Chris Saunders (00:01.345)
Test in, test in, all coming through.

Frank (00:04.217)
Check, check.

Chris Saunders (00:05.367)
Sounds good. Perfect. Awesome.

Patrick Rami (00:05.398)
One, two, three, four, five, yep.

Chris Saunders (00:16.543)
Welcome to Nerdpreneur, where we have fun conversations with people making money with their nerdy passion. My name is Chris, and as always, I'm joined by my co-host, Frank. And today we have a very special guest for you. His name is Patrick Rami, and he's from Lethal Shadows Game. Welcome to the show, Patrick.

Frank (00:26.23)
Hello.

Patrick Rami (00:37.57)
Thanks for having me here.

Chris Saunders (00:39.617)
Well, Patrick, what is your nerdy passion?

Patrick Rami (00:44.644)
man, I tend to hyper fixate on different subject matters, right? So right now it's been to elevate what's available to our hobby, right? Giving us premium models, paints, tools, because we deserve it.

Chris Saunders (01:04.267)
And so you guys are the many people that you make miniatures, right?

Patrick Rami (01:08.088)
We do, that's what we started as and now we've kind of grown into fit certain gaps in the industry and in our hobby.

Chris Saunders (01:16.555)
Yeah, well, what stood out to me when I was starting to well, just going up to your booth at various cons, because we met at at PAX and and also was at ECC as well. Yeah, right. So we've yeah, we've been talking to you. You've been in a bunch of the cons that we've gone to. And you guys have really like you're not just an average mini place. You are of like premium minis, all different, like custom kind of cuts that are unique. And maybe you can tell us just like in short form, like what is

How do you sum up when people ask you what you do?

Patrick Rami (01:49.612)
Yeah, mean, the core of our business and our main focus obviously is miniatures. So we focus on elevating the miniatures available for folks to bring to their table, which should elevate their gameplay ideally and also make it more fun to paint them. We actually just heard recently in a show, someone came by and said, man, I have nothing to do with minis, but I really, these minis make me want to find something to do with minis.

So that's our core focus with the miniature side of things.

Frank (02:20.985)
completely agree. To someone who doesn't know or maybe doesn't paint that's listening, what sets your minis apart from other minis?

Patrick Rami (02:30.888)
it's going to be detail level. So a lot of miniatures are mass produced. every model that we produce is master grade and that that's just, that's not marketing slang for anything, right? That's truly an actual thing. So when you are doing injection molding, you have a master made, which is absolutely perfect in every way. You make your molds from that. But every time you do a pull from a mold, it degrades the mold and eventually you have to remake them. Right. So depending on how late.

your model is in a batch, you might get a much graded mold. Whereas ours are master grade every time. The process we make, we use to make our models is the same process we use to make masters for other companies that come to us for their injection molding needs, right? So you're getting a master grade model every single time. And we have in depth quality control measures to make sure that you're only the best makes it out the door. And that's really what people.

They can't put their finger on it. They're like, this is just amazing. can't, I don't understand why. And that's, that's what it boils down to.

Chris Saunders (03:37.589)
the quality, good, good quality manufacturing and, and clearly detail. That was what stood out to me was the details on your models were, were something that just stood out. And I used to do Warhammer. So I did some like model stuff. And I remember painting things painstakingly. And I was like, these would be fun to paint. Like you could actually get behind getting excited about painting these things because they're so detailed. Where did the passion for you kind of come in?

Were you a Warhammer person or something like that that got you into doing minis or how did you jump into that?

Patrick Rami (04:12.556)
Yeah, so first of all, huge shout out to our sculptors, right? I'm not a sculptor. Without them, we would not be where we are. We wouldn't have the raw materials to do what we do, right? So huge shout out to our in-house sculptors and huge shout out to the sculptors we license throughout the world. We have literally over 100 sculptors we work with all over the world. And without them, like I said, we would not be here. As far as my passion for miniatures, I always

Chris Saunders (04:33.28)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (04:41.134)
I always had a respect for folks that could do that, that could paint models and make them look that good at that small scale that could have the patience to stick with it. Right. So I always admired folks like that. And then what started this road was I was hosting a D and D game for our friends at home and I had bought a model off the shelf, just one of the big brands available. And when I put it on the table, they

couldn't figure out what it was, right? Was it an ogre? Was it a troll? Was it an orc? Like, what was it? And I'm like, man, we deserve better, you know? Like, this could be a lot better. And I looked at it more closely. It was like, there was flashing all around it. The weapon was bent. It was just not good. And it took a lot of work to try to paint it. And that got me into the 3D printing road. And I was like, well, just for fun, just for us.

I have a kind of scientific mind where I just keep pushing the envelope and keep trying to figure out why. Like not, okay, this just looks bad, but what makes it look bad? And then, okay, how can we change that? And little inch by inch, bit by bit, I hyper-focused for like six to eight months, buying numerous printers and then modifying them and then modifying the cleaning and curing process. And to the point where when I came out of it and I showed friends, they're like,

I would, this is worlds better than anything available right now. I would buy this in a heartbeat. And you know, I thought they're my friends. They're just being nice, right? They're blowing us one out. They're being nice. Like, sure. So we went to a local, my wife and I went to a local toy swap meet nearby, brought a tub of these models and we happened to find a booth from a local game store that had a booth there. And I was like, Hey guys, just want to get your opinion. Like, what do you guys think? You know?

And I happened to be talking to the owner and his right hand man, who's a huge, huge, minis fan, hates minis and plays with them all the time. And he's like, stop, I need to buy these from you right now. Like I need these personally. And he's like, yes, these are amazing. Come by the store. We'll chat about potentially carrying them or seeing what we can do with you. and sure enough. Yeah. Did it.

Chris Saunders (06:53.473)
So your nerd brain really got you going into this hyper focus of quality, right? like, I've heard, I don't know, I've heard that before with other guests that we've talked to where there's like this hyper focus on something that gets them to quality. Do you think that the nerd brain is like, it's, I've always felt if the nerd brain is targeted properly towards the right thing, it can be super valuable.

But if it's not targeted the right way, it could be very detrimental, like playing video games all the time, you know?

Patrick Rami (07:20.141)
Yeah.

Patrick Rami (07:23.57)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. it's interesting. you look at humans like to be generalists, right? We do a little bit of everything just well enough to survive, right? You cook, you clean, you take care of your wounds, right? You do repairs around the house just well enough to get by. If you take cooking, for example, we know it, we live it, we eat three times a day. You can cook at home.

Chris Saunders (07:36.747)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (07:51.224)
But if you really hyper-focus on that, and you're like, man, okay, there's a balance between acidity and fat and, you know, salt. so you start to push the envelope, right? You are now improving past what the average person would do and would even care to do at home. There's recipe books all over the world. There's recipe websites. There's, but people would rather go out to a nice restaurant and have this really nice meal, right? Or hit DoorDash, right? And have some deliver to their door.

Chris Saunders (08:15.305)
hit door dash.

Patrick Rami (08:19.882)
So same thing with our hobby space. 3D printers are readily available all over the world. As a matter of fact, we now sell our own resin because folks loved it, because we want to enable them to be able to do their own printing. But some of our biggest fans and customers have 3D printers of their own. They just don't want to bother having to learn how to master this and get it to that degree. Sure, you can print a mini at home, but...

Chris Saunders (08:47.339)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (08:48.28)
Will it be the same quality and caliber and do you want to bother with that? Right? So I think any focus, any passion you have, if you focus it deep enough down that rabbit hole, you will surpass what the average person wants to do or is willing to, wants to, right? And is capable of just because you focused. That's how we spend our time.

Chris Saunders (09:09.493)
Yeah, that's so interesting. we, I mean, if I remember Wishmaster saying the same thing about making beats, like this is a guy who was a Grammy nominated sort of, you know, a Grammy nominated, like award winning beat maker, worked with Nelly, all sorts of things like, and when he interviewed with us, he was saying, well, I used just lock myself in the basement and make beats. And I'd make like 16 to 20 beats in a day and just.

Patrick Rami (09:25.667)
Wow.

Chris Saunders (09:34.433)
hyper-focus, hyper-focus, hyper-focus, and all of a sudden after doing that for a long time, you wind up with this skill level that far surpasses where we initially were, where the average person would. And for him, it was learning how to use this software to create beats, right? For you though, you might be the Grammy winner of minis, right? If there were, I guess there are awards for painting and stuff like that, but in terms of design and using, say, 3D printing,

Patrick Rami (09:55.319)
No.

Chris Saunders (10:03.607)
to get to world class levels. You've done some of that heavy lifting, that heavy work to get there. That's awesome. That's what we look for is that nerd passion turned into a business. When you get started in your business, mean, if you're hyper focused on quality, good stuff, I've heard business is pretty hard too. Like it's not just about, I have this thing that I make here, buy it.

Patrick Rami (10:26.05)
you

Chris Saunders (10:31.755)
Where did you guys go to like turn pro from this being sort of, I make these for my friends, for our games. And now, you know, how did you go to this scale model where you're actually selling enough to be doing this full time, right? This is your main gig.

