Retro Tech with Retrospekt!
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What is up, people of the internet? Welcome you away from podcast. I am your host today, Alice. Robin, I enjoyed by my co hosts markets and .

i'm David. Yeah.

pretty weird, huh? So guys, we host attack news show. We're covering what's new in tech. And as you may know for many of my trivia questions and random tangent, I love tech that is specifically not new. And I also love buying IT and filling my apartment with IT and dhs cassette.

Pes, oh, anything, you know? I mean, so I was doing what I do, browsing the internet, getting ready to buy some stuff, and I ve found a bunch of year just type actually liked on this cool site called retrospect. And a lot of the time when you're buying things like especially V C R S 和 C R T， um you are buying from an old guy in the deal of nowhere with a garage who just repairs this stuff and you know barely makes enough money to scrape by and just sort of like a .

weird passion project film cameras, right? A guy in the middle st who doesn't know the value of what he's something he was along the lines of like old guy who's like partner said, you got to get rid of this stuff and then there's saying at a discount that they .

wish they did not have to. All of this is true. Yes, all of this is true totally. But so you can imagine my surprise when there's an about us tab on this website. retrospect.

And I go and this company has like forty employees I know, and I begin going through their website and I realized they don't just sell V H S types and V C R and C R S. They sell film cameras. They sell all digital cameras.

They sell old watches. They even make a few original products. And I thought, this is such a cool company.

I have to find out who's behind IT. And IT turns out, is this really, really cool husband and wife duo in korean, adam. And they have relation.

We're going to let them explain IT in their own words in the interview by David. You abbot, you're an abbot film photographer. You've heard of the impossible project.

So the impossible project, uh, some odd years ago when polaroid shut down their instant film Operation and the factories were all closed and IT became sort of impossible to get this film, a little project got started called the impossible project where they would just acquire as many polar ID cameras as they could take whatever film was in there out of them, make sure the film was still good, bring the cameras back to life and sort of become the official supporter. Are these parred cameras? And then the way this cool business retrospect got started is IT.

Was these two college kids, korean adam, really like to polaroid cameras? When IT all got shut down, they started going around trip stores, buying as many of them as they could, and just kind of obsessively. And when they got linked up with the impossible project, they became one of the impossible projects main suppliers .

sense yeah and also a bunch of uh former impossible project employees now run a little shop called bricklin film camera, which is one of the like best places to buy revamped polar D X seventies, the hard core fixing polar ids. They're like one of the only places the united states that does IT um and they're .

great and i'll let them tell the rest of the story of how this blossomed into this forty percent massive business. But uh, I hope you guys enjoy this wild retro ride. We're about to go .

on exciting Richard tech .

so without further, do I will let adam roll the interview and a way we go through the magic of editing.

I know IT is not a friday. We will have a Normal episode for you then, but for now we have another cool mid week bonus episode and longer listens to the podcast will know I always want to talk about C R, T televisions and and analog videos and vhs tapes and VCR and there's not a lot of room or space for me to do so.

So um a all of my crazy tape collecting, I came across a very cool website called the retrospect dot com and I met the two very cool people who owe this very cool website. And today we're going to talk all about tech that is disappearing from our lives and why it's cool and how to repair IT and a whole bunch really great stuff. So welcome, cory. And yes.

of course.

i'm so excited. Students, I got the email back from you guys. I was like, yes, so the way we like to kick these things off is if you guys met someone at a party and had to explain to someone who had no context whatsoever, what IT is you guys do?

What's the pitch? So retrospect is a consumer electronics company that specializes in uh a lot of retro tech. We both refurbished restore some of the rector attack and we produce some of IT. And then the third piller is that we also so other people's uh newly manufactured uh retraction or things that are access to IT uh such as music a or film.

cool, cool, wait, cool. So how did this journey begin for you guys? Because I think um you know we if you look through the internet, you go on ebay, facebook, parking place, you'll see you know random guys in their basement putting together old VCR just stuff like that.

But you guys have this like really comprehensive business that tackles a lot of avenge. So yeah, how did this get started and and then how did you get too? Where is now?

Yeah the question our origin story is very much wrapped up and polar red story um and never great story too. There's a lot of great documentary about how police corporation ended and seize the manufacturing of instant film how this great company called the impossible project but miraculously the last standing film factor in the netherland and kept the machines running to reproduce a instant film as we know IT today.

And it's actually um improved from those early days where they had to reformulate the chemistry of the film. So it's a great story. I mean, I could talk about that forever. Um we were users of polar ID film and uh when pollard stopped, they like abruptly announced the end of film manufacturing and like what year .

is around two doesn't buy but they still had some um materials to make IT .

vertical years plan. So what was happening on ebay and the like as people suddenly like a pack of floria instance film was thirty forty box on ebay where historically know the two thousands and maybe tender. Um so we were used of the instant film.

Super sad that film was disappearing. Um we heard about the impossible project early on and um our solution for continuing to shoot film we were broke college students we cannot afford the thirty dollars bay film. Our little hack was going to thrip stores in finding cameras that still had bill inside a and shooting what was like A X five.

That's what people are donating them in masses like I remember going to a third store and you could find like ten por cameras on the shelf that is not true anymore um but what happened was we asked a giant collection of polarity cameras um and at that time when I this back when married, we moved to a occhi where we are now for graduate school and we moved like bins and bins of cameras with us and h decided that that was uh not something we wanted to have, has a picture in our home for a eternity so we started selling them online. And very quickly, the impossible project started buying them from us. So we cut out the middleman of ebay and started working with them directly to sell them what we call rock cameras, you know, we would just find them they had used, but they were charged by this vintage blood camera, and we would work with them in that way. But we got really good at IT and continue to build these networks of people sourcing them from hello with the united states. Um to wear grew and grew to wear I don't know if IT IT there was a definitive point where IT was more than a hobby.

Yeah around twenty twelve we found out we were the biggest lobby supplier for possible project for hardware for um and that uh just continue to uh develop. And uh yeah I think at a point he went from like how can we pay a couple of our bills um like they'd be great if I could cover my internet in my electric bill and then suddenly ly IT was like, oh, I think I can pay the semesters tuition um and I think that's when I started becoming a little bit more real for us um that there's business potential there. But we assumed that we just kind of face out and um our goal was like if we can get to good point point with student loans by the time you know the possible project stops by, this will feel really satisfied.

Yeah but that didn't exactly pan out that way。 So I guess backing in up a little bit what they were doing with these cameras internally, both in europe and in new york, they were refurbishing them themselves and reselling them with their newly made polaroid film um and yeah so we are supplying our cameras.

What eventually happened is we were out of when I were approached by their headquarters, which were in brilliant at the time to take over the refurbishing and repair of the cameras. We didn't truly know exactly how to do that, but we're said, okay, let's do this and we figured that out and they did. They're very generous and providing us um training from original employees.

The factory thin. They look out and trained me and adam and a few of our first staff members to do this. This is when Adams down with grad school, I just finished.

