488 - Crayons Ready to Eat: Tom interviews Frank Manteau - Screw The Commute

488 – Crayons Ready to Eat: Tom interviews Frank Manteau

We're here with Frank Manteau. And just six days after graduating high school, he was in the Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. And now he's a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. And we really thank him for his service. He ended up a sergeant. And when you see his picture, he looks like a sergeant that you would not want to mess with.

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Screw The Commute Podcast Show Notes Episode 488

How To Automate Your Businesshttps://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/

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Internet Marketing Training Centerhttps://imtcva.org/

Higher Education Webinarhttps://screwthecommute.com/webinars

See Tom's Stuffhttps://linktr.ee/antionandassociates

[04:31] Tom's introduction to Frank Manteau

[11:43] Idea for Crayons Ready To Eat

[13:48] Writing with a chocolate crayon

[18:10] Not everything was smooth sailing

[24:52] Shipping chocolate in cold and hot months

[28:50] Woodworking as therapy

Entrepreneurial Resources Mentioned in This Podcast

Higher Education Webinarhttps://screwthecommute.com/webinars

Screw The Commutehttps://screwthecommute.com/

entrepreneurship distance learning school, home based business, lifestyle business

Screw The Commute Podcast Apphttps://screwthecommute.com/app/

College Ripoff Quizhttps://imtcva.org/quiz

Know a young person for our Youth Episode Series? Send an email to Tom! – orders@antion.com

Have a Roku box? Find Tom's Public Speaking Channel there!https://channelstore.roku.com/details/267358/the-public-speaking-channel

How To Automate Your Businesshttps://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/

Internet Marketing Retreat and Joint Venture Programhttps://greatinternetmarketingtraining.com/

Disabilities Pagehttps://imtcva.org/disabilities/

Crayons Ready To Eathttps://crayonsreadytoeat.com/

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/crayonsreadytoeat

Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/crayonsreadytoeat/

Twitterhttps://twitter.com/crayons_r_e

TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@crayonsreadytoeat

LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/crayonsreadytoeat/

Kamikaze Wood Werkshttps://kamikazewoodwerks.com/

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/kamikazewoodwerks

Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/Kamikazewoodwerks/

TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@kamikazewoodwerks

LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/kamikazewoodwerks

NewsClapperhttps://clapperapp.com/kamikazewoodwerks

Frank on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/frankmanteau

Frank on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/frankmanteau/

Frank on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmanteau/

Email Tom: Tom@ScrewTheCommute.com

Internet Marketing Training Centerhttps://imtcva.org/

Related Episodes

Travis Johnson – https://screwthecommute.com/486/

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Episode 488 – Frank Manteau
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode four hundred and eighty eight is Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Frank Manteau and he's from Crayons Ready to Eat. Because when I first heard that, I'm thinking then kids are going to be eating crayons. And I was going to ask him about that. But I found out how he keeps that from happening and he'll tell you about it. And he he goes from us what he says is a small town. Well, I'm going to tell him it's twice the size of my hometown, which is still about 500 people. And we lived in the suburbs, but we still had friends like his friends. Hooda got him in the Marines and he said, well, that was great. I could get a free haircut. So. So he's he's going to tell you all about all this stuff in a minute. And I hope you didn't miss episode four. Eighty six. I'm skipping over my last episode to tell you about veteran Travis Johnson. Wow. Did he have a tough childhood, even tougher than than Frank's? Thirty six moves while he was in high school, five foster homes and a sister and his mother both actually tried to kill him, actually kill him. But he turned it around. And he's doing great things for non-profits that are doing great things for people. So we're real proud of him. And and this is part of Weaponries week or excuse me, month. September is Veteran's Month, where people like me and everybody listen to the show.

[00:01:51] And we're trying to really thank the wonderful people that do do so many things and sacrifice so much so that we can do what we're doing. So that's why I like to highlight them during September. All right. How'd you like me to send you big checks? Well, if you're in my affiliate program, you can you can make commissions anywhere from eight dollars and fifty cents so that you can blow at Starbucks or up to in excess of 5000 dollars for a speaking engagement and everything in between. So you can make a pretty good living just referring my stuff. And we hardly ever get any returns because I take care of my customer. So. So it works out good for both of us. So if you're interested in that, email me at Tom@screwthecommute.com and we'll give you details. Now pick up a copy of our automation ebook. It's free to everybody listening to the show. We charge 27 bucks on the open market for it, but it's how I handled up to and 150000 subscribers and 65000 customers without pulling my hair out. And I didn't get carpal tunnel because just one of the tips has saved me over seven million keystrokes over the years. So grab a copy of that book and implement what's in it, and you will thank me so you can get that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're over there, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. You can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:03:26] Now we're right in the middle. Of our pilot program for persons with disabilities, we still actually have two slots, so if there's any veterans listening to this, you can get in touch with me. And we have a very simple application program for a full scholarship to my school. The Internet marketing training center of Virginia to distance learning school. It can be anywhere in the world and take classes. If you have mobility problems, that's the point of this pilot program, is to help people with mobility problems, not only learn a highly in demand skill, but be able to be hired and work from home or start their own business or both. So if you're interested in that, let me know if you are interested in helping out with the program. Please visit IMTCVA.org/disabilities. This will be in the show notes so you can check out our Go Fund Me campaign where we're financing the program. And we're also going to be using some of the money to hire folks with disabilities to help run the program. So check that out.

[00:04:33] Well, let's get to the main event. We're here with Frank Manteau. And just six days after graduating high school, he was in the Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. And now he's a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. And we really thank him for his service. He ended up a sergeant. And when you see his picture, he looks like a sergeant that you would not want to mess with. So, Frank, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:00] Yes, I'm ready to screw the commute. Of course you wouldn't be whenever you're the crown of your king and you also play around with wood.

[00:05:08] So you got a very interesting thing going here, Frank, with this crayons ready to eat. And some non-military people might not see the play on words there. But, you know, these, Emrys, are meals ready to eat. And Frank came up with this idea for crayons, ready to eat and tell him about how the idea came about.

[00:05:30] So I own my own woodworking business called kamikaze woodwork. And one day I was working on a project for a local high school color guard. My kids were involved in the band and my son's girlfriend was in a color guard and stuff like that. So I always both the props. They came to me and said, hey, we need this giant picture frame, we want it to be colorful and be able to jump in and out. Now, I had an art background in high school. Somebody that threw away a full ride scholarship to Pisspot Art Institute to continue join the Marine Corps. That was fun. And I knew that there were different mediums to be able to do this. So I figured, okay, I would cut out the picture frame and then I'm going to blow up the decorative design that they wanted on sheets of paper, glue them to the plywood and color the detail in. Now, if anybody knows anything about art, paint and paper on wood, it's not going to work very well. I could have painted it directly on the wood, but I wanted to give it that, you know, the actual, you know, to where it blended and look very nicely and matched. And, you know, I had the lines, the color coloring, because after you