Patrick Rami (10:44.59)
Yeah, is. It's pretty interesting kind of how that happened. We were very small and we were looking to do Emerald City Comic Con for the first time. 2020 was supposed to be our very first convention and we had begged and just geeked into a small six by eight beginner booth. We were going to have one table, maybe 10 different miles on the table and like a couple little signs and that's it. And then maybe a little cash box, right?

We've all seen those booths and I love those guys takes a lot of courage to be out there and a lot of work to be out there and make a few bucks. We had everything ready. We had some friends lined up. We had some t-shirts made and obviously COVID hit and Emerald City Comic Con that year did not cancel until 10 days before the show. So yes, so it was a blow. Everyone was deflated. I had already left my job. It was rough and we were all really worried.

Chris Saunders (11:31.487)
really?

Frank (11:31.636)
Jesus.

Patrick Rami (11:43.764)
It was a fork in the road. know, do you turn back and hightail it back to a cubicle and work that nine to five that's secure with this impending pandemic coming? Or what we chose to do was we believed in it. We hunkered down and we focused, once again, we hyper-focus on the areas you do have access to. We didn't have access to conventions, so we couldn't do that.

But we did everything else. We worked on our website. We worked on our logistics in the background. We tore down and rebuilt our garage or took her garage to make it into a full service laser shop. I designed our booth from scratch and we're ready to come back. And now 2021, Emerson Comic Con is supposed to be in March. We were told, hey, we're to do a show in November.

Nobody was there. No big names. Nobody it was vacant. So once again, you kind of you strike one when you can and I said, okay, how about this? I will take a larger booth at 10 by 20 double corner much larger booth but I Get first right refusal going forward in perpetuity Until I I don't and they were like sure whatever you want. Come on in. We've got nobody let's go

Chris Saunders (13:08.087)
Wow. So this means you always got first choice of the prime real estate in the future. Just so people understand what you just said there, because I know when you say it like that, it's like a very inside term. essentially, when negotiating with ECC, right, you were like, hey, in perpetuity, this prime location with large amount of space, I get first rights, refuse that, and then I or at least first choice to pick it right.

Frank (13:08.202)
in perpetuity.

Patrick Rami (13:10.103)
Yeah.

Chris Saunders (13:35.255)
and before anyone else who comes in. if Wizards of the Coast comes in and says, I want that booth, they got to check with Patrick from Lethal Shadows before. That's a great negotiation. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Patrick Rami (13:44.046)
Yeah, so we basically can't, yeah, so you can't be pushed out, right? So we're okay with kind of being shifted around a little bit, but we're never going to lose that 10 by 20. And we've since then expanded it to a 20 by 20. So we were only able to secure that because of where we were. So while everybody was running and scared about not being able to make their money back, I saw it as an investment we're buying into the future of these little shadows at our local show. So now they're back to being completely full and having a wait list, right?

Chris Saunders (13:53.185)
Yeah.

Patrick Rami (14:14.03)
So had the 2020 show gone through normally, right, and COVID not happened, we would probably still be stuck in a 10 by 10 inline at best and not been able to grow. So that was an opportunity that showed itself. We really made the best of it.

Frank (14:30.499)
How did you navigate? Because you, what you just distilled was a moment of seeing an opportunity and just saying, hey, I'm going to take a shot at it. What was that process like for you? Were you aware of it? Was it just kind of shot in the dark?

Patrick Rami (14:49.954)
Well, you've got to have situational awareness, right? Like with anyone that plays a stock market, you're not just looking at the stock you're targeting. You're looking at the whole market. You're looking at world events. You're looking at how other people on human nature, right? How people are likely to react. So looking at the lineup of people that had listed for that year, it was nothing. was like, it was out of season. was November instead of March. People were still very afraid of COVID. None of the big names were.

coming, were mass mandates. So I knew that they would be hurting to get anybody in. And I knew they were trying to not miss two years. They missed 2020. And if they didn't do a show in November, they would miss 2021 as well. So it'd be two years in the books and zero. So I knew that I had all the leverage in the world and not only did we get that deal, but we also got a discount on the booth because it wasn't going to be a super big show. And since then,

ReapPop and Emocly Comic Con have been great partners. Last year we did the paint and tape with them and we've really grown together in that community.

Chris Saunders (15:56.279)
Yeah. Well, I'm sure they appreciated you sticking with them because nobody else did. A lot of other places, that's why they were suffering, right? And so the loyalty is rewarded. And I think that's what's very cool about people in that time period was there was, mean, there are certain restaurants that I remained loyal to during that time because I did not want them to close, you know? And I think that when you do that and when that happened, you know, we have a lot of

Frank (16:16.589)
That's right.

Patrick Rami (16:18.67)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Saunders (16:25.867)
We have a lot more quality places that have really stuck with it, that relationship that you've built. You mentioned cons, maybe we can go in that direction of some of the keys to cons, because you've done, well, the first thing I wanted to talk about, you mentioned that you, in your story, had a corporate job, cubicle, right? And that you left that anticipating going to cons. And very commonly, nerdpreneurs use that leap into cons as their foundation.

for making money and going after it for that amount of time. And there's two philosophies when you start a business. There's this kind of burn the boats and go after it and like jump right in. It sounds like you kind of had that mentality. And then we have other people that they kind of keep their job until they have some savings and they kind of iterate back and forth between options and test and test and test until they finally get to a place where they can feel confident leaving that job. Do you have an opinion on which of those is better?

Patrick Rami (17:24.002)
Yeah. Yeah. Those are certainly two viable strategies, right? Nothing I'm about to say means that the other strategy is not viable. It is for sure viable. And it's all about what risk people can stomach. just like entering any sort of investment, you're stomaching a certain amount of risk. The less risk you stomach, the less likely to have huge gains in the short term, but it's safer. Right. me personally, anyone that knows me for any length of time knows that I'm

go big or go home type of guy. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. And if I believe in something, then I believe in enough to take the leap. So we were going for that leap. We were going for shows in a big way. We were already planning on booking other events later in the year. Those obviously weren't as impactful because we had a bigger lead time to cancel. But yeah, was certainly a leap.

It was scary and anyone that tells you otherwise is not telling the truth. Even now where everyone sees as an established brand as a household name, it's still scary. Sometimes you kind of have those weird dry seasons, right? We'll have like two days where not a single order comes through and you're like, what is broken? What's happening? What's going on? Right. And then, and then like a flurry of orders come through and it's, it's because, you know, payday was a little odd or

it was tax season or whatever it is, right? There are these elements that kind of put a cloud over our business momentarily, but you just gotta just, just focus, just keep doing the best you can, keep focusing on your core tenants, right? And then that will lead you through it.

Frank (19:05.641)
Speaking of this fear, you mentioned a moment ago about when COVID hit and you had already made all of this planning, how do you manage, how do you navigate that kind of fear when the rug is pulled out from under you?

Patrick Rami (19:23.374)
Yeah, you have to be aware of it, right? You have to be aware of it. You don't want to entirely stick your head in sand. You've got to... Fear is interesting. Fear is a warning system built into us and we don't always know why, right? So first step is identifying why. Is what am I afraid of? Exactly what is concerning me. Okay, now I've put a name to it. I've identified it.

How can I mitigate it? How can I prepare for it? And you do that as best you can. And sometimes you can't do anything, right? All you can do is keep doing the best you can. And instead of sitting there and stressing, not sleeping, right? Biting your nails, not eating well, getting ill, that just adds to your problems. You start focusing on something positive, on doing something impactful, whether it be for yourself, the community, or the business, right? And...

I'm telling you solutions present themselves. They really do. And worst case scenario, you've got to have a plan, a contingency for a worst case scenario, whether it be a small fund, the money set aside, whether it be, you know, a backup skill that you can go back to. Like during the early days, IT is my background. I did some freelance IT work, you know, in some dry areas here and there just to pad our numbers a little bit.

but fear is going to be there. You have got to understand it. You have got to embrace it and then you've got to push through it. Right? Like uncertainty is human nature.

Chris Saunders (21:07.079)
And being, you can only really be brave when there's fear present, right? And so that's the, least that's what the old hero adage is, is that it's actually important to experience the fear and go past it. And I think also we mentioned there just identifying what it is exactly, because sometimes we don't know. And it's, you just said it casually, but I really think that's important because sometimes what we're really afraid of

is very internal. It's not even out there. It's not even the outside. Cause right. It's, really like, I look foolish. Or I told all those people I was starting something and then nothing happened and they failed. Like these are the kind of entrepreneurial fears when you put yourself out there. I wanted to ask, do you have a, did you have like a support network around you or did you have other entrepreneurs that you got to talk to or, or, or were, would maintain that inspiration during those times or?

Frank (21:37.613)
Tell me about it.

Patrick Rami (21:42.36)
Yeah, yep.

Patrick Rami (21:49.122)
Yes.

Chris Saunders (22:02.705)
hold you accountable in some ways because I know that's helped other people before is having a good community.

Patrick Rami (22:06.466)
Yeah, it's interesting. I have had an entrepreneurial streak in me for a long time. It started when I was in high school. There was a business program called Virtual Enterprise where you in the classroom, you would have a role in different departments, know, marketing, accounting, auditing, HR, the whole nine, and you would learn the inner workings of a company. Just to have a...

a basic understanding of what an org chart is. What is the difference between a VP and a manager and what is the difference between marketing and sales and accounting, right? So I always had that drive and ironically, my teacher during that time was a mentor of mine, lifelong mentor and friend. We kind of had kind of a separation. We didn't talk for a long time and we haven't really reconnected.