We had to make a conscious decision to be like, okay, like us going to start this business and said, ah which was wild at the time, but in hindsight, so amazing. I feel very fortunate. IT feels very, very passionate. And I think that's what they like about huge were huge die hard were still collected at hard and really love the product in the so yeah.

we had nothing to lose and we are broke a little less than broke at that point but we saw student loans um and IT just felt like what's more like oh what's oh no my dad like I already have a ton of dad um like more crippling that potentially um that i'll never get out of or perhaps um an opportunity to do something that um that I didn't feel like a door that was going to reopen and I always felt like the career was a door that could reopen um at any point.

But it's definitely that was the point in which IT became a business. We went from property prior. Uh and i'll see without the paperwork, we named the company retrospect and hired her staff.

Um so uh that deal uh wrapped up in uh early twenty fifteen and um you really accelerated um our business. Uh I mean IT accelerated IT to the point where I started IT and then really helped us uh uh grow from there. Um i'll let you .

put out yeah I mean, I think there's a lot that can be said for those years of primarily working on pollinate products. But I think to skip past that and talk about all okay, clearly, that's not all. We have our website now um at a certain point, and we still work very closely with proper licenses.

They are awesome. They let us do a lot of really cool stuff. I think we will get into talking about what we do to those cameras, which is a cool hybrid of like restoring the vintage nal internals and uh we injection molding the externals and doing cool collaborations and partnerships.

But we found IT wise eventually to not have all of our eggs in one basket. And we had all of this um intellect that we were gaining with our team about how to repair eighty and nine years electronics. And uh we you know as a phase to decided to pick another product to start refurbishing.

And that for us was SONY walkman um and since is just catulle. And and we have brought in newly manufactured, thanks to like we're not selling use records, we sell newly pressed final records combination of new and old S A lot of the thirty five millimeter products I were putting out right now are newly manufactured. So just like anything that falls under the lose umbrella of retro tech atoc inspired, our site is kind of turned into like a more like a lifestyle outfits, one stop destination for all these rta tech things.

Wow, that is so unbelievably fascinating, especially the fact that you guys got your start in sort of the procurement side of IT, all because of someone who's also obsessed with retroactive ack and whose apartment has way too much retro tech in IT. One of the hardest parts about IT as like a hobby, if you can even call that, is finding this stuff.

It's like it's actually surprising that you know, even for me who lives in brooklin, which in a lot of ways is sort of like a reta tech meta, because there's so many people acquiring and maintaining, IT can be so difficult to find a VCR in good shape. IT can be so difficult to find a crt where the fly back transformer isn't. Why all this stuff.

So how early on when you guys were collectors before IT was a business? How were you actually getting these cameras? What was the secret sauce?

IT was just easier back then, to be honest. I mean, you had regles at facebook market place was an thing .

at that point. Ta in the circuit ta was phenomenal. Yeah and IT pair really nicely with pool discontinued their film. And now in knowing who the impossible project once um and then possible projects though they I I had a invented task to overcome to create pod film or impossible film uh with the new formula um IT was really chAllenging ing to you so even people are using a warn super thrilled about IT. So there's just a lot of these cameras being donated and and that that was the opportunity for us um in which uh the volume was there to support what .

we think what i've noticed now to is like. So around that time may be a little bit later. There is also like no shortage of point two thirty five million, a really nice stuff like stuff be I know that my parents used in the nine yeah and now that's super hard to find again.

Um so I think lake being like slightly how the trend is helpful. Like right now we have we just um earlier last year launched a digital america, only digital. And those you can still find a trip stories.

You know you just have a certain group of people who are donating those things. So I think he just depends on like what's trending. But totally agree, is really hard to find good stuffy now and we pay a lot for IT. No, like we our stuff is Price according ly with the fact that we have to source IT and pay a significant amount. And boss like crazy of our main criteria for bringing a programme is that has to have been mass produced in some capacity because part of our repair and refurbishment process is really dependent on taking multiple parts and fusing IT into one working part OK. There's only so much we can do with like new components which we do uh, three d printing, which we do um injection molding, which we do if like the numbers can support IT but um the ability to source quite a few models that at least the internal are the same and mother and then piece them back together, that's really part of caterina for example. No we don't do attracts not yet .

yet um I am really glad you touched on that because I that was pretty much what I wanted to go next before I jumped into that. I just out of curiosity, what were you guys studying in grand school?

Oh, thanks for asking. I have my masters agree in speech, language.

psychology yeah. And I my masters of science and ocp therapy.

Oh, okay, wow. So I do see exactly what you meant when you are like, you can always go back to those careers, but you had to like wonderful opportunity to do this. That is so interesting.

yes. And we picked the careers. We both have the colored undergrads and we had on the school twenty twelve. It's competitive to get a job with starbucks like we're still recovering from the financial collapse. We had um friends that had great degrees that couldn't get jobs.

And we just felt like how do how do we delay going into the workforce a little bit longer and tell things kind of resolved um and delay our student loans being due. So yeah and if you feel clever about IT, you pick things that you don't need to do much prerequisites. You have new, mild, interesting and um and at that time, I was very much the the people that had skills were getting jobs.

So you really wanted a specific skill that you can go into the workforce with. So that's what stimulated that decision for us. And of all the things we do, we want to do with a lot of passion and excitement. And of course, one can do that with their education. But um IT kind of also felt like a compromise at the same time of of working in the fields because they just felt like, you know what what was the bright thing to do but not necessarily that thing you wanted to do.

Yeah, thanks. No, I totally you know, it's funny. I actually really not to talk too much about myself here, but I can really identify that I graduated collet within like three or four months of like covet really going into full swing so was very clear immediate out of school.

I was not doing anything career wise and especially since I graduated with a degree in music um which nothing like that was happening and and I fell into podcasting sort of backwards and for a long time I like i'm doing the thing that actually has nothing to do with what i'm really interested in and low and behold that actually let me here which is very nice but thank you for sharing that about you guys. I have a few more sort of midwest core questions for you guys coming later, but I want to talk about the tech. And I would love for you guys to walk me through the whole lifespan of U.

S. Finding something like a polar camera or a game boy, or an old ipod IT entering the reta attack shop, getting post on the website and ending up in a consumers. So like what state are you finding these things in? How much loved they actually need is a different device for device the whole 不好， 赛过 a very .

based on the product。 But um whatever we were able to come up with for refurbishment and repair process for polar camps early on has been largely replicable for other products. And we've looked at and studied and come up with quality assurance measures and have very formal documentations and processes and checks that these things go through.

And by the way, we Carry a warrant you too, because there's some just unpredictable things that can happen with these items. They are super fragile. The asset, seventy folding polymer. As a great example, these cameras came out in one thousand nine hundred and seventy two.

We're not making new parts that are opening them up, servicing them and putting them back together and trying to make good judicious um decisions about what to replace what still has life in IT, what's cosmetically OK, what we want to update uh or replace with with other parts. Um yeah I I think the things come up in pretty scary conditions, but depending on with the polar d cameras, we have the ability to reach the nal. So cosmetic science pic deal um like I touched on earlier because we tried to source things that were mass produced.

