.Manly Bands is a direct-to-consumer vendor of men's bands. The business released in 2016 after John Ruggiero, the founder with his wife Michelle, could not locate an ideal wedding ceremony band.This is Ruggiero's 2nd appearance on the podcast. In April 2021, our team covered the provider's beginning, special ring products, and also a lot more. Ever since, Manly Bands has actually obtained its own supplier. The production of rings from, point out, Jack Daniel's whiskey gun barrels or Fender guitar cords generates powerful online video, claims Ruggiero, excellent for storytelling on social networking sites as well as elsewhere.The entire sound of our chat is actually inserted below. The records is actually revised for duration and clarity.Eric Bandholz: Offer us a rundown of what you do.John Ruggiero: My wife, Michelle, as well as I started an on-line ring firm referred to as Manly Bands in 2016 to resolve a concern of wedding celebration bands for males. Our experts were actually simply married. I have big fingers and could not discover a band that I suched as that was actually not overpriced. My alternatives were ordering from a directory or possessing something customized.I ended up acquiring coming from a site. The band showed up in a level mailer, without any package or even client service. It was a horrible experience by today's ecommerce requirements.Our team got wed, relocated to Florida, and also required a task. Our experts informed ourselves, "We are actually both entrepreneurs. Why do not we generate our personal company?" Our experts covered the types of troubles we will seen and exactly how to handle them. My band expertise appeared, and also our company decided to try to address it for other fellas.Our target when our team began was to pay rental fee. We believed creating a couple many thousand dollars a month coming from this would certainly be superb. Our company considered it a way of life business, not high-growth. It was actually simply Michelle as well as me in our garage designing bands as well as delivering all of them bent on clients. Our experts had actually appealed something. Our notification resonated with customers.Michelle as well as I make a great staff. I generate suggestions, and she is actually the implementer. A great deal of our success goes to her creative thoughts. She labels the rings and cultivates personas. She attaches the rings to customers. Explaining a band only as "eight-millimeter black" didn't cut it.Our company designed rings coming from unique products, like Port Daniel's gun barrels or special metallics. Business removed. Since then, our company've expanded considerably. Our team right now have over 55 people in the Manly Bands household. About half of those are band craftsmans who do work in our recently acquired manufacturing shop in Utah.Bandholz: When did you get a manufacturer?Ruggiero: Concerning a year as well as a half back. Our team had actually been their customer for years, so we understood them properly. The majority of their business was wholesale, which really did not interest us-- heading to mom-and-pop jewelry experts. They kept their retail consumers as well as brand. Our team obtained several of their assets and carried over staff members.Prompting a production team has actually been one of the very best factors we have actually carried out. It is actually been actually awesome to head out certainly there and view all of them bring in rings out of Fender guitar cords or even steel coming from an M1 Abrams storage tank.Bandholz: How performs internal production impact advertising and marketing?Ruggiero: It's been actually massive. Taking a camera to the other side of the workplace as well as filming the group utilizing turrets to reduce the steel poles or even scotch gun barrels right into rings makes for extraordinary video. Our experts possess our electronic camera crew on the market all the time. Our experts utilize that video on our social networking sites and in our adds and e-newsletters. Our experts try to promote that because a lot of companies in the men's band space do not create. They drop ship or order coming from international and after that transport it out. Yet we prefer it to last a life-time and also be actually one thing folks can take honor in.Our team've had a great deal of success with our armed forces ancestry collection, where our experts source one-of-a-kind army products. Our team possess the M1 Garand rifle stock, the lumber component, coming from War of the nations I. Enjoying our team placed that in the lathe as well as cut an item out for a band is interesting.Our advertising for those bands refer to the history, the soldiers, where the tool was used, as well as traits like that. My partner and also I examined filmmaking in university. Our team utilize our abilities to teach and narrate. For example, I just recently received an e-mail from a client that shared that his grand daddy utilized to steer M1 storage tanks. The customer talented one of those rings to his gramps, as well as they had fairly a psychological swap. It behaves to assist customers get in touch with their past times and produce something meaningful.Bandholz: Where can people buy a ring coming from you?Ruggiero: ManlyBands.com. Our team possess images on Instagram, as well. I get on Twitter as well as LinkedIn.