And I reached out during that time, like, hey, let's just, let me bounce some ideas. Let me chat. And, he kind of was unresponsive and I'm sure it was dealing with his own things. Right. So I kind of had the net kind of pulled out from under me where that, that, network of help was not available. and I just, you kind of fall back on your knowledge, right? Like you've got to squash that imposter syndrome. Like you've got to be, you've got to be able to rally yourself.

just introspectively think about it, you know, I'm smart, I am capable. People have paid me a lot of money to do IT work and I can pick up intellectually speaking, I pick up ideas very quickly and I have a good understanding and grasp of things very quickly. So reminding myself of this and helping me remember that I've got the tools at my disposal to make these decisions for myself.

without acknowledgement from anyone else. I don't need it. And you need to be self empowered and self driven sometimes. And I'm very grateful that I was able to do that. But you've got to remember that imposter syndrome is very real and that everyone, everyone feels it. Everyone goes through it. You name the most successful person you think exists in the world. They have had it or have it currently. Right. And I think that if you don't have imposter syndrome at some point in your life, there's something

Patrick Rami (24:30.548)
not quite right there, right?

Chris Saunders (24:31.863)
You might not be growing or doing something hard, right? Because the first step to becoming good at something is usually being real bad and pretending that you're good at it, right? Like, at least trying to give yourself the belief that you can do it. But that's, you got to believe in yourself, like what you said. And that's, really glad we got to that because I think the listeners, people might be aspiring to be entrepreneurs or are entrepreneurs right now in the nerdy space, they...

Patrick Rami (24:42.156)
Right.

Chris Saunders (24:59.777)
They're going through that. Like they have gone through that. I guarantee it. what, I'm like in your first few years, you know, well, let's say once you start, I know what are some of the lessons that you would pull from those first few years if you were to go back and talk to yourself and say, Hey, what would you do differently? for those first couple of years in business to grow faster, maybe

Patrick Rami (25:02.606)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (25:15.672)
Hmm.

Patrick Rami (25:20.141)
Yeah.

I would say plan for success, right? A lot of people plan for failure and they end up having to redo work and spend more money and repurchase things. Right. what I mean by that specifically is, for example, when I designed our website, I planned and designed the site in a way that we would be able to have a hundred thousand minis or more on the site. So

It was very difficult to set up the infrastructure to support that early on. people were like, why are you, why do you only have 15? Right. You could list that in 10 minutes if that and then be done, but it's not scalable. Right. We, we aren't ready to capture success if the success comes knocking on the door. So you've got to plan for success and you've got to think, okay, what if I was doing 10 fold or a hundred fold work, you know,

Chris Saunders (25:57.943)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (26:18.572)
Would that still work? Is it scalable? And you can't always scale up to the max, right? We didn't buy $100,000 printing machines on day one, but the things you can scale early or prepare for scale early at no additional cost or very minimal additional cost, do it. Be ready for it, right? And capture those things. Believe in yourself enough to, instead of doing month to month hosting costs, buy the three-year plan that has a

50 % discount whatever it is pay for that upfront now you've got those savings built in and you're now likely to be grandfathered into that pricing for the future

Chris Saunders (26:56.503)
And there's also like a level of just commitment that you're giving yourself there too around like one big shift in my first business ever was not thinking in terms of month to month, cause I was struggling to pay my rent at the end of the month, my commercial rent. And instead making the commitment, I'm going to be here for three years. And when you started thinking that way, it shifted everything in your mind towards where your opportunities were, because maybe an opportunity working with ECC this year isn't

Patrick Rami (27:00.973)
Yeah.

Chris Saunders (27:26.633)
isn't available, but you were thinking long-term like three years, four years from now, this is going to be an incredible advantage for us to have this booth and do all this, right? And so the ability to think longer term in business, just that horizon line. yeah, buy the cheaper package because it does up your commitment, I guess too, right? You're thinking longer term that way. Sorry, Frank, go ahead.

Patrick Rami (27:49.186)
Yeah, absolutely.

Frank (27:53.141)
Yeah, no, it's a great point. You mentioned the idea of investing thinking for the long term and this reminds me of another common topic of what it and I would like to know your what is your opinion on investing in the self? So sometimes small businesses, you know, they're like, I don't a common one I've seen is I don't want to invest in Adobe, you know, and that whole like all of the things that it goes with. But it's also like, well, but then shouldn't I be investing in myself, though?

Patrick Rami (28:15.246)
you

Sure.

Patrick Rami (28:22.744)
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great point. your tools are key, right? You could have all the skill and talent you want, but if you're using inadequate tools or just the wrong tool altogether, you can eventually get there, but it took you a lot longer. The end product may not be as good, right? And you certainly can't scale with that. So investing in self, whether it be software or even classes or, certifications,

or just one-on-one training that you can hire someone to have with you to kind of get you started. those things are going to be invaluable. Mind you, there are a lot of scams out there, right, for classes and whatnot. So you want to avoid that. You want to look at the credentials the individual has and what success they've had, right? But you want to invest in yourself and your tools. We didn't go out there buying hundred thousand dollar printers when we started, but you also didn't buy the cheapest printer available.

You kind of weigh that out and get through the marketing jargon and actually look at, okay, what is an impactful difference? Right? I don't care that the cover on this printer is extra shiny and finger proof, it doesn't give me a better print. So cut through the marketing BS and look at what is impactful to the end product and to your quality of life while you're using it.

Frank (29:46.007)
Yeah, the marketing BS is real. It's funny that you point that out to me because I work in marketing, but it's, you know, finding that, that important line of what is a real feature and benefit versus what just sounds cool. One small example that I always find hilarious. work, my day job is in the construction industry. I will tell you every tool out there, every toolbox has an ergonomic grip.

Patrick Rami (30:13.046)
Right, yeah.

Frank (30:14.199)
What the hell does that r- I know what it means means, but like, how is that a differentiator? It's no longer a feature anymore.

Patrick Rami (30:18.126)
Sure.

Patrick Rami (30:22.894)
Yeah, and you'll learn to spot, there's gonna be buzz terms that come up, right? One we saw a long time ago was HD. All of a sudden everything was HD, right? So yeah, it was HD. This is HD drill, right? have, you have, so it's like HD fan, like, okay, they're just throwing the term out there because it's a commonly used term. Then it was 3D, right? 3D this, 3D that, 3D drill, 3D fan, like, so.

Chris Saunders (30:31.383)
High definition, yeah.

Chris Saunders (30:37.335)
Yeah.

Frank (30:37.401)
Hahaha

Chris Saunders (30:45.996)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (30:52.352)
AI, now it's AI. AI this, this fan has AI, this drill has AI. Like you'll see these buzzwords and don't let them fool you, right? Get to the nitty gritty and see what the pros are using.

Frank (30:54.84)
Right?

Chris Saunders (30:55.413)
Yeah.

Frank (31:07.587)
That's a fair point, yeah, see what the pros are using.

Chris Saunders (31:11.735)
So how is your business now functioning as far as is it really con heavy or is there stuff you do with like online sales that is the majority like how does it work now? Because I know cons were how you kind of got started and built it but what is it now?

Patrick Rami (31:29.006)
Yeah. we've, we've always, so technically we started online first, but that's a tough hill to climb because unless you're on, on Etsy or you're on Amazon or you're on, something else, we specifically see it off of those platforms. We've just had our sites. It's a very, very tough hill to climb. will let everyone listening know, Amazon will get you a ton of foot traffic, but they will take 50, 55, 60 % of your profit. Etsy will get you a bunch of foot traffic, but now you're competing with the race to the bottom.

Chris Saunders (31:32.606)
Okay.

Patrick Rami (31:57.422)
cheapest prices and they're still going to take 30 % for your profit. So your website is going to be the best investment you can make it to yourself. However, you are now competing against Etsy and Amazon and everything else for foot traffic and attention. So in my opinion, it's worth building your own brand, your own website. It's going to be a slog. It's going to take literally years to get actual natural traffic happening, organic traffic happening. but in my mind, it's worth it, right? We're not on Amazon. We're not.

on any other platform. So that was our first start. Then we went into conventions and doing shows and that's been a huge boon, right? It's a two-prong attack. You do sell, sales are good, and you do a lot of marketing. People actually get to learn and see you and talk to you and it's a personal touch, right? For our product, our product is very tactile product. Anyone can show you renders of a model.

That's problem with Etsy. Every single listing has a render of a model, but what does it look like? What does it feel like? How durable is it? Does it have to be cleaned up afterwards? Right? We do all the post cleaning ourselves. So what happens is at a show, people will pick up the mini and be like, wow, this looks amazing. Wow. This is easy to assemble. Holy smokes. This is flexible and durable. There's actual it's heavier because of the density of our resin.

those things for us are invaluable. cannot, we can't show that through the internet. And because there's so much marketing BS going on, if we say the words, just flow right over, right? Doesn't mean anything. Everyone's overstimulated and saturated.

