray paint was cheap back in the day. And, you know, they. I sure. I wonder if they watched us buying spray paint as teenagers, wondering what they thought we were doing with it. But yeah, no, that was spray painting sidewalks. We spray paint their address numbers on there and ask for cash donations. And, you know, I think minimum wage back then was, I don't know, was it $3.35 an hour or something?

Jon LaClare [00:03:04]:
I think so.

Dave Brown [00:03:05]:
We're starting to date ourselves a little. You know, I think I remember working those jobs and thinking, boy, you know, it'd be nice, you know, on a weekend I could make. Could make pretty good money if I would just go out there and just kind of apply ourselves a little bit.

Jon LaClare [00:03:19]:
Yeah, absolutely. So fast forward from there a little bit. As I mentioned, I eventually. Now it's been. I've been doing this for 20 plus years as an entrepreneur, but it took me a little while, right? I got kind of the day jobs and schooling and everything that got me there. But you've been on this journey, you know, frankly, even longer than me. Can you talk about after spray painting, sidewalk numbers? Right. So for those that don't know our inside story on this, it was the address, right. It was painted on the curb in Ohio. And I actually was great to see. I hate going to my homes in Colorado now. I can never see the numbers on the houses. And I kind of wish we had that same thing here, but I don't think our hoas allow it, unfortunately. But since then, you started some, call them real businesses, right? So you've grown your businesses quite a bit. You're no longer doing spray painting of curbs or washing cars at gas stations around the corner. And we'll talk about the current business you have. But before that, talk to us about your journey of entrepreneurship after high school. So what did you do first as your first business?

Dave Brown [00:04:13]:
You know, I, I got some skills and training working for some different outfits as a glazer. And so I was doing automotive glass, I was doing residential glass, a little bit of commercial glass. And I, I got thinking about glass. Glass is great. Glass breaks. You know, you need glass in a good economy, you need glass in a bad economy. I felt like it was kind of stable and I don't know, it was something about. I liked working with it and so got some training there. And again, entrepreneurial kind of spirit I had kind of kicked in and I said, well, okay, I'm good at this now and let's see if I can make go of it. So, you know, I just started, you know, grassroots, right? Just started knocking on doors and I started picking up clients and worked on in my spare time. And then eventually I felt like I, I could maybe, maybe make a go of it. And I jumped into it both feet and you know, I was young and broke and you know, not, not super afraid and. But you know, sometimes I look back and wonder how we, you know, we made it, but we developed a good business and like I said, we, you know, we just, but primarily very grassroots, knocking doors and talking to customers, then just doing, trying to do a good job for them and then offering some services others didn't. You know, there wasn't a lot of after hours services available for, in the glass industry. So we, we would offer that and we were servicing commercial trucks as well, their glass needs. And a lot of times those trucks run during the day, but they come in at night for service. And so we'd come in in the evenings and be able to pick up some clients that way. And so I had fun with that. And then obviously the residential glass as well, you know, if you made yourself available and glass doesn't always break at convenient times for people. Right. And so, you know, we would, we would just kind of offer extra service there. So.

Jon LaClare [00:06:05]:
And from there I know you do added on. I don't, I wouldn't say transition because I think these businesses overlap for a while. So if I remember the story writers, back in 1999 you started adding in railing so commercial I think originally, maybe residential, eventually into that business. How do you combine those two?

Dave Brown [00:06:22]:
You know, we supplied occasionally we're supplying some glass panel to railing systems. And I thought this glass railing was really neat. And so a few salesmen, you know, came to me and said, hey, you guys are already doing glass, why don't you do the railing part of it too? And so they got us kind of in, you know, a few guys that came to us and showed us different products and then we started selling this stuff Incorporated into our glass business, started selling glass railing, you know, aluminum railing with glass panels. And so it was great. And we were trying to sell as much glass as possible. So you know, automotive glass, truck glass, residential glass, commercial. Oh, here's railing. We'll put glass panels in that. So that worked out well. And you know, the glass was. It's a great windbreak. It especially if you live like in you know, coastal regions or just high wind areas. It's very modern looking too. So some houses just really look nice with it. So, so we kind of got into it and then later on we kind of started developing some of our own products and you know, we end up selling the glass company and to focus more on railing.