We always have this element of expecting your boss, and you know, with broken on one isn't broken on another, and we can take them apart, put them together, steal this part from the pcb is on this part. I step like that. So 嗯， but IT really vars on the product and we have so many different product groups now for refresh stuff.

yeah I would say the ideal is resource， things that no one wants and that are destined foreign fill. And we are putting time and energy into IT uh to save that and make IT useful um because there's not a whole lot of value in the company, just go online and buying things at work and um charging more for IT to the consumer because they put a warranty and they clean IT.

Um that that is not interesting to us and i'm sure um there is a business model there for planning and that's that's fine. Um IT is not how we're interested in um running our business. So whenever possible, we want items like that in which um unless uh technician opens IT up and services IT.

it's it's not useful. Is there like too far gone? Like like do you see things you're like, no, there's that's not coming back.

This is a big one. Yeah um I think one we had a national seventy ones that I ever was in a house fire.

Anyway just .

cept yeah yeah yeah it's special um in that way um yeah so that is a big one um most obviously can be a problem, especially with with what human health in general um but then with camera is the land is you you often wanna avoid um more Better team also can take a part lenses and cleanup too um so we we do that process more the lenses also um so even more to some extent, if it's in the lens isn't always a problem.

Take another chAllenges, plastic ages and gets brittle or as we all know, with more White one plastics, they yellow with U V damage that is not fixed ble. We do have a full paint booth though like that was another I have to knew that we explore to try to continue to save some of the stuff um and not throw IT away refinishing IT and um that was an interesting step to like build up this whole like professional paint.

Food is really fun like it's really cool. I 呀 truly could do more with that probably well over time。 But um yeah there's we're always thinking of new ways to save things.

Yeah the paint booth is a whole different hundred too because I really goes into we have IT for the polar cameras. The customer ones are injection molded because um well, a cameras, a mobile darkroom and uh well instant camera is and uh not all colors you run are light tight. So um we have a paint with actually to uh paint inside captive black a of most of our most of our cameras.

Like when we first start the manufacture externals, we learned that plastic is translucent if it's covered um and then they were all light leaking and so we quote the internals with a light titan uh .

code yeah yeah we are we were working with the engineering firm that helps together some of polar its cameras um in the nineties and worked up polar d and they're like, yeah we did coloured stuff and um you just had to put like some tape on a couple key bots like great and then I hear some parts you need to worry about and then we got our first one back um and we we tested IT outdoors and I was just like the most horrendous photo you've ever seen. And you know we are really panic about what to do because we spent a lot of time and money on the tools and on the plastic and we had purchase orders for uh the colored um program that we are doing. So um but because um some really cool innovation on our and painting inside of the cavity is miserable, so there is a lot of uh you know creates so much turbulence um in over spray, so get in that dial and really took a long time um but now we have a really good process for we have full blow than we have a full time.

That's all SHE does. So do you find yourselves when you are approaching a task that you don't have a background in, like painting the inside of a cavity, do you do you find that your strategy typically is get online, figure out how to do this, do IT yourself? Or is IT hire someone with the expertise that really does as well? And and that answer may have changed over time to.

yeah, we typically, I mean, sometimes we should go online sooner um then then what we do but um you know we often just try to trouble shoot IT and problems solve IT. Um I think you know the higher education in general, uh a four year or a master secret teachers, you have to critically think through situations and um you know the scientific process is applicable every single day in the in the work that we do. So you just start thinking critically about IT and figure out what's what's gonna you talk to people and and then of course, um if you're a like cory and your uh significantly smarter than me, you're go online and look at other resources um uh and uh yes, there is .

shortage of amazing information on the internet people put out there for free about how feb repair things. sure. We've looked at a lot of a lot of its developed internally. We have an amazing repair team with a lot of credible knowledge that they brought to the company. And but yeah for sure, where we're watching youtube videos to.

it's funny guys bring that up because in my time of of dealing with all this sort of retrospect stuff, I also spent a lot of time on these forms. And i've noticed that there's a clear like emotional difference between people who are more casual collectors and then the people who are actually keeping the stuff alive.

Or like in walkman forms example, you'll still see people like, oh, you have this model, you don't have the mega base ah what are you doing without a direct right like loser? And then as soon as you go to the forum where people are actually repair ring these things, it's the most like kind, loving, supportive dialogue you have ever seen. I swear, people have take in the time answer the dumbest questions for me in like C.

R. T. Repair forms. I've never IT is great. It's such great of people.

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Welcome back. Stop away from podcast markets. David Alice, guys, we were talking about retrod tech. Do you guys have a memory of a specific piece of retro tech from your childhood that is very near in studio?

Boy, yes. So whenever I, whenever I talk about retro tech people, I get mad at me that is not old enough. So when I think of retrieved, I think can N T to I yeah to me that's that yeah.

that's my retro tech .

right there. The first thing that I thought of was hit lapse.

hit club. Do remember hitler? S.

I do remember hit, so do know. So before the M P. Three player, before the ipod, what I yeah IT was .

a there are these .

little cartage that cannot look like to like the actual machine, cannot look like a little tha goji. There is on a key chain, and you like hook IT to your belt, clip whatever on your, on your pants. And then you would have individualized cartridge that are little squares that you put in the device, hook ups and headphones to. And each cartage was a song, each one.

Carter, I think, I think was a song.

I think you're both. I think some of them had full songs, but a lot of them were just like the big.

you see how good kids and and and oh my god, yes, before you go on team and a whole .

song for nine .

nine cents, you'd have like go to care and buy a three pack of h the first one I had IT was in sink. So I bought three inside eclipse for like fifteen.

But I say I was more than just like media you would listen to, like the whole thing was that I was a key chain. And so everyone would see what cartoons you had. A IT was like very much a way.

Yeah, you would jingle them on your pants and people could like, see what music you are. Yeah, you like.

pretty cool. He listens .

yeah it's like the the really recover of like the song that plays on isn't my space said, did that you like thing on tender where they .

like you can see that someone has the worst music taste ever, the you .

spotify and just exposes you yes yeah anyway.

so we're going to keep talking to a retrospect with korean adam. But this next section starts off with think, this really cool conversation, because not only do they have this crazy Operation, refurbishing and repairing all sorts of cool stuff, they also make their own products, their own original products and specifically the products that they make that um you can find in stores like all over the country.

I was in the ma design store and I saw one there. They make a portable cassette. Yer, and for anyone that knows anything about portable cassette yers, making one is actually like a really difficult task. They actually mention this really hilarious problem when referring old poor cameras, where that the plastic begins to degrade over time and a lot of lightly happens. And so when they're rehabs these old polar cameras, they usually will take them apart and take them into a paint booth and paint the entire inside black so that none of the light can yeah super interesting .

flashbacks to my three printed camera. Yeah right yeah with all the same problems, how to paint the inside of that black? It's really little from looking .

through ah anyway yeah in this next portion of the interview I nerd out with korean adam about the differences between a two head and a three head cassette c and of course forgot to explain what that actually means. And I could try to explain IT to you now. But we have a very special guest with us perched on Marks's. I was wondering what the pin would say is the difference between a two head and a three head set head.

What's the difference between the two head and three head .

cassette pe player or no? Finding tape .

player info S, A two head cassette .

tape player uses a common head for both recording and play back, while a three head cassette pe player has dedicated heads for recording and playback, offering superior sound playback and recording fidelity.