Chris Saunders (33:43.639)
Do you guys do like when people buy from you do you collect customer info as far as you know emails and things like that so that when you come out with new collections you can let people know that kind of thing and drive more online sales outside of the live events or is that

Patrick Rami (33:59.906)
Yeah, so on our website, anytime you sign up for the newsletter or sign up for the site or you make a purchase, we have you kind of added to the mailing list. Obviously, everybody can opt out. By law, you have to follow the I can't spam laws. But yeah, we also make sure not to abuse our newsletters. At most, we will send one a month.

Chris Saunders (34:12.951)
course,

Patrick Rami (34:27.15)
because we don't want people to just glaze over and because of that we have a high open rate and we have a high click through rate. If you abuse your readers, right, your customers, they're just going to delete it without even opening it. But we only make a newsletter whenever we have a substantial announcement to make, only once a month, if that's once every two months. So we are, we see it as a very valuable resource, a very valuable one to build up and to not abuse.

You also don't pay for email lists. Don't buy those. Those are the worst.

Frank (35:02.711)
No.

Chris Saunders (35:04.595)
No, they're not. They're not good. That's like instant deliverability death to it'll kill it'll like if you get caught spamming some of those, it'll be it'll it'll it'll it can kill your business. So.

Patrick Rami (35:06.934)
Yeah, we get offered that all the time.

Yeah.

Patrick Rami (35:18.466)
Yeah, it does. could blacklist your domain as well. So you won't even get mail out. As for shows, we do not capture emails from attendees. That is a service offered by most conventions where you can pay three to $5,000 to get a list of people going to your booth. Specifically speaking, how that works is they can't sell an email list. It's not with the rules.

Chris Saunders (35:20.811)
Yeah, exactly.

Chris Saunders (35:48.087)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (35:48.3)
So what they do is they give you a device that when everybody comes to the booth and they check out, can scan their badge to enter a contest or whatever, right? A gift contest and a raffle. Now that's something else. They then take that and harness those emails and give them to you. So as an exhibitor, it sounds tempting. We've considered it, but it feels disingenuous, right?

So instead we have QR codes that you can scan and sign up for our newsletter there. It's more organic. You know you're doing it. You're aware of it. Once again, we try to be the good we want to see in our

Frank (36:28.545)
You were talking about, there's several things here, but the first thing I wanna ask is finding a balance in communicating with your audience. How do you do that?

Patrick Rami (36:41.868)
Yeah, we are. That is a daily struggle. So, and what I mean by that is we have a lot of initiatives. have a lot of things going on between updates to the site, new product releases, QC for our everyday sales, prepping for conventions, wholesale partnerships. So I am, I am at the nexus of that, of everything there. And it, we have tried hiring people to manage,

our online platform, social media manager, and it is so difficult to find a good, a very good social media manager who understands the brand, the voice. It's not cheap and it's very hard. So we've not found them, we've tried a few, they haven't worked out. So now we, wife and I, are the voice of lethal shadow. So whenever you see a post, it's usually her and we kind of chat it over, make sure it's good and it goes out.

So it's very difficult. So right now, one of our weaknesses is our social media presence. We do not harness, we don't leverage it. We have a lot of followers. So we don't leverage it as much as I would like to. However, I do think that a positive of that is that people aren't burnt out from seeing our stuff. And whenever we do put something out, we have a lot of reactions to it. We have a lot of traction to it. So I'm really grateful for that.

Frank (38:04.609)
Yeah, I'm pretty engaged in the well engaged, guess. So the algorithm understands me pretty well. Let's put it that way that I really like that content where, you know, those really good painters show you how they're doing stuff and and creating content like that is hard. It's like they've got a great setup. They've got plus their skills and even paying for something like that to be made is just not cost effective.

Patrick Rami (38:32.492)
Yep, yep, I'm going through that right now.

Chris Saunders (38:34.871)
Well, you have a very high fulfillment company too, right? Like it's not like you're selling just information. You're selling products like physical things that have to be crafted and honed. And then some of them are even painted for people, right? Like I think you offer painting even of the minis. If people want to have their mini painted by a pro so it looks awesome and it comes, they can take it out of the box and just play like that's, that's really, but that's pretty high fulfillment.

Frank (38:34.967)
Yeah, it's hard.

Chris Saunders (39:03.927)
That means, you know, it's not just you doing everything. You've got to have a team. You've got to have infrastructure. All of that comes with extra expense, extra money, extra risk. How did you get to where you're at now where like you clearly have a large amount of infrastructure to be able to deliver on all of this level of business? And was it just a gradual thing or did you have to hit plateaus? Like, how did you approach that?

Patrick Rami (39:08.024)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick Rami (39:33.88)
Definitely gradual. an exercise that kind of to help people kind of center themselves and make a path forward would be to think of like Amazon, right? If I asked you to give me a roadmap to how you would recreate Amazon to get it to where it is today, right? Your mind would be blown. You would be like, there are so many things, like it's so mind blowing. So instead don't do that. A lot of people try to do that. They're like, I want to be the next Sony.

How do I know that's that's just not right. You want to plan for success. You want to plan for the future. However, you do not want to live in it. So focus on what you can achieve and do right now. Everyone's abilities means and stage in life is going to be different. That's what makes this unique. Right. Some folks are going to very well off and they've got a hundred thousand dollars to start five hundred thousand dollars to start. They can have kind of a lead in that. However, the path should be the same from that point up.

Some folks have $100 in a dream, right? And that's enough. And you can do that. Identify where you can start and do that extremely well. Like, I don't think people realize, it's so funny, we're sold in social media right now, a lot of this like entrepreneurial, ultra success overnight. And it's like, people get lost in that. And whenever they don't achieve that, they get frustrated and they feel like they're failure, right? Here's a reality guys.

To succeed, it's very, very simple. All you have to do is do what you do very well, consistently, and keep your word. That's it. Do it well, be consistent, keep your word. Super simple, right? It doesn't matter how small of a company or a start you have. It could be crocheting hats and you get one done a month, right? It could be whatever you want it to be, but follow those tenets, right?

Do it well, be consistent, keep your work. And you have already surpassed most people out there with doing those three things.

Chris Saunders (41:42.251)
It's so true. but I just want to make a comment about this because it's so true. I think about every Kickstarter I've ever backed and how every one of them always has delays and all of them, like what Kickstarter has ever delivered on time, right? It never happens. And it's because these are new people doing this for the first time. A lot of times and they have no clue what they're doing most of the time. So they're, they're winding up in these situations where things get delayed. it's going to be another month. It's going be another year. Like it just,

Patrick Rami (42:02.894)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Saunders (42:11.729)
is the way it is because you're dealing with amateur people when you you opt into that and yeah the people people need to hear that like just do what you say you're going to do you're so far ahead of everybody else and then you can foster loyalty right people will actually come back to you

Patrick Rami (42:31.086)
You're reliable people will want your reliability and they're willing to pay a little extra for it

Frank (42:37.933)
What can you take a second and dive in on what do you mean by keep your word? mean, I know on the surface what it means, but can you just give an example or elaborate?

Patrick Rami (42:44.098)
Mm-hmm.

Sure, it's easy to do what you promised when everything goes right, right? But when stuff goes sideways, a lot of people will shift blame and try to come to terms with, well, listen, this production run went sideways for us, we can no longer do this. How about this? How about I charge you 20 % extra and deliver it six months late? How's that sound? No, that's not okay.

Chris Saunders (43:15.329)
Hmm.

Patrick Rami (43:16.492)
Right? And you might get the customer to agree to it. But guess what? Are they going to feel good about it? Are you going to be the top choice or the no brainer choice? No, they're going to shop around next time and say, you know what? These guys are not so great. You know how I know that? Because that's how I react when my vendors fail me, when my vendors change the terms, when my vendors deliver poor product. So it's that it's literally that simple. Keeping your word.

It's not just saying, I'm going to be there Tuesday, let's go have lunch and you show up on Tuesday and you're on time, right? That's easy. But it's when stuff go sideways and let's say you're forced to not keep your word because you something went sideways and you can't deliver on time. Make it up to them. Apologize. Don't make excuses. Explain the situation and say, Hey, I'm going to make it up to you. Tell you what, this order is going to have 20 % off. I'm going to give you a 20 % credit towards your next order.

my bad and that'll do two things one it'll get their respect right in that time it will make it easier for them to accept that but two it'll make it so that you will plan better that hurt your pocket you don't want to be giving out 20 % discounts every week so you're gonna plan better you're gonna have contingencies and you're gonna manage expectations better in the future even though you know you can get it done in a week you might give yourself 10 days or two weeks

because stuff happens and then what happens? You under promise, you over deliver and now you're a rock star.

Chris Saunders (44:50.143)
promise over deliver is such such an important part of business in every in every facet. I love that. What are there any other creative ways where you guys have found ways to over deliver beyond your quality or is it just as simple that is where you decide to put your time and emphasis?

Patrick Rami (45:09.346)
Yeah, it's funny. we, if you look on our site, we don't set any sort of timelines for when we ship. We don't say this takes five days to ship. We don't say any of that. We kind of leave it blank.

Internally, we have guidelines that we ship within a day or two of order time, and that's a custom print. So we are shipping 24 to 48 hours. So at sometimes actually we've had customers reach out and it's like, you guys ship faster than Amazon. Like that's wild. So that, those are the things you can impact is, is over delivery. also take, take care of your customers.