Jon LaClare [00:07:37]:
And now. So you've been doing railing a long time, so 25 plus years. And currently the. I think the biggest seller is the aluminum side. I think you've done a lot of custom work over the years with a lot of different types of railings. But we're going to dive into a little bit ridgeview railing, which is a DIY version of aluminum railing that you install yourself even if you're not as handy. So Dave's very handy. I'm not, but I've been through the install process with Dave and, and I just did something. No, frankly even I could do with instruction with help and kind of guidance if you're the least bit handy. It's a, it's a straightforward way to, to install railing. So let's talk about again before we dive into the ridge view side. I want to understand a little bit more about the custom business because it really drove why ridgeview railing is so effective, so good, so affordable and so great looking. So there's so many positive qualities that came to your product that is now DIY that I think a lot of them were. These ideas were born in the, the custom side, the commercial side of selling to homes and to businesses over the years because you kind of learned what people want, you learned what they don't. You learned how to make it, you know, as good as it possibly could be. And you've been as a company installing these for so many years, you learned how to make it again, straightforward or relatively easy to install. So on the, on the custom side of the business, who have been your customers? So I kind of talked high level, it's commercial and maybe high end residential or you know, can you talk a little bit more about your. On the custom side of your business who have been your customers.

Dave Brown [00:09:11]:
So on the, on that side, you know, for example, condominiums A lot of times condominiums are built by, you know, the cheapest guy out there. And so 10 or 12 or 15 years, sometimes these guys need an extensive remodel on the exterior. So a lot of times, so. So those type of customers would come to us and say, hey, we want to do something like this, and this is kind of the new design. Can you help us out? And so we were able to, you know, basically with. With their design team, we were able to come up with, you know, they had some. Some criteria they wanted, and so we were able to develop some rail systems that. That met their needs. Architects as well, on new buildings, I mean, they like to draw stuff that's kind of new and sexy and, you know, not just cookie cutter stuff. And sometimes it'll involve glass, sometimes it'll involve stainless steel cable, vertical pickets even. And so the same thing is, we weren't afraid to. You said, hey, that's your design. We. We can build this. And so we kind of cut our teeth, you know, trying to. Trying to help the customer with exactly what they wanted. And so the neat thing about that is there's all kinds of different rails we installed over the years. And then we could say, okay, what was great? What was nice, what difficult, what was fun? And then kind of condense that down to something that's, you know, that we can. We can offer to the general public and help them as well and hopefully make it affordable.

Jon LaClare [00:10:33]:
Absolutely. So what have you learned over the years and all this custom work, if you could drill it down at at least a high level, what makes design of railings look great? Right. So what. What are some tips, maybe for our audience that might be visiting your website or looking into doing diy what, you know, what kind of design tips do you have?

Dave Brown [00:10:51]:
Well, it's interesting thing to look at is if you think about your deck, do people actually see your deck? The people on it see your deck. You see your deck, but from the street. Sometimes your deck's not very visible, but your railing is very visible. So from a design standpoint, you know, people put a lot of effort and a lot of money into their deck. And I'm not saying they shouldn't, but that is really, you know, that benefits you, and there's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, for street appeal and curb appeal, from a distance, the railing is what people notice first, you know, and his question is, are you, you know, do you have a classic house and you want a very traditional railing look, and it'd be with balusters and railing that goes in between the posts and the posts stand a little bit prouder or do you want more of a modern look where the, you know, the railing will continue over the top of the post and you've got maybe a glass infill or a stainless steel horizontal cable infill or maybe even like, you know, some perforated aluminum panels with a design. I mean, so that's the one thing about it is, is what are you looking for? Are you looking for, you know, something modern? Are you looking for something very classic, something unique? You know, our system will, we can incorporate those things. Different kinds of infill. When I say infill, it's kind of what's between the post and what's between the top rail and the bottom rail of your rail system. So we've, we've got, you know, a lot of expertise in that, you know, by just cutting our teeth over the years and helping people with their projects and. But that's one thing I would look at people, is that decking is expensive. Decks are very expensive. But your railing is really what people see.