That was good.

That was possibly one of the best answers i've heard to give. IT was sort of wrong about the last part. You don't actually get Better fidelity out of IT, but what IT allows you to do is listen to the sound as it's written to the tape where as a two head deck, you can only hear exactly what you're putting into IT.

So if there's something wrong with the tape or your black sting, the tape too hard and it's clipping, there's no way to know until you rewind and play back the tape wherewith a three headed ahe. You can listen directly to the tape that you just print ted on. I understood all of that call.

People want to know more. They can google IT. And if you're a musician and you're in the market for a cassa deck, you probably want a three head deck.

three heads of .

more than two.

Three heads are, in fact, Better than two.

Reheat is Better than a forever. I'm pressure.

There are forehead VCR.

But we'll get to vcrs later in the tribes. Anyway, adam, roll the tape.

a three head tape.

Speaking of or i'd like to move on to a specific device that you guys do that when I found out about IT IT, Frankly, kind of flared me that you guys were able to do this. And that's the cp eighty one.

And for those that are unfamiliar at cp eighty one is retrospect new cassette yer and not to go on another little tangent, but so you know my background is as an audio engineer, music guy, and a question I get asked all the time is why are microphones worse? Which of course is not true. But but if you go back to the sixty and and the fifty to the seventies, you have all of these classic, beautifully sounding microphones that you can get anymore.

And I have to explain to people, it's like not only have we lost the schematics for how those microphones were originally built, we have lost the schematics for the machines that built the parts that build those microphone. Like literally, the sauce is gone. We would have to reinvent IT to get there.

And I kind of thought that was the case with cassettes. Yers, right? Because the last big cassez mechanism for those audiences that don't know mechanism is the motors and record head and the transport.

Essentially the part is actually reading the the the last big maker of those tania or ten ocean. I I actually don't know what to say. I went out of business ten or so years ago.

So where do you ask like, are you reinventing the wheel here? Have you found some random factory in china, taiwan that still make like what's the deal? How do you make A A new cassette player in twenty twenty four?

Yeah yeah. Well, so I have so much to talk about there. Um I guess i'll start with your last question. Um when we started looking at this actually back in twenty nineteen um there were couple um on the market that were really just poor performing. No, I know.

Yeah we example them with the manufacturers um and we didn't really care for IT um is so we just kept doing the refurbishment um uh in restoration as we took on some more um skilled product development um ft uh and time went on. Some of these factories got a little bit more sophisticated with their options and we are able to sample some things that we felt like we're getting closed, what we wanted um and then we were able to a adjust IT further. Even still, the quality is so hard to get right out of the factory.

Um so what we have to do is we have a third party that inspects them before they leave the factory. And even if they fail a couple times and finally pass, they come here and we one hundred percent inspect them and we basically have to retune everything um is big ticket the tune as precisely we want to to because their standard deviation we don't feel like is acceptable. Um we have to adjust the the play head or the asthmatic um quite frequent frequently with uh we have to do a lot of other internal fixes and on these players so you know to just get something functioning and use able to the and consumer is very um a difficult and um not the not the easiest thing to complete without a team of people that already knows how to repair and refurbish the SONY walkings.

Uh you can then apply some of that learning and knowledge onto the newly manufactured. We look at our manufacturing and iterations. So right now where the C P D one is, the first situation were working on our C P D two presently.

So once we can uh get a factory to uh consistently make the internal functions correctly and accurately into our specifications, then we start modifying even further the um uh some of the track that IT contains and also the um the uh industrial design of the unit. Uh um our goal is to have uh our C P D two on the market within the next year ah that we can then um uh get in front of uh a water audience as well. The C P D ones really um just are is further dipping our our toes into the water.

I guess you know we're kind of that um weights level uh in the water right now. The the dipping a toes was with the uh SONY um refurbishment process and that was doing really well. These are continuing to do well.

But uh, before we jump all in and are ordering you know tens of thousands of something, we want to make sure that we have the quality nail down. We have the supplier in the factory um uh exactly uh, working to our specifications in that communication is strong. Uh, before we really go big and have like A A larger program that might be more a mass retail and into .

just typo on that, I mean, the SONY Walkers are amazing. They're incredible. We just can't keep up with the demand.

You know we can only source so many, which is a lot. But um we every Christmas we sell out of them and they their incredible machines. There's so much R N G cord into them, incredible factories. Uh, you know, multi l caused pumping these things out and there awesome. So where in our infancy of like trying to fill the boy, there's there's a clearly a demand for things like tapes, which is awesome.

We're printing cash tapes like never before. IT seems like every record label making tapes done.

Yes, yeah let's cool.

yeah. The chance to with the cause of players is um everyone wants them um they want high quality and they want low Price. And it's really hard to kind emerge those two things together. And what we really the way we like to segment IT is the the thing we can always have in stock and have A A A good quality performance is A C P D one. And then if you really want um and astor gic experience um um with the you know in our opinion the best uh consumer electronics uh uh the consumer experience of the player you have a SONY. What .

about magnetic tape? Is also just not the best for my music. We're like you. We're kind it's kind of I wrong when you think about IT that way but we love IT. I love IT our daughter. We a tune of old SHE loves I mean, we can get into the conversation of experience is really oh my got people know and also like.

So I am sure our listeners always know this all you know this because i'd never shut up about IT, but I have A A huge cassette collection and I have always found that even though, like you said, there's a lot less fidelity in in a cassette pe, especially a type one cassette pe, than a modern file, there's some records that I would listen to like over and over and over again and never really like got why they were so popular.

Until I listen them on cassette, I realized like not that they're recorded poorly or there they were made for lower performing systems, but without all of the added harmonics and noise that you get from the cott, the mixes can actually feel a little empty. You know, and the mixing mastering engineers, I think, you know, sort of plan for that one record for me is the springsteen. Welcome to ashbury park. Like guys listened that over and over again and never gotten IT and then I gotten on cotton was like, yes, this is so great um that this might not make IT in the final cut of this episode but as a dye hard cassette user, what are the odds that the C P. Eighty two has a three head .

mechanism now. Yeah .

probably not. Um that might be eighty three or eighty four. You know, one of the hardest things to accept as a business owner is what you wanted do and what you can do and what what we want to do is big.

What we can do is is small. We are its own by corin myself. We have no other investors. We have no venture capital. We IT it's it's us to and this is this is IT IT started with that small investment of um by us to when we started of a couple hundred dollars and it's into and that's what we can that's every time we look at VC funding. We die a little .

you die a little .

bit inside and and come back to like I rather have a go a little bit slower and be what we wanted to be long term and get to the finish line um then try to explain to the investors why we should make something with uh a certain way even though a consumer the average consumer might not care or um appreciated. Uh uh so IT IT causes this slower pace to iteration and uh for product development that were not always super enthusiastic about. But IT um IT is the best decision for our company and um for our ability to be around for the many years and hopefully be available for our children to run one day or something to able to buy in and have a really nice yeah that makes me .

think a question we get a lot of is like, oh yeah, I heard polar is trending and I heard vines trending and it's like we kind of surprised there are friends. There are friends, there are Michael. thanks. So I feel like the digital cameras and ipods are maybe a little bit of a trend.