Chris Saunders (45:38.935)
That's amazing.

Patrick Rami (45:51.726)
Yes, I realize that warranties are important and they're there for a reason. And I'm sure that we're to get to a size eventually where you've got to be kind of stuck to the rules. Hey, one year warranty, no exceptions. That's it. But while you're small, while you have five customers a month, it's okay to hook up a customer and say, you know, they reached out, hey, my mini broke, right? Now I know that that mini is a very hardy mini and I know we packaged it very well and our breakage rate is very, very low.

The reality is they probably knocked it over from a high surface and stepped on it, right? We always ask for photos to see how it broke. Yeah, you know what? This never really happens. That's super odd. I'm sorry that this happened to you. We're going to take care of you. Here's a new one. It's on the way. Here's a tracking number. In reality, what did that cost me? Shipping is probably five bucks. Cost of product, maybe a dollar, right? Six bucks to build that relationship.

Now that customer is coming back and spending a lot more with you.

Chris Saunders (46:52.159)
telling the friends that's the other thing they're they're like my gosh guys you wouldn't believe it I dropped my mini I told them it was broken they didn't even ask me like whatever they didn't they were they did the opposite of what you would expect they actually just sent me a new one and now I have a story that I want to tell my friends I want to tell people you got a shot from these many these this from from lethal shadows like that's that's cool

Patrick Rami (46:53.666)
and they're telling my friends.

Patrick Rami (47:03.768)
Yep. Yep.

Patrick Rami (47:12.78)
Yeah, so six dollars, right? We'll keep that relationship. Now the alternative is you don't do it. Now they leave you a bad review. They tell everybody it wasn't good. They're likely to tell 10 more people that it wasn't good when in truth, you did nothing wrong, right? You stuck to your terms. So is the six dollars worth it? Right? You've got to think bigger picture. Yeah.

Chris Saunders (47:21.771)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Saunders (47:37.483)
Yeah. Yeah.

Frank (47:38.841)
We're such emotional creatures.

Patrick Rami (47:41.656)
Yeah, it's another thing, don't take it personal. Like literally, humans are odd creatures and they do things for odd reasons and we never know what outside factors are impacting their judgment and their anger, right? Certainly not towards me. I didn't upset them. One of the things that really shaped me as a professional was my time at Apple. I worked at Apple for a while and they actually

I had psychologists that worked with the training teams to create training materials. And one of the most basic things I learned and it's helped me so much through my life personally in business is teaching us why people get angry. And it's so simple. And when you hear it, you're like, man, that makes so much sense, right? It is because expectations were not met. A human being becomes angry because what they expected did not happen. That is it. That is simply it, right? How logical what they expected was doesn't matter.

It's because they got angry because it wasn't met. So that shows you how important it is to manage expectations, to set expectations and recalibrate expectations when needed. Right. And now you can target once again, fear, identify it, target it, fix it, anger, identify it, target it, fix it. It works.

Chris Saunders (49:04.811)
that our entrepreneurs always tend to want to know about is philosophy on pricing. And for you guys, you guys have a lot of different, I mean, you have products from, you know, minis obviously, but different types of minis, different sizes, different, all that. And also you sell paint stuff and now you sell tools for paint painters. And so you've expanded into a lot of products. I'm curious, how do you, what's your strategy around pricing something?

Patrick Rami (49:31.79)
Yeah. Pricing is scary. Pricing is honestly my least favorite part of this. Right? I want to do what I love and I just want to give it to people. I don't want to ask them for money. Right? But in reality, that's not how business works. It's not how our society works and you won't survive that way. So you have to look at two things and it's a tug of war. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just going all around, but you have to look at what it costs you to make. Right?

what it costs you to sell and then what the market will bear. And somewhere in between those is your price. Some companies, very large companies, right? The Walmarts, the Amazons, they will just move that slider all the way over to what the market will bear. And they will always be pushing that. And that's inflation, right? They look. How much are people willing to pay for eggs? Well, let's move that up.

Let's move the slider up 10 cents. Let's slide it up 50 cents a dollar, right? You have to decide as a business owner where you want to be. If you move the slider all the way to the left, where you're just selling it for the cost of your manufacturing and selling, you are not gonna make a profit and you will not survive and you will not serve your customers for long. Okay, it's not a charity. That would be a charity. If you slide it all the way to the right and you're...

always trying to sell right at what the market will bear. Now you're pushing the envelope and now you're expensive. Hey, this brands that are expensive, they're successful, right? Apple's expensive, they're right? Louboutin, Prada, all those big brands, right? They're expensive and they're successful, but that's the market they're in. So you've got to decide where your market is. If your people, your customers, your target market are in the middle and you've got to meet them in the middle.

Right? Look at what your competitors are doing. Do market research on your competitors. What are they selling it at? Is it vastly different than what you were expecting? Then look at what their expenses might be. Are they at scale? When you're producing at scale, it's a lot cheaper, right, to produce at scale. So they can sell for less and still make a profit. Okay? A rule of thumb for anyone that is looking to produce and sell is that you usually

Patrick Rami (51:58.542)
want to make, so let's say it cost me a dollar to make something, okay? And then it costs me another dollar to sell that something. Okay, so $2 is now the bare minimum to break even. I'm not making a profit at that point, okay? A lot of people will say, well, I just want to make, I'm okay with making 50 cents, I'll sell for 250. And if your operation is small and you're selling out of your house, 250 may not be a bad deal, and you'll sell a lot of it, which means more work. Can you scale?

Chris Saunders (52:28.503)
Mm.

Patrick Rami (52:28.704)
No, then 250 is not enough. Can you scale? Yes, 250 might be enough, right? Then you say, how about I have somebody else sell it? What if I wholesale into retail stores? Retailers want their cut. Everybody wants to double their money. So the calculation comes 250, right? If you are gonna sell it to retailers,

they're going to want to sell it for $5. They want to buy it for $2.50 and sell it for $5.

That's the calculation. So what should you sell it for? $5. You should sell it for $5. People are like, that's insane, that's price gouging. No, that sets you up for success. Now you can make more money to get higher, more people to make more product, to upgrade your machines. And you've opened yourself up to wholesale into retail stores and into retail partners.

and still make 50 cents per unit, which is not a lot. Once again, I would up that. I would wholesale it for $3, make a whole dollar for yourself, right? And then retail it for six. But that's how the calculation breaks down. Most people go into it with no guideline at all, and they just throw darts at a wall and see where you land. And what happens? You get burned.

Chris Saunders (53:57.559)
It's very expensive to test your pricing because if you like it just is and if because if you're too high, you're not going to sell anything. If you're too low, you're probably losing money. And if your marketing works and you sell a bunch at the wrong price, it really is caught like it's just there's all sorts of issues with with testing pricing, which is why I think it's great to think in terms of this this philosophy around it. And yeah.

Patrick Rami (53:59.256)
videos.

Frank (54:22.861)
That's yeah, that's why I love Patrick. How you said, look at the competition, you know, see, see what they're doing because yeah, it is expensive. It's it's it's yeah. And I also really wanted to just echo what you were saying about put it at a price that the retailers are going to charge at because

the work I do, we end up seeing that, know, Amazon is gonna, Amazon for example, is going to require that their cost is the same as anyone else that they see. If Amazon finds that it's cheaper somewhere else online, they're gonna lower their price to match that other price. And so you kinda wanna think about, like you said earlier, thinking about success, what does success look like?

Well, if you're going to have multiple vendors, multiple places where you sell your product, you want to have a minimum retail price. You know, you you want to have that set in place so that everybody's on an equal playing field. And I think that's something that a lot of the time, nerdpreneurs don't think of in the beginning. In the early days, they just think of, I want to make some money. I want to pay off my costs. but they are, they're not always thinking about down the road, like, how am I going to make this fair for everybody who sells my stuff someday?

Patrick Rami (55:37.261)
you

Yeah.

Chris Saunders (55:40.631)
Yeah, or also have to how is it gonna make my life easier too? Because you have to hire people right if you're gonna grow You know, you're not gonna stay solopreneur most likely, you know, very few businesses can stay at a high enough level Just being solopreneurs you're gonna have to delegate and hire people and bring in experts or whatever it is to Make your business grow I'd love to hear about your your thoughts on actually doing that and when to hire in the process of growth because that

Patrick Rami (55:44.75)
Yep.

Patrick Rami (55:52.216)
No.

Chris Saunders (56:10.167)
You're often incurring pretty significant growth expenses if you're bringing on people to do jobs with you. So how do you think about that?

Patrick Rami (56:18.818)
Yeah, and always remember, it's always easier to lower prices than it is to raise them, right? So if you have to shoot on one side, shoot on the other side, right? So as far as hiring people in, it's funny, we've covered the journey from the beginning, right, to like getting going, taking the leap, right, having that fear, and then you kind of master it and you feel good about yourself and you're doing well, and then you relive it all over again when you hire somebody.

Frank (56:25.497)
true.

Frank (56:44.867)
Hahaha.

Chris Saunders (56:45.299)
Ha ha.

Patrick Rami (56:45.868)
Right? You literally relive it all over again because now their livelihood is in your hands. Now they are trusting you with their whole life. And if you can't make payroll, that is a big problem. You want to see people get mad? Mess with their money. Right? So all of a sudden, you making a buck is no longer as important as you paying your people. So...