Jon LaClare [00:12:26]:
Yeah. And we're going to talk a bit more about the product itself. The DIY Ridgeview railing product. It's more affordable than you'd think. It's, you know, especially as you compare it to the cost of putting in a brand new deck. It's, the cost is not, it's really doable for most, you know, it doesn't have to be a super premium high end where a custom railing might. So let's talk about the inflection point. You kind of mentioned in your past businesses. There you noticed some opportunities, right, that, that helped you to grow like with your glass business, realizing that people, other competitors didn't work after hours. So hey, there's a big opportunity here. So it was kind of an inflection point to offer that as a service or a time availability in that business. What was the inflection point? Would you say that when you decided to launch this DIY railing business alongside your custom business?

Dave Brown [00:13:14]:
Well, what we noticed with the people that sold railing and you know, installed railing is they Normally, they had 20 other products they sold installed as well. You know, there could have been railing, decking, fencing, windows, siding, things like that. And we thought, you know, there's not just, there's very few just railing experts where that's all they deal with. And we thought, well, let's be a railing expert. Let's, let's focus on railing. The nice thing about that though is some of Those customers, you know, for example, what I don't want to do is I want people to buy my railing. And maybe it's another contractor that wants to buy my railing, but if I'm competing against him in decking and fencing, he might say, well, I can't buy railing from those guys. So by just specifying and railing, you know, we didn't offend as many people and we picked up more potential customers, I believe. And then we became just really, really focused on that. And we could say, wow, this is a great railing product. This is not a great railing product. And we could offer things to our customers. I think it would just give them better value. And the other thing is, is, you know, we worked hard at controlling the price point, right? We want to make this where you don't have to be a millionaire to afford our railing. That just kind of defeats the purpose. We want to, you know, we want people to be able to afford the railing. They're just, you know, average nine to five people that need a, you know, a safety rail around their deck.

Jon LaClare [00:14:39]:
And if you go to the website Ridge v Railing to any of our listeners or viewers, you can price out. You can see, look at the number of K and accessories that you might need for your business. But if you ever need advice or help, there's a. There's a chat on there that questions can be answered. You can also reach out via phone and talk to some of the experts within Ridgeview Railing to answer questions on your specific design needs, to find out how many pieces you might need, or maybe color selection or just general advice. As you can see, Dave knows this business really well, as does his team. They are specialists and experts in this field. So you can get a lot of those questions answered if we talk more about Ridgy Railing specifically. Dave, one of the great things I love about it is it's mostly domestically sourced, which it's surprising, frankly, because your costs are lower than a lot of the competition. Quality is better, I think, than anything I've seen out there, certainly, and definitely better than most, if not certainly as good as anything out there with a lower cost. That's really surprising with the domestic manufacturing. Not only that, but it's also made in America. And I think one of the ways that you're able to keep the cost down, especially today, are the lack of tariffs. Right. So we're seeing tariffs come in from all over the world in these early months of 2025, and it's changing the cost structure of a lot of things, which is good for domestic Manufacturers like yourself, how have you, I guess what benefits have you seen beyond the benefit of no tariffs, which is sort of recent, to, to building out your products domestically or making most of them in America?

Dave Brown [00:16:12]:
Well, there's a lot of benefits. You know, one thing that this misconception, well, you know, if you come from, comes from Asia, it's got to be cheaper. But you know, there's been anti dumping laws on aluminum and glass and other products for a long time which really didn't traditionally make overseas aluminum any cheaper than domestic. Now, sometimes manufacturing and sometimes if there's, if there's, you know, labor involved, it can be cheaper from, from overseas or Asia. But so the other thing that's nice about it is I can look at the product. For example, a vendor that buys something from Asia, you know, it's going to be 10 to 12 weeks on the water and then it's going to go to customs. And if that product just is no good, you're out. You know, you're not getting new product for three months potentially. And so that's the part that's a little bit scary as well is that I can look at this product. I can see it. It's, it's, you know, it's like I said, it's being, it's sourced locally. So I don't have those challenges or those issues. And like I said, the cost savings of going overseas and now right now, I mean, we're all nervous about tariffs and we should be there. They're up and down. And you know, I assume this is all going to work out because it's beneficial to, you know, everyone if you know, to find something fair and stable. But, you know, that's not as big of an impact on us right now as it would be for people. They're sourcing their, their railing overseas and I would say most competitors, they're going overseas. So I think it's a huge advantage. And then just, you know, this feels good about supporting your own country. Country, hopefully is job creation in our country. So, you know, it's got a measure of kind of feel good as well.