But I think like instead of IT just being a trend that comes and goes, it's more like a door opening, like there's a whole new generation interested in metro tech and they will keep coming through the door um and we're here to like service providing experience. So like. I like a natural question that was maybe like what what if tapes aren't as big of deal by the time ready to make a had players like I think they will be yeah I mean.

there's only so many forms of terrible music too yes.

So and the reason I asked about the three head player is specifically is because the I got sorry about the that I got into cassette um when I was doing a lot more music and I picked up an old three head deck so that I could effectively use IT as like an effect peddle like run IT out of the computer into the record head and then immediately hit the player ad and and go back out and so man a little many three head player that I could .

use both in my great music video and there's a pretty big musician that um their manager contacted us about doing because that um um player with and they know he sets very well and didn't didn't get off the ground because I was in a uh exactly that the three head. So if we ever get Better in in the future, um i'll know .

who to hit up yeah exactly. I I have a he more tech questions. But I first I have to ask, does that sort of thing happen a lot where either like an individual person or an artist or maybe a design or full studio or a full company go like, oh, I need this retro there the there the guys because that happened .

a lot yeah most of our opportunities are organic. Um we wear a lot of hats uh and there's no no way we can do IT all or or or sorry, there's no way we can hear other people to do some of the stuff which is so expensive to uh of people in seats that are just there to reach out, to collaborate and uh hopefully make something happen. So often times we have people come into us and occasions we will reach out to people and hope, hope for the best.

And a lot of times IT does work out. But you might have to cast A A pretty White net of, you know, dozens of people and you get back or two. And that be you have to be OK with, uh, rejection and you also have to figure out how to attack, fully reject others.

And I I actually rather be rejected, then be the one rejecting, uh, I I don't care. I just want, I want everyone to be my friend. I want everyone to like me all the time.

It's a disease. It's a midwestern. There must be something in the water here where we just thought about that. Hard to say, is to say.

yeah, yeah, we get a lot of request from proposes from I 的。 Yeah, that like T, V, like we can to tomorrow by ten am please can you send this? And yes, as it's fascinating, we have our products a few T V, but like grand placements just like that.

we what if you need at a specific model of something? So that is period correct? I I genuinely don't know where else is source that you knew was gna work if you needed IT to my my C R T at home that I used for all of my random C R T stuff was actually a prop on the hulu u tank show, which I think is how a lot of that stuff ends up staying alive.

So we've been talking about walkmans polar rights, these devices that have complex mechanical systems, and of course, mechanical systems that go bad and that you guys that need to go fix. But you also mention digi camps and and how, yes, digg camps are. They're having this researchers actually, just today on the subway, I saw someone doing some street photography with a little five mega dude.

But in dig, cam has almost no mechanical parts. It's a bunch of solid state components. It's a bit of chips. So how do you how do you actually repair that? Or or can you like what does that look like?

Yeah, the value with us doing that typically is that we can source new batteries for them. We can get new memory part or some of them like smart media and you can only get like vintage cards. Um and we put together the entire kids.

We do all the testing on them. But yeah um typically if it's not working, there's you um can figure out the board that's not working on IT. And if you have a replacement one you can swap on um but you you do a lot of swap rather than an actual repairs. And in some ways that makes IT easier in other the way that makes IT miserable.

Yeah you get to a certain time frame with circuit board where you you can fix on their preparation and going try to go remake the board, which is almost never going to be luca. Personally, we have like a huge demand um definitely like just kind of making IT an easy experience for someone to get into.

I think cam quarters is another one is like profound dly confusing to people like very simple to record on V H S digitize that this is not as simples, like plugging something, do some things you need. You need a lot of stuff. So um kind of giving people the tools they need to take on some of these hobbies.

I will say though, like what has happened historically for us is that's how we've started with a product like disco cameras. And I like all the broken ones, just get like stored and stored. We like our holders and keep everything.

And then suddenly something comes up where we can fix one key thing that often fails or decide to manufactures something that solves the problem. But because we have so much like dead stock sitting here, uh, then IT becomes viable. So we hang on to a lot of that .

stuff and yeah and we try out category when he goes into a are LED storage as we we can look at a spare cheat and say, well, gosh, we have three thousand units that i'll have this broken part on IT um and if we simply remade this there, we sell them at a hundred dollars of peace and you know they cost example t dollars to remake this part in all this time to to repair IT.

Then now suddenly it's a viable um endeavor for us to reverse engineer remanufactured r certain components. So we've done that many times on products um as well where there's just one, one thing that continues to fail and it's the best in the worst of the same time. Um it's the best when you get to the finish line and you have the replacement component. It's the worst when you're trying to actively repair them and you consistently asking yourself why we even sourcing in the thing that can that always has this one thing that goes wrong because then you can simply swap out stuff. Uh, you you can really bring your your lost down until you have a replacement component for IT.

Uh, did did you say five thousand units in in stock? Is that is that actually what some of your stock of these items look like?

I mean important because that players, yeah we probably have a couple thousand um uh that I yeah I mean, you have to source all .

a lot of these .

only that is crazy oh so yeah .

it's fun to go digg back in our story like open a bus stuff yeah .

so much of that .

the sports walk are notoriously of noxious to work gone and we kind like those up to the side deal later. Some really cool stuff .

um in storage .

that either you don't have enough time for or um you don't have the replacement components for where our team is working on. So sunnis really frustrated and that it's like every time they made uh, a portable concept player, IT was like they made one new and like didn't like iterate or you know even just simply like add a couple more components to something, it's like a whole new player.

So you have a couple you might have five that kind of share similar parts um but a lot of them um it's like that part belonged to that line specifically and if you IT makes IT really hard to say, well we need new motors for these and um uh we have five thousand of these portable accept players in in storage with bad motors lutches by five thousand motors oh the minimum order quantity ten thousand okay well whatever will O D ll need to at some point but they're not all the same mode. They're you might have fifty, sixty, seventy promoters that you need to um yeah yeah and we'll have different space on the lobes for them. So IT, it's it's not even just as simple as darling in the speeds on them. Um it's it's space constraints and that yeah the are complicated. Polar cameras.

on the other hand are like they're so modular. They were designed to just change like the external like cosmetic appearance, but the internals largely stay the same and yeah and made IT really easy for us to reverse engineer .

the external moldings. We are the entire point of the lord camera is to sell the film. Um uh so it's like making a printer. You just your selling IT at cost or even at a loss so that you can sell the film. So there is no reason for them in the like eighties and nineties to keep keep yeah developing anything past uh just new other houses on them um and just modifying things as as needed but yet they're very very modular and A A very nice uh product to start with uh uh in terms of just building our experience with putting together a build materials and um um we ve verse engineering boards and figure out how to let things out in ego and um yeah so that experience and kind of catapults into some of these other products.

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family yoletta's aces from decoder with the we spend a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech can hire away cofounded ers? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than you'll hear all that and more this month, i'm decoder with the litel presented by strike. You can listen to decoder wherever you get your podcast.

Welcome back to the way foreign podcast you're catching us need interview with korean adam from retrospect. Um this next part of the conversation is really interesting. We get down and dirty with how a lot of this stuff is repaired.