Chris Saunders (57:01.975)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick Rami (57:13.674)
Stomaching risk, right, never goes away. You're always making those decisions. How much risk can you stomach? Can you stomach missing payroll and having someone be late on their rent or mortgage payment? Right, like it's the most gut wrenching feeling in moments. You've got to plan for it. If I were to miss payroll, what is my contingency? And that usually,

turns out to be savings. So savings for the business. need to have, you hear me mention runway in other interviews. You've got to have a long enough runway that you can recover or mitigate damage to your people. And you've got to be responsible for that. You cannot just fly with suit of your pants. So there's nothing more exciting than getting your first employee. There's nothing more scary than getting your first employee. I'd say you'll know.

when you need to hire people, when you're starting to lose money because you don't have the bandwidth, right? When you're starting to not be able to acquire opportunities or grab opportunities because people are not waiting for you, people are not there to help out, you're not able to have that throughput. So that's gonna be a big telltale sign. You don't want to staff up too early. That is just added.

overhead that you don't need. Your biggest expense in your entire business is you want it be payroll. It exponentially grows every employee you add. After you have, I believe it depends on your state, but there's a certain threshold after a certain amount of employees, you must provide a little coverage. And then you have employees versus contractors and you've got to withhold taxes, pay taxes back for them. It's a whole other complication. So I would say hold off as long as you can.

But do not hold off too long, right? Don't. When it's time, you'll know it's time. You can game the business for a little while, maybe six months, maybe a year. You're gonna be burning out, you're gonna be working entirely too much, you're gonna be missing opportunities. You'll end up losing more money than you're saving. So just keep an eye out for that.

Frank (59:32.409)
Yeah, losing more money than you'll be saving is... I've seen this when people literally will... They'll be interested in doing business and you say, yeah, you say yes to the business, you agree to it and time goes by, you can't do it because you just are so overwhelmed. And if you had help to push through with the projects that you had,

then you'd be available for these other people. since you took too long, those people, they won't stick around for another time. wanted to ask about you. Lethal Shadows has an exceptional level for the painting on their minis. How did that start? When did you know that you wanted to have paintings, painting done to the minis and offer that?

Patrick Rami (01:00:27.054)
Yeah, that started early on. We were fortunate enough to have a very good friend here locally who was very artistic and she had an interest in painting menus. She had an interest in painting menus. When we started doing this work, she would want to just paint them for herself. And then I asked her, you know, if she'd ever thought about potentially offering us a service. And she said, okay, let's give it a shot. And we invested in her.

materials, classes, training, seminars and online. A lot of content is available for free online, so it's just a matter of time there. providing her space, we built a dedicated painting suite with everything you could possibly imagine. The most expensive tools and the best materials, best lighting. I mean, it is, we spent quite a bit of money in it.

and made it a dream to be there. So she painted a bunch and we started to get models together to bring to shows and sell at shows and then selling them available online. And now we have a very steady backlog of painting commissions. Now we also have three painters, right? Not just her and...

you can see if you happen to have a 2021 inaugural lethal shadows painted mini from our display, you likely have one of our first painted minis that we sold. And if you were to come back and buy that mini today again painted, you would see a drastic quality improvement in the paint just because she's been painting nonstop for years now, right? So it's been...

three years at least, or more actually she painted for COVID, so probably four years. And that's been, it's been easily seen, right, in the quality. And now she went from being a kind of a junior starter painter, hobbyist really, to now being a senior and now she is our best painter and she's leading that charge and that team. So yeah, it's really exciting to see.

Frank (01:02:49.081)
How did, so I have hired somebody, currently still hired somebody to do painting for a cousin of mine. He doesn't have the connections, but I do. And I had started this back and forth relationship before I had met you at ECC. And I thought, these people, like where are these people? This must be so hard to find. And it turns out like there's a bunch of people who love to paint and some of them would love to do work.

doing it. And this is a question for them. How do you hire people to paint for you? What is important to you? And how essentially how can somebody get painted or get paid to paint?

Patrick Rami (01:03:27.214)
Hmm.

Patrick Rami (01:03:33.624)
Yeah. For us, there's certain skills or techniques that are minimum requirements, right, for joining the team and painting, right? If you want to, let's say, specifically work for us, most people actually come to a convention and talk to me in person and show me and bring me what they've got. Seeing it in person, there's no other way that's better.

because people could take, just be a bad photographer and it does their painting no justice. But you would come to us, show us what you got, show us your Instagram usually, show us a couple of models and I would chat with them about, okay, what are your strengths? What do you like painting more? Do you like painting robots? Do like painting organic things, creatures, heroes, you know, so on and so forth? Do you like, how are your flesh tones? Are you really comfortable with doing flesh tones? Are you comfortable with?

doing non-metallic metal or sheer fabric painting. Those are techniques and those are skills that will kind of develop. And folks are usually pretty honest because there's no faking that, right? You can't fake that till you make it. You'll see it in the paint job. So at shows, at our inner displays, you'll probably see five or six individuals

painted models in there that work with us. And I'd say anyone that wants to get into that realm of things, it's not wildly lucrative by any means. It's so time consuming, right? It's a labor of love. Just get your skills up, work on, find what makes you uncomfortable as a technique. You know what's out there in your comfort zone and do it until you're comfortable with it, until you're happy with it and keep growing that way.

Frank (01:05:29.081)
Nice.

Chris Saunders (01:05:29.495)
Awesome. Should we do some random rules and then wrap up with some with the last questions? What do you think? All right. Cool. Let's do that.

Frank (01:05:35.481)
Yeah, yeah, let's do that. Patrick, do you have a D100 available?

Patrick Rami (01:05:43.797)
man, yes in front of me, not right the second, if you give me a second.

Frank (01:05:45.517)
The tough question.

Patrick Rami (01:05:54.006)
I can get one. Stand by.

Frank (01:05:54.744)
Yeah, sure thing.

Chris Saunders (01:06:02.071)
I think we do a couple of these and then we do, yeah, four if we can get them fairly decently quick and then the rapid fire a few of those. But I'd love to finish with just some of the inspiration questions. Yeah, cool.

Frank (01:06:05.379)
total of four.

Frank (01:06:16.877)
I love it.

Frank (01:06:21.645)
Yeah, I was glad we got to the painting thing.

Chris Saunders (01:06:23.723)
Yeah, no, totally. That's great for Artist Month.

Frank (01:07:12.505)
December truly is the time of junk email. My god, I'm like, I thought I unsubscribed from half of these.

Chris Saunders (01:07:24.375)
Yep, that is how it works.

Frank (01:07:26.658)
Mm-hmm.

Ahem.

Yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:07:41.058)
You should be able to hear me, yep, we're good.

Chris Saunders (01:07:42.571)
Yep, yep, we are good. All right, so.

Frank (01:07:45.901)
Yes, so random, sorry. So yeah, this is, So random rolls is a less serious, more fun series of questions. You're gonna roll the D100. We have a list here of questions for each number. So whenever you're ready, roll your first number, please.

Patrick Rami (01:08:04.398)
Alright, let's see, what do we got? We got 52.

Frank (01:08:07.641)
52. If you get a portal gun, what's the first place you're going to go?

Patrick Rami (01:08:15.494)
that's kind of cool. First place I would go, honestly, I'd probably go to like the Roman Coliseum. I'd really, I really want to check that out and see. And I'm sure I could get some like high vantage points that aren't easy to get to with that. So you can kind of see some cool stuff there.

Chris Saunders (01:08:35.275)
Definitely, definitely. That's awesome. The Roman Coliseum, would you like, is this a time traveling portal gun or is this like going back in time or is this a, yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:08:41.837)
I mean, I'll see it in present day. It's something that I've been wanting to to see right maybe even access it like I don't know when there's nobody around like I'm understanding this pretty well lit so you can go in the middle of the night or whatever it is. Yeah

Frank (01:08:54.969)
The, I hear that the underground part of it is pretty wild too. It's kind of a maze cause that's where they would keep the animals. And, and so they also had to like traverse underneath, kind of like a football stadium, right? The players have to be able to go around underneath and get where they got to go.

Patrick Rami (01:09:07.693)
Yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:09:11.042)
Yeah, it reminds me of the movie Jumper. I actually often think of that. If I had that power, you can transport yourself to anywhere you can see a photo of. I'm like, that would be a really cool power. I take a lot of photos. Yeah.

Frank (01:09:20.001)
Yeah. Everywhere you go, yeah. go ahead and roll again, please.

Chris Saunders (01:09:21.335)
Yeah, right

Patrick Rami (01:09:28.109)
Alright, let's do it. 33.

Chris Saunders (01:09:32.439)
33. All right, what is your zombie apocalypse plan?

Patrick Rami (01:09:39.24)
man, zombie apocalypse plan. Probably not very original, but like try to hunker down in like a Costco or something. Like somewhere with plenty of supplies, somewhat defensible and like block it off and stuff like that. supplies will be the hardest thing to keep in my mind.

Frank (01:10:02.381)
Yeah, no kidding. Especially the perishables after a while. Like, what are you gonna do? Yeah. I've played my fair share of zombie games and it's always like, okay, all right, first month, I saw the perishables even if they're still gross.