Jon LaClare [00:17:53]:
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned aluminum. So kind of the cost differences, et cetera, I want to dive in a little bit on the material itself. So what are the benefits of, of aluminum railings versus other materials that people might be looking at?

Dave Brown [00:18:04]:
I think particularly in do it yourself railing, aluminum, you're going to cut this stuff. The nice thing about aluminum is it doesn't rust. So with steel railing, you know, there's sometimes there's Steel panels. There's. There's these steel systems. There's a certain amount of fabrication you have to do on the job site. You're going to cut these panels down. Once you cut that steel, it's. It's. Has the potential to rust. And there's things you could do. You can pry it and touch it up, but steel's a little bit different. It's got veins and. And it doesn't like. It doesn't like the weather. So aluminum looks great. I promise you. You know, go look at my railing 10 years, and go look at a steel railing 10 years down the road, you're going to see a difference. Once rust, if you get any kind of. If steel rust and you get any kind of, you know, that happening in the veins of the metal, all of a sudden the paint starts to bubble in different places. We've all seen that. For example, if you're in an area where they use salt on the roads, and I promise you, you bring that stuff home, you put it on your feet, you get snow, especially in commercial applications, where you'll actually see snow right up against the railing and things like that salts in there as well from that, and it just wreaks havoc on that steel. So aluminum performs very well. It doesn't care about water, it doesn't care about the salt near as much as the steel does. We've got this stuff in coastal applications, been up for 20 years. I'll drive by stuff, go look at it. Still looks wonderful. And you're Talking stuff that's 300ft from the ocean or even closer in some applications. So to me, that's the brilliant thing about aluminum. It's really a lifelong product. And the other thing is, aluminum is very plentiful, and it's a very recycled material. So oftentimes, aluminum railing is just. It's recycled aluminum in many cases. So it's got a green element, too.

Jon LaClare [00:20:00]:
Absolutely. So beyond obviously the benefits of aluminum itself, what are some other ways where ridgeview railing is better than the competition? So as people might be listening or watching this or maybe checking out your website to think about buying railing for their home on a DIY fashion, or what are some other advantages of ridgeview railing that you've developed versus some of the competition?

Dave Brown [00:20:23]:
So this product, you know, it's been around a long time. Not necessarily on the Internet a long time, but it's been around a long time, and it's commercial quality. And so what I mean is this railing material is strong enough to be on a 26th floor of a commercial building. And when you, the higher you get up on buildings, architects and engineers get involved. They say, well, this railing's got to meet a certain wind load. So this stuff is on, you know, it's on 26, 27 story buildings. It's that kind of quality. So you've got commercial quality, but you got a residential price, you got a price that's affordable. And so, and the other thing is the, the, the, the performance coating on it. You know, if this, if this product is going to go on a high rise building, it's going to have to perform right. We can't have paint falling off, we can't have it fading. And so we feel like our coatings are superior to our competitors. Again, our wall thickness, the strength of our product. We've done our internal testing. We've also got engineers that have tested this stuff out. We've paid companies to come in and test this stuff, done destructive testing and it outperforms nearly all our competitors.

Jon LaClare [00:21:37]:
And one other thing I'll add to it is the ease of installation as I mentioned. So we went through and we videotaped or filmed entire installation process with you out in Oregon and put a little installation video which you can see on the website ridgeview railing.com but it helped me to understand how easy this process is, relatively speaking. And some of the other competitors out there call it diy, but it's very difficult or you're kind of left on your own. You've got instructions that were likely written overseas and may be confusing. But this is all done with the consumer in mind and like I said, makes it easy. Even for somebody like me, that is not that handy, frankly. What are, if you, if somebody buys these kits, they, they call into your office, they get some advice on which ones to get, how many they need, et cetera, and, and get these shipped to their home. What tools do they need? Beyond obviously the kits themselves, the things that come in the boxes. I remember it's not very much, but what is needed in order to install your own railing?