We talk about the difference between repairing a film camera or a walkman, which has lots of mechanical parts, versus repairing and early two thousands point and shoot digital camera, which is almost all ics, that if you can't track down, that gets really tough. We also talk about the differences between refurbishing and repairing, which they consider two different tasks. And finally, we talk about the big, giant forty person Operation they have going on there.

And I really hope eventually, not that were gonna a be going into the rocking anytime soon. Of that I know, but if we are there, consent, constant fear, the deer. But one of the cool parts that they are sort of casually dropped dings.

Part of the interview is that they have some cold storage where they keep products that have either not been repaired or are not listed on the website yet. And they said they had tens of thousands of Walkers. Well, they have a warehouse with tens of thousands of Walkers.

This Operation, like you think a reta tack, is being like a really niche hoppy. And in the scale that korean adam have built, their business too is like really remarkable. So I hope you guys enjoy this last leg of the interview and without further a do, i'll pass IT back to korea.

So clearly, you guys are working on a really broad array of tech that you're bringing back to life. Um and as we've been getting ready for this interview around the office, everyone has been begging me to ask you guide some right to repair questions. What I ve been hesitant to do so because A I don't want to you know put you guys in the line of fire of any tech companies.

I'd be IT. IT doesn't seem a hundred percent relevant to what you guys do. But I am curious, do you feel like modern day contemporary tech is actually more difficult to repair than the stuff of yesteryear? Because some of the things that you're describing just sound like a nightmare to fix. You .

know .

like yeah but I don't know the right. Like I would say for sure, stuff today is harder to fix and the fix is that .

we're doing they're easier in the sense that ideally you can find um a replacement of board uh from a manufacturer and just replace IT uh or you can go to the company's website by the component or you can bring IT into an authorized dealer that has access to those replacement components. But as soon as you don't have those replacement boards available. There's not a whole lot you can do with a lot of that tuck in from our vantage point.

Um there maybe people are there much more sophisticate than we are that maybe think otherwise and believe in and otherwise from or a vantage point where we're sitting right now. There they're both. They pose their their unique chAllenges, their own way. We're just more comfortable in the space outwear and we have the course doing IT.

which you know IT almost feels crazy to say out loud, right? Like one of the guy, the things you guys sell, refurbish ed on your sider, our VCR. For people that don't know what I would assume, as most of our audience has not opened up their V C R or even knows V C R, A V C R head is a drumm at a very specific angle that spinning at eight hundred hundred R P M. And if IT is even one or a tenth of an rpm off from that speed, you have no picture like like the these are literally does not work and IT sound IT IT feels crazy to say out loud like yes, it's easier to maintain that system of mechanical system of perfection that IT is to just have more chips. But for some reason, that is the that is the world we've found ourselves in today.

Yeah I think a lot of those uh products were designed to be opened up. They're easy to open often and their design to be served. Um and people that clearly did IT and made careers of service tvs and service technology like that have had the pleasure of meeting some of those guys typically ally that you've done that and seeing their workshop what they're doing and deciding if that's right for us.

You need to bring on some of that repair capability. Yeah some of the very dangers do open C R. teeth. That is just something not we are not doing that once we have set our that stock that .

we've found there in the fact that I have to go one that is so yes, also I actually I I should say that before I heard someone don't any electronic that you don't know you're doing, but especially the the big three guitar amp grs washing machines don't open IT even if they're unplugging. You can extricate yourself to death even if they're unplugged. Anyway, sorry, I did not mean intercept to you.

but thank you. I think, yes. P. S, A, make sure everyone's getting the right message here. And some of the smaller electronics plur Cameron has disaster on the flash board and I don't remember the volto job in, but it's uh dangerous and you have a lot of training to make sure people handle them safely. So yeah for sure cool.

Well, i'm glad that you started talking about the people because um the thing that first may be convinced, ed, I had to interview you as when I was on your website and I had the about thing and I saw that you guys have like twenty five employees. Do I have that right?

It's actually more we are so bad about of doing that page I checked before we helped on and it's forty, which is so cool. We feel so lucky to work with cool people, you know but we're here every day um we are all working the same building. There's there's people in this room with this train now just working about their jobs. Um yeah forty people that .

is incredible. That's more people than we have working here. Um I like we have about fourteen ish people here and i'm always like, dam, we're so big so what what tell me about how this stuff is comprised is IT like you guys running the show and then you have thirty eight repair people.

Do you have like a small team of business people? Is that mostly people on the business sign and then a small of hair team? What is what's a look at like.

What did you come up with?

Yeah we were looking at the the list before the the call there is about do you say there's ten people in the stream or like yeah in the office that kind of office positions um and then there's thirty people that work on the floor. But within a the factory space, there's customer service and um a fulfilment. And we have the team that's the same team um and we do that strategically to prevent burnet um so that people are not just answering customer service questions all day every day that they can get up, move around um a touch grasp ah you know just uh we warrant to to to life and not have to always be um in front of computer screen and you know in customer service you deal with the most enthusiastic people and some of the uh most difficult people in their is sometimes feels like very little in between um so to have that team do um the filming and not have our fulfilment b elsewhere and it's hard to have a fulfilment elsewhere in addition because there are so many ones and tues um of of products, there's I think the last time we counter, there's over ten thousand skills um on our site. So that's .

because there are so many one. I am I supposed to to our instagram today like A W W F thirty five thousand. I'm gonna one of those. There is only one. We're not going to restock IT and then that you lives on .

top of I forever, right? But you you simply can't you can send that all to a third party fulfillment center uh and expected to be affordable um or done as as well as we believe we can do IT here and making care that people get the right items um under uh that IT all comes together. It's such so so that that takes um I don't know that's five .

to seven people that .

work on customers. I think it's about twenty people that work on the repair and refurbishment and ten specific text that only work on the repair because outside of the repair, you have all the quality inspections. Um you have things like that. Six seventy cameras have others on them that need to be taken off because that's how you access all the the hard word to take the camera part um and has bunch glow on and you call off my hand, publish all chrome and clean and pain in the rear. Um so there's a lot of supporting um uh individuals that work on the testing and cleaning repair pair both packager yeah packaging yeah so when you are .

adding to your big family at retrospect h specifically in the repair department, are you finding people who somehow already have all of these random skills or you guys have like a training program as part of retrospect CT.

we rely heavily on our training program and really believe if the passion is there, we can train most of thly. We've had some highball ackrill knowledge to the table, especially early on one of our first tires, brian, or had a repairs. Incredible like you very interval building this business with us and really invested in learning how to repair the complex polar IT cameras and is like britain his own their top secret but like repair books are like giant and we use internally to train out.

Um but as we've uh grown, certainly, I mean, it's always interesting to we've got very good luck in rounds, firing people with action, who and general passion curing and and there is something to be said sometimes it's those people who are passionate that are kind of coming with the blanks like that take really well to some of our method um which is always mindful of productivity. Unfortunate as one must be in a business, you may you can spend six hours repairing the same thing, uh, you blow through your profit margin. So we we try to maintain a nice baLance of productivity and quality ah and I think bringing people in who don't have experience repairing take Better to that sometimes might be over the ation .

yeah yeah and we have where actually look at that too because we don't pay a ton of attention to IT. Um but it's actually fifty fifty male to fee male ration and the repair technicians as well.