Patrick Rami (01:10:07.148)
Yeah, eat the non-can stuff first and then save on the... yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:10:19.916)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Saunders (01:10:20.865)
There really should be a zombie movie that takes place in a Costco. Like that's a great homage to like the time period when like Dawn of the Dead was all about being in a mall. But malls are kind of dead nowadays. We need our modern version of this, which is the Costco zombie movie.

Patrick Rami (01:10:30.691)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's the equalizer of possible.

Chris Saunders (01:10:41.573)
would love that I think. Alright one more.

Patrick Rami (01:10:43.278)
You

Frank (01:10:44.141)
Roll one more, please.

Patrick Rami (01:10:45.71)
One more, let's do it. 73.

Frank (01:10:53.433)
This is a funny question for you. What are you waiting for Witches of the Coast to do that they haven't done yet?

Patrick Rami (01:11:02.486)
Mmm, that's a loaded question. Wow. Wow. I'll make it something quick then. I want I am excited or I'm curious rather that's the best term. I'm curious to see who they pick as their next video game partner for the license.

Frank (01:11:04.983)
Yeah, right? We can pick a different one.

Frank (01:11:13.526)
No, you can take your time.

Chris Saunders (01:11:25.153)
Yeah, I'm interested about that too, actually. Do more, more Baldur's gate stuff would be awesome, but who knows? Yeah. It will. It will. Well, they always seem to though, every Baldur's gate does top the next, but we'll see.

Frank (01:11:25.847)
True that.

Frank (01:11:32.249)
Yeah, that'd be tough to top the last one.

Frank (01:11:40.569)
Yeah, Larian had a lot of good experience going into it, so that was nice.

Patrick Rami (01:11:44.758)
I'm excited to see Larian's next entry.

Chris Saunders (01:11:46.881)
Same, yeah.

Frank (01:11:48.267)
Yeah. Do we know how long we have to wait?

Chris Saunders (01:11:53.047)
sure.

Patrick Rami (01:11:53.1)
not that I can say openly. So that was a quick one. did a hundred actually. I got a hundred on this one. So what is your hundredth question?

Frank (01:11:54.731)
No, yeah, right, yeah. That's sick.

Chris Saunders (01:12:01.641)
100. All right, sweet. This one. All right. If you dug up an intact, beautiful vase, would you keep it, sell it or do something completely different with it?

Patrick Rami (01:12:17.908)
In tact, I'm assuming it's ancient by the line of questioning there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Saunders (01:12:21.575)
Ancient. Yes, a beautiful ancient vase.

Patrick Rami (01:12:25.676)
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe this is the analytical side of me. I would try to get it dated. I would try to get it. I would try to learn as much I can about it without letting folks know that I have it and then go from there. If it's some like only artifact of its kind of whatever civilization it was from, then it's probably going to museum somewhere, you know, donate it. If it's like

We've got plenty of these around. This is not something ultra rare. Then it's something like I could put in a personal collection. Like, okay, this is.

Chris Saunders (01:13:04.215)
Cool, I like that.

Frank (01:13:06.027)
Nice. Well, thank you for indulgence. We're going to move along to the rapid fire section now. So these are even less serious and you know, we call them silly at this point. They're quick and we will hit you with these rapid fires and we will let you know if you are right or if you are wrong. So first up, Star Trek or Star Wars?

Patrick Rami (01:13:11.694)
Alright.

Patrick Rami (01:13:16.065)
Okay.

Patrick Rami (01:13:28.364)
ooooh, Star Wars

Chris Saunders (01:13:31.159)
Alright, Yoda or Obi-Wan?

Patrick Rami (01:13:34.136)
Yoda for sure.

Frank (01:13:36.951)
Last thing you ate.

Patrick Rami (01:13:39.955)
gosh, cashews.

Chris Saunders (01:13:42.839)
Spider-Man Act

Patrick Rami (01:13:46.158)
my god. This is the weakest of mine because I'm horrible with names. I really like the latest Spider-Man. Tom Holland. Yeah, Tom Holland. I think it's a good strike between funny, jovial, bubbly, know, not taking itself too seriously.

Chris Saunders (01:13:52.277)
You can say what generation of Spider-Man we can.

Chris Saunders (01:13:57.655)
Tom Holland, yes, Tom Holland.

Frank (01:14:08.877)
What is the nerdiest event you've ever been to?

Patrick Rami (01:14:13.678)
It had to be a massive LAN party back in the day when we used to have those still. Yeah, this group rented out three hotel ballrooms that were connected. And I think we've had some like 5000 people there or something crazy. It was massive. It was hot. It was sweaty. was smelly.

Frank (01:14:33.261)
That is huge.

Chris Saunders (01:14:34.519)
Crazy.

Chris Saunders (01:14:39.159)
You smell it from here, yeah.

Frank (01:14:41.079)
That is very nerdy.

Patrick Rami (01:14:42.279)
but it was, it was one of the funnest. It was our Woodstock. Okay. So it was our nerdy Woodstock.

Chris Saunders (01:14:46.667)
awesome.

Frank (01:14:46.807)
Yes.

You

Chris Saunders (01:14:50.977)
Wow. All right. Predator or aliens.

Patrick Rami (01:14:56.718)
I know my wife would go alien 100 % but I'll say Predator

Frank (01:15:01.901)
What superpower do you want?

Patrick Rami (01:15:05.077)
man, I think the one we spoke about. think if I can get the power from jumper where you can literally port to any photo. Yeah.

Chris Saunders (01:15:14.667)
be cool. Best weird owl parody.

Patrick Rami (01:15:19.806)
man. I think, I think white and nerdy. White and nerdy was great. I think, yeah.

Frank (01:15:27.085)
Yes.

Chris Saunders (01:15:27.927)
It's a good one. It is a one.

Frank (01:15:32.577)
Yeah. Now, hard question here. Your favorite meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner?

Patrick Rami (01:15:40.804)
man, I would say breakfast. To me, no matter what time I wake up, because I have odd hours, my first meal after waking up is breakfast. And it's gotta be breakfast food. So yeah, I'd say breakfast.

Chris Saunders (01:15:54.711)
How many cats are too many cats?

Patrick Rami (01:15:59.69)
I'd say five. We have three. think four is, four is manageable. And then five, unless you have like a mansion or like some huge space to house them. I think it might be a little cramped for my taste.

Chris Saunders (01:16:07.959)
Wow, alright.

Chris Saunders (01:16:17.335)
Four cats is still a lot of cats. Three cats is a lot of cats actually still. Yeah.

Frank (01:16:19.427)
Three cats is a lot for me, but I also haven't lived with cats.

Patrick Rami (01:16:21.614)
Yeah, they're loafs. don't you hardly see them. You'd almost never see all three of them unless it's feeding time. So it's like having one cat three different ways. They really do. They really do.

Chris Saunders (01:16:32.853)
Yeah, they all set up their own territory, right? Yeah.

Frank (01:16:32.921)
You

Frank (01:16:38.265)
What is the most dangerous job in your opinion?

Patrick Rami (01:16:44.748)
geez. What's the most dangerous job?

It has to be like nuclear waste cleanup crew.

Chris Saunders (01:16:56.151)
Probably, it's gotta be.

Patrick Rami (01:16:57.922)
something something out there or like explosive ordinance disposal like eod's you know like

Frank (01:16:59.929)
Slow killer.

Frank (01:17:04.845)
Mmm.

Chris Saunders (01:17:07.959)
How do you have a good day, right?

Patrick Rami (01:17:10.636)
I'm still here. I have all my fingers, I've got all my limbs, and that's a good day.

Chris Saunders (01:17:15.071)
I always thought like loss like maybe I just that's that's got to be terrible. Right. I guess so. You can have only one bad day. All right. What character would you cosplay at Comic Con?

Patrick Rami (01:17:20.878)
How you have a bad day? Like, you don't get many of those. Yeah. Right.

Frank (01:17:23.295)
your perspective would change quite a lot.

Patrick Rami (01:17:34.889)
Wreck-It Ralph.

Chris Saunders (01:17:36.215)
Right, Rob, that's great. That would be a fun one.

Frank (01:17:37.197)
Wreck-It Ralph! Nice poll.

Patrick Rami (01:17:39.426)
Yeah, yeah, that'd be fun.

Frank (01:17:41.677)
Not a classic yet, but still a good pull. Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:17:44.234)
it will be in like three years.

Chris Saunders (01:17:45.353)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Frank (01:17:49.057)
What Hogwarts house are you in?

Patrick Rami (01:17:51.96)
Hmm Gryffindor I didn't

Frank (01:17:55.873)
Alright!

Chris Saunders (01:17:57.673)
Is there any subscription you can't live without?

Patrick Rami (01:18:02.486)
I tried to leave them so many times and I even wrote a letter about how disappointed I was in some features missing. Pandora. I've been with them since the very early days. They have the best discovery algorithm to show you stuff that you like, but they don't have great audio quality. They're not incorporated with a lot of hardware. I wrote them a letter. was like, I've been with you forever. That's it. I'm out. And three weeks later, I was subscribed again.

Chris Saunders (01:18:10.005)
Dora, really? Wow.