Dave Brown [00:22:33]:
You know, it's, it's fairly simple. Some of the skills you need, you got to be able to read a measuring tape. You can read a measuring tape if you have a, you know, a drill and a driver. So you know, a battery operated drill and a battery operated driver are great tools to install this. So if you can use those tools, if you can measure a compound miter saw, you don't necessarily have to, have to, have to cut angles with our system. But that is a superior way to do it. I mean, guys could do it with a miter box and in just like a hacksaw, but a compound miter saw, which I promise, if you don't have one, your brother, your uncle, your best friend, your neighbor, your cousin has one.

Jon LaClare [00:23:17]:
There, or Home Depot, you can rent them for a day even, right?

Dave Brown [00:23:20]:
They exist. And so that's kind of it. The instructions. Our instructions. I'm glad you brought up our instructions, Jon. We worked hard on those. I'm tired of opening up a package of something, usually something my wife's brought home and says, hey, put this together. Instructions are, you can tell, were translated poorly into English. I gotta find glasses, you know, to read the instructions. I don't like wearing glasses, but I gotta find glasses. They've got to be powerful ones. You know, our stuff has great pictures. I promise you, you can read without glasses. It's easy to follow. So we worked pretty hard on that. As a matter of fact, our instructions were done by actually a drafter. And he, he worked hard on them and we proofed him and said, nope, make this change. Let's do it like this. We worked hard on these things. So that part is really neat. Obviously, they come with the kits. Plus, we can answer questions to you. We're not going to hide from you and say, oh, you bought our railing. See ya. You know, we can answer questions for you. We can walk you through things. I would think that, you know, sometimes, you know, railing is. You could say, well, maybe it's scary to buy online because, you know, it's. I got to ship it here. And it's, it's, you know, it's. It's more than 1999. Right? But I will tell you, compared to what you can get at, you know, a local lumber yard or something, and the price point, we've got a better product and we've got, you know, much.

Jon LaClare [00:24:45]:
Higher quality, and that support, I think, is so valuable. So if you obviously call, go through the chat, email, there's so many ways to contact you through the website to get questions answered before the purchase process, but so important that you can also contact afterwards with any questions you might have. And that's just not the case with most DIY competitors out there. You get home, you can't understand the instructions, it's hard to contact them, etc. It's a huge difference. And it is something that makes it doable for anybody, frankly, with any kind of minor skill set. Like you said, if you can read measuring tape, not everybody can do that, right? So if you're completely can't do anything. You can always hire a handyman to help out, et cetera. But if you've got any basic skills, this is something you can definitely figure out and do on your own. Well, Dave, this has been a lot of fun. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would be helpful for our audience?

Dave Brown [00:25:32]:
No, I think your questions were great, Jon. You know, I think you got to the, the important things. Yeah, I think, I mean just, just takeaways is that it's a great product and we stand behind it, we believe in it. And if you're thinking about railing, you know, even if, even if you're not sure what you want to do, you know, come chat with us, get a hold of us, I'd be happy to talk to you about it, maybe give you some ideas and give you my thoughts on things.

Jon LaClare [00:25:58]:
And I rarely do this, but I would say even reach out to me. If you're a listener, leave a comment. Reach out to us at Harvest Growth with questions too. Like if you want to know somebody, kind of an unbiased opinion. I've been through this process with Dave and man, the install was easy and man does it look beautiful. Check it out on the website, go to ridgeviewrailing.com you can see some before afters of what the railing looks like. You can see the kits, the contents, et cetera. It's pretty straightforward. But again, any questions you have, please reach out to them. And I do encourage everyone to listen if you're driving, as always, I say go to the Show Notes when you finish. Right? So on YouTube and on harvestgrowthpodcast.com or any podcast platform, the Show Notes will have the URL that we've been talking about. Ridgeview railing.com and reach out with any questions that you might have. Also, I want to say thank you for tuning into today's episode where we uncover the stories and strategies behind some of the most successful product marketers and entrepreneurs out there. If you're looking to take your own business to the next level, be sure to visit perfect launch.com you can grab a free copy of my book, the Perfect Launch System. It's packed with proven principles we've developed over the past 20 years, helping hundreds of businesses launch and grow successfully. Plus, you'll also get exclusive one page summaries of some of our most popular podcast interviews, real world insights you can apply right away. Head to perfect launch.com and start building your Perfect Launch today. Until next time, keep learning, keep launching and keep growing.