And traditionally, when we put up a repair technician jobs, it's I don't know that we've ever had a woman uh apply uh to that uh position and there is no reason that you know that yes skills likes they are all the same um across uh whatever you identify as for gender。 And um yeah so I I think that also keeps a really nice baLance for the company as a whole. And um a lot of our most of our repair technicians start as referred technicians.

So they have a year to experience before they go into the repairs. So they really know the products will thank you. Can you explain .

what the difference between what a referred technician does and what a repair technician does?

I think not worth explaining. And I think we couldn't use IT internally um differently. We comprise refurbished the cosmetics cleaning ones of IT. And making IT cosmetically acceptable is repairing that the typically the person polishing IT isn't the person who is fixing the actual a problem yeah actually .

when it's been repared， if it's a internal clean ss, that repair technician needs a clean IT um but so much of the the attack is is really dirty and really gross and IT IT takes us A A long time to clean IT up.

And um you want technicians that really have a passion for that are detail oriented and they they called over really nicer for then repair technicians and often there these the referred technicians are also doing uh, the quality test after the repair has been done or the trio git before IT goes to repair and ready notes for the repair technician of like what's wrong with IT. So there's often a lot of desire to learn because I know the symptoms um the uh of something when it's going wrong, but they don't have the final solution of how to solve IT. Um so this there's a lot of added drive that uh gets put into that then then you just popped in a seat and kind of fix this and you don't know why IT matters. So that has been a really um um interesting development in our learning as just two kids that are run in the company and trying to figure out how to uh exciting, motivate and hire .

the right people that sounds so fulfilling just of the outside like like you know cleaning and polishing and and making a product feel nice and and and giving love to a product and that the same time wondering like but how are they going to fix that belt? And I wish I could, wish I could when you, i've spent a lot of time with the ninety percent ice propped in the cut. P mean, I know what IT takes a clean this stuff.

And you love IT when you when you've taken all the nobs off and you've clean in every previs you love the thing that you just cleaned and sort to hit would be so emotional, fulfilling. wow. Yeah yeah.

IT for the right people, they super enjoy IT. yeah. Well.

in the the repair process takes a long time to train someone. So typically, if we can start with a refer technician that we know they're going to be here for a while and they really love the company that they're in for. And you're not just having all that um effort that has gone into training, kind of go at the door um and have to restart that program all over again because for that sixteen repairs, it's a body year until someone's um proficient and uh doesn't need there were consistently checked in audited um because we we wanted to be right and we wanted get our um we repair uh percentages in our customer um uh service uh needs down uh all the time. We we look at those metrics s and we look at how to how to lower them constantly, make sure that the consumers haven't the best experience possible with the device at the vine do.

is that the same people that are repairing a relux oyster perpetual and are also repairing at a game boy color? Or do you need separate casts of characters to get the stuff done?

I love the jack to position the watch at our mechanical watches. We work with one of our bodies here. Key, who super cool, just just his name, he is, comes from a family.

His ads, Julia, he repair. So, so that's like a collaboration thing. We don't work and watches here, although how could we would need to clean room? I think IT is is very .

precise uh he actually has A A watchmaker that services of them so in Justin really focuses on the coin thirty forty thousand dollar watches um so he's he's kind of uploading his indian tory that he's like, well, these are cool. I really like these, but a it's not worth my effort to try to get a buyer for these. Um so we think that they go nicer on our site and uh really fit the entire um analog portfolio. Um so yeah but to get .

to the spirit of your question, cross over um there is cross over. I would say the polaroid repair people are a little more silly ode um just because like adam just said, for the S S seven folding cameras, the training time is OK year. Um so we utilize their talents and very specific products.

But ah a person who repairs as a type rider also works on a walkman, who works on an ipod. Like there's a lot of crossover and cross training, which I think gives a variety to the job too. Yeah if we can sometimes it's not possible or there isn't time or personal available for cross training. But IT is definitely a the goal to yeah .

to absolutely and I think IT just creates jobs satisfaction. Um where you work some variety doesn't feel like every day is exactly the same. Um you have people like you said, they fall in love with these products too and you know learns of the new and you fall back in love and you remember why you'd like coming to work every day. So um no have having that opportunity for technicians that um do really good work and have kind of graduated from the consistent audits from our head of repairs to learn other things is is is great. And then I create some redundancies for us.

What you don't want to have happen is you have one person that to do something and they get a really great opportunity elsewhere and they take IT and suddenly you need to start over um uh with the repair technician that doesn't know anything about that and you have no one to train them um or the person that was doing that day in the day out isn't around to give them that initial training. Um our hard of repairs of course can train someone but IT IT really is nice when you have a body that's right next to you working that you can ask questions um right away and I feel like you're interrupting. Someone a across the warehouse that when you have a question.

right? totally. So my last question about people might sound a little ridiculous, but I do mean IT. And I also I may have to explain some stuff because we've a lot of listeners who are not in the us. So if you're not in the us and you hear americans talking about the midwest, they are talking about a zone that no one has exactly the is defined that begin somewhere around ohio and and somewhere around aoa. Maybe is that on right to you guys I know is .

contain is definitely the mid .

definitely mss consent is arguably about as midwest as a gets and the middle st is history ally where things that were made in amErica got made america's auto industry is in the midwest um how huge amounts of american manufacturing historical has happened in the midwest? And so do you guys feel obviously the midwest is not the manufacturing hub at once was, but do you guys feel that retrospect could exist anywhere other than the midwest? And do you guys feel in what you do, you're actually you're still able to tap into that lining age present in the newest?

I love this question I think is super interesting. I think being in the midwest, help catch le our business having access specifically to injection molders. And I I won't say these locations necessarily known for injection molding, certainly pay per production, very key to this contain. So when we started making on packaging, working local manufacturer was really nice. And I think the world is only getting it's only getting easier to make stuff anywhere.

Um but for us new to manufacturing, being able to visit the factories where our tools were hung and molding parts and to see IT and to talk to the engineers and the business others who are making the stuff was really a key part of our learning. Um and while we don't, we do. Uh the polar d externals are still manufactured here and was gone and other things we manufactured elsewhere. But um I think he was a unique opportunity to be able to see IT in person. And yeah I I I think that was I think IT helped us being everywhere.

Yeah individuals are are very much I can to working with their hands. And um I think there's just it's a very blue color city mochi. Um so there is no shortage of of people that are willing and ready to work and want to work hard and are just create be around.

And I I think in that regard of like just the human resource system of just wait to work with people that you have, like in that you get along with and that um you can grow in the right direction with. That's been a really the middle has been a really great place for us. Of course, we don't know because we have been tried anywhere else. Um and you know I don't want to um thursday that any other state because i'm sure the other places would be great to work in as well. But there's some advantage there is also um we're not in the greatest like space for shipping around um whether or not we're importing or were shipping to california um which are a lot of our customers are in california, in new york um or um taxes.

So um the chicago orders are nice um but otherwise we're spending a different amount and ship um and while we really tried initially to have our products all made them in with contain and we did for many years have about think we're count in the miles um before this IT was like a twenty mile radius of everything was coming in um IT wasn't even the cost that drove us away from um using some the local bander is really about their ability to produce quality and consistency. Volume um and and sometimes not volume in the larger sense, volume. And we do a lot of small exclusives and it's it's hard to find someone that once even bother quoting out something.

If it's only five hundred units or two hundred units, uh they you can really get gobble up uh quickly and your pricing and make IT unaffordable for your buyer for uh the and consumer. Uh so unfortunately um not all of our stuff is still made in the us. Um and we do have to uh import uh some of IT. But uh whenever possible we we try to use U S uh suppliers and when uh on top that when possible we try to use uh, people in the markey metro.

Cool way, cool. I should have australia. You guys move to new waki for grad school. Did I have that right? Or did you move after grad school and something else brought you there?

Um we're both from a town in wisconsin called apple tin o is proba city isn't the city I don't know like to our north of here. So what to is home? We went to mesotrophic malarky .

for graduate school.

So this is this is still where our family is. Um yeah I mean I think the in terms of dreaming, like we love to do retrospect. L A retrospective new york try to make small versions we repair people can send in their own cameras and things of fat nature like have multiple locations but yeah for now this is woman were happy to bear.

Um I the second there's a retrospect in new york kicking down the um we talk a little bit about your guys is space because our last phone call you mention that you have how what was the square footage if you don't .

me asking fifteen thousand and then we have um a um uh a warehouse where we store you like this called storage items. So I canada stock inventory um of like our books of players we can do anything with at the moment um to stories, rather additional space that that can make sense for us um so yeah it's pretty decent size footprint um were like we could easily fill up thirty thousand like wouldn't be difficult whatsoever.

We're very tightly packed uh, right now. And um IT just comes down to where do we want to spend what little money we have? Do we want to spend on a building or do we want to keep developing products and iterating um our our devices and that that is where we decided to focus our time and attention on um and will just make the best out of the space we have a in in the meantime.

can people come visit you? Should they have a reason I believe on your website. I saw that you have my showroom now yeah .

we do um the space for renting now is set up for this little room in front where we show case some of our stuff, especially people we work with the local film lab to facilitate film processing because there are a little for the west and we're closer to the metro part of the city. But um that people can pick up their orders here. They can shop our little selection. They can shop online and get something pulled up from the back, and we do upon request tours available。 Not a great .

shop and experience I wouldn't .

like um we .

have a lot of work to do there. Um but if you if you ever are in the area and uh specially if someone knows that they couldn't be in the area they wanted to our I had people email um our customer service team before and if i'm not around course not around, someone else will give them our what we do with with people.

We are very private about what we did initially when we only had one buyer and I was polar red um IT is bt like we don't need to break about the business that we're getting. We don't need to we're not trying to sell to other people. Um so we're just quite business that just home along and and supply polar stuff.

Um and now since we are um h darted consumer and B2B uh and hav e man y oth er cus tomers and jus t pul led red, uh, we get to share what we do or we feel a like there's value and sharing what we do um and. Were so excited to to talk to people about IT and to uh show people around the space. So if is new listeners out there um in the middle said want to make a try about here or plan to come to monkey um feel free .

to joh that is so kind of you guys um I have a few more questions actually I think I just have one that two more questions and then weekend put a big on this the first one is um in in your words, according to your hearts, why is fighting this fight against obsolescence so important?

We talked about this a little bit before. I think I think we have similar answers too. I I think the next generation is very hungry for tangible experiences. Maybe this is an active answer, IT to obsessions, specific .

questions.

Well, okay, why is why is what we're doing important? You know and I I feel very defensive of jensie. Now jen alpha and people give him a hard time for king castiles, for king final.

Like how incredible to be well rounded and care about different formats or history or technology. There's so much incredible science behind some of the stuff like how final works super interesting when you really divide into the weeds of how IT works. Um you know we have this next generation growing up on screens where phones for fill all of those needs photography, music.

Um those are kind of the main ones and and there's a whole generation that's very curious about other formats. And we think that we can fill the void and eating, providing hopefully positive experience with this technology and just know sourcing and mass, giving someone a slightly different experience and finding IT on ebay and hoping IT works right. Yeah what our angle is um and yeah I as long as there's someone and there's by the way, we're not the only ones doing this.

I think our strategies to scale big, if possible, there's lots of small outfitters that are republishing and repairing things. There are other people making the set players and you know where friends with them too. We are wind is another one.

We going be working with them soon on something. They're technical, are competitors. But it's like the more the marrier right putting these products out there um and yeah I think we just want to be uh uh resource for people to have an analogue experience.

Yeah what I often think about is like leaches and I bet all of the concept um mass productions, not that all of the concept consumer electronics that old. We're still figuring out what's good and what's not. And I think for many years, we just let the wheel of capitalism decide. And uh, now there's just now the consumers are decided a little bit more and they're saying and and there's access to a lot more of the stuff, thanks to the internet. And I I think that gives an opportunity for us to live in both worlds.

And i'm gonna use my thirty five millimeter camera for every photo I take, but i'm gona use IT for some of the really special meaning moments in my life um and just like i'm not gona listen to every single album monk set um but you know if i'm at a concert and uh I I don't want to Carry around a record, uh it's much easy to support the artist byblus their cassar and you then have uh uh uh a souvenir from that that experience and then you also get to relieve that experience uh through uh tantia old media and I think that's great. Both can can exist um without conflict and and that's what's excited to me and we want to be uh uh at three points for people have that curiosity and um can not be that is welcoming, friendly midwestern company that uh is you're not not afraid to go in and ask silly questions. Um we've all started um by asking silly c questions and uh we we really welcome that and want to serve that population of of individuals, whether there a genta or baby boomers IT doesn't .

matter to us. Customer.

yeah well.

you know, I loved that answer so much for both of you. I think I think I just want to call IT there. I think I want that to be the sunset.

But before we do go, if people want to find you guys, where can they find you? What do you want people to click? What do you want people to know? This is your time to share anything that you would like to share.

thanks. Yeah retrospect dot com. We spell retrospect with A K at the end instead of a sea. Um we hang out on instagram the most sadly we have oh, we haven't really die dove into the tiktok world but maybe someday so instagram is where and honestly, I still do all of the D M. So um you can come talk to me there if you want to um yeah we have you know, if someone wanted to shop with us, IT would mean a lot if IT was on our actual you come sweet site retrospect to come you know we have some things up on the on amazon with .

a program going into into urban, the program going in to calls. Um so there are some some things that you might be able to find in your in city live in. But yes, certainly the the dcom would mean in a law to us.

Yeah, that's really .

great guys. Thank you so much for doing this. This was such a blast I cannot wait for.

This was just so grab and waiting for so long to have this conversation on the pocket. So thank you very much. Adam curry, retrospect dot com, go check that out. Um you will not be disappointed. Thank you as very much.

Thank you so much appreciated.

Hey, it's lee from decoder with the detail. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to, right, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech and not to acquire and instead license that can hire away cofounded ers? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month on decoder with the light of l presented by strike.

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