Frank (01:18:29.753)
You

Chris Saunders (01:18:30.867)
What was that advice you gave? Do one thing really, really well, right? Yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:18:34.518)
Yeah, exactly. And see, here I am, like I'm back because I can't get with any other platform.

Frank (01:18:42.069)
I'll tell you, yeah, on that note, Spotify, I've been with Spotify for a long time and I can't, I recently hit a limit on their audio books. I didn't know that was possible, but eventually they said, hey, you've hit your lot of the time limit for audio books. I was pissed. I was so pissed. was like, how dare you get in my way of this audio book. I'm in the middle of the Lord of the Rings right now. And I was just like, I'm.

Patrick Rami (01:18:54.028)
Wow.

Patrick Rami (01:19:00.749)
Wow.

Patrick Rami (01:19:06.21)
Yeah. wow.

Chris Saunders (01:19:08.311)
Wow.

Frank (01:19:10.903)
I've been with them so long. I need to tell them. I need to leave a review. I didn't. I just waited until my next month and I was pissed.

Patrick Rami (01:19:15.586)
Wow.

Patrick Rami (01:19:22.616)
feel that. I feel that.

Frank (01:19:26.231)
I think I'm on the next one actually. Or did you? Yeah, okay. What do you prefer in a tabletop role-playing game, role-playing or combat?

Chris Saunders (01:19:28.331)
Yeah. No, no, it's you.

Patrick Rami (01:19:36.654)
Hmm.

I really like the role playing. If the whole table is engaged, the role playing is a lot of fun. But if you're the only one role playing, you just feel silly after some point and you stop doing it. But I really like the role play.

Chris Saunders (01:19:53.985)
Fear the AI or embrace the AI.

Patrick Rami (01:19:59.502)
I think there is no stopping it. So fearing it doesn't gonna do anything but make you feel bad. I think it's a matter of time to just embrace it and manage it as best we can.

Frank (01:20:13.207)
What's a book recommendation that you have?

Patrick Rami (01:20:17.338)
yes, Spellmonger series. It is quite long, but it is quite good. Good fantasy setting. And I kind of want to see it turned into a tabletop game. I actually reached out to the author about that, potentially working with them on some stuff. But Spellmonger, 100 % hilarious. Great audiobook too. Great, great. Yeah, great audiobook all around.

Frank (01:20:32.707)
Nice.

Frank (01:20:41.207)
I'll look into it.

Chris Saunders (01:20:42.433)
Yeah, well, and I think I'm good on rapid fires, but I wanted to ask you, is there anyone you really want to work with in the vein of like a spellmonger or something like that? Or is there any franchise that you would love to work with in terms of your minis and miniatures and crafting designs for?

Patrick Rami (01:20:55.374)
Mmm.

Patrick Rami (01:21:01.346)
Man, if I could pick anyone to work with in that realm.

I am, yeah, I mean, there's so many IPs that come to mind. I'm a big fan of The Witcher, right? Like getting some Witcher official stuff would be amazing. I love.

Yeah, I love Mega Man, right? I'm a big Mega Man fan. I would love to just revisit some of the old titles we grew up with, like Donkey Kong, like just doing like Super Nintendo classics and Sega Genesis classics, know, Sonics and all that, and bring them into the tabletop world. think that's something that's missing and a great opportunity that we should capitalize on.

Chris Saunders (01:21:53.409)
That's awesome. I love the idea of Mega Man minis. That would be super cool.

Frank (01:21:54.233)
Nice.

Especially with like high detail, that would be really cool.

Chris Saunders (01:21:59.511)
Very good.

Patrick Rami (01:22:01.26)
And we could do translucent resin for like the blaster and like this effects on the ground. Yeah.

Chris Saunders (01:22:06.903)
I'll be Sony.

Frank (01:22:07.895)
Yeah.

Chris Saunders (01:22:10.721)
So I want, we're going to wrap up with just a couple of questions that I think would be great just to address before we finish. like, it sounds like building a business is hard, especially in what you've done so far in the fairly short period of time you've been around in four years, right? And it's impressive how much you've grown, where you've become a household name. And I can tell that the passion you have for it, I'm really curious, where does the passion really come from?

for

Patrick Rami (01:22:43.054)
It's, as you mentioned before, this is, this is a rewarding business, right? I, I had a very lucrative position before. Made plenty of money. It was very cushiony, worked remote, a whole nine, it was great. now I'm on the flip side. I don't make a lot of money. I work time. I travel a lot for, for work to shows and it's a lot of work there, but man, is it rewarding.

going out there and seeing people face to face and hearing, we got, know, my wife got me your minis for Christmas. It was amazing, absolutely loved it. Or, you know, your mini was the first mini that we painted as a family. It was my kid's mini and he wants to gift it to you. Here it is. You know, like just that connection is so rewarding. And in the end,

The minis are just a vehicle to deliver happiness, right? Like that's all it is. And we are creating happiness on a daily basis and seeing that excitement, that joy, that spark of enthusiasm or passion from people are starting to paint is huge and it's wildly rewarding and that fuels our passion and our drive. These shows are a huge recharge for us and we truly could not be here without everyone that

that was sharing in this hobby with us.

Frank (01:24:13.399)
Wow, that's crazy. mean, the cons are a recharge for you too. We don't usually hear that.

Chris Saunders (01:24:14.743)
That was awesome.

Patrick Rami (01:24:19.832)
Yeah, for sure.

Chris Saunders (01:24:23.287)
It's like we used to call our conferences and our old sales position that I used to work in the barbecue pit because you would fire people up, right? You would get in there and you'd get fired up like the barbecue pit and then you'd leave fired up and you'd get better results. I think there is something about, like, even though they're draining, they're tiring to probably go through, but there's an energy that comes out of being at a con that is, sounds to me like it feeds you into what you're doing.

Patrick Rami (01:24:45.442)
Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Chris Saunders (01:24:53.267)
and makes you want to keep going.

Patrick Rami (01:24:55.566)
100%.

Frank (01:24:57.833)
wondering you've talked to a bunch about you know what fuels you and recharges you and and what's rewarding but you've kind of danced around this a little bit and wanted to ask the sacrifices that you've had to make what has been i guess what has been some of the sacrifices that you've had to make

Patrick Rami (01:25:19.232)
Yeah, so I was part of a long-term D &D game. I want to say we were playing for seven years close to it. Same campaign. And with being so busy having shows, having the business, just, I'd be missing for a whole month. You know, March we do three, four shows. I'm gone the entire month. And it wasn't fair to them to like either pause the game or have me just reappear and have to catch me up and

It wasn't fair to the DM. So like giving that up was very painful for me, not being able to partake in that. And obviously not having that consistent check showing up, right? Not knowing where the next bundle of money is coming from makes you recalibrate your lifestyle, makes you recalibrate your expectations out of life.

and where we could take two vacations a year maybe, one vacation for sure a year. Since we started, have not been able to take a vacation since probably 2018. So, you know, it is a sacrifice and it is exhausting and running a business is going to be exhausting for a very long time until you can really scale and kind of step back and even then now there's more worry.

because now you're worried about all those people's livelihoods, So running, being an entrepreneur and running your own business is not for the faint of heart, but it can be rewarding if you make it rewarding.

Chris Saunders (01:26:56.311)
Any final advice for aspiring nerdy entrepreneurs that you would want to leave them with out of this interview?

Patrick Rami (01:27:05.484)
Yeah. don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. That should be your daily mantra. Clear the slate, clear the deck, start tomorrow with absolutely nothing left to do if you can, because those opportunities will come knocking and you've got to be prepared to catch it. Right? If you're dealing with yesterday's issues and problems and deliverables, then today's opportunities are going to fall by the wayside.

and you're not gonna grow.

Chris Saunders (01:27:38.881)
Well, Patrick, thank you so much for coming on. This has been awesome. If people want to get some minis, hear more from you guys or dig into the other products you guys or see you at a con. Where can they go?

Frank (01:27:39.001)
Yeah.

Patrick Rami (01:27:52.686)
Yeah, so main way to get a hold of us is lethalshadows.com and that's gonna be our main site. You can order from there. You can order any mini there painted if you'd like. Or if you wanna paint your own, you can buy it unpainted. We have brushes, we have paints, we've got coasters and notebooks. We got all sorts of good stuff. As far as shows go, 2025 is gonna be a packed year. We are going to be at MLC Comic Con. It's gonna be our first customer show of the year.

And then Adepticon and PAX East, GenCon, GamesCon Canada, PAX West, PAX Unplugged. So it's gonna be quite a slammed year for shows and we'll be exhibiting at Adepticon for the first time ever, which is a very much highly requested show for us from folks. So we're giving it a shot. We're going all in. We're gonna see how it goes. It's a much smaller show than we're used to going to. So we're gonna see if we can make it work.

Chris Saunders (01:28:49.439)
Amazing. Well, thank you, Patrick, for being on. This was awesome sharing your wisdom and your story with us. And thank you, listeners, for tuning into this week's episode. And as always.

Frank (01:29:04.653)
Keep it nerdy.

Chris Saunders (01:29:08.331)
And we're out.

Frank (01:29:10.787)
Thank you, Patrick. That was...

Patrick Rami (01:29:12.822)
Yeah, it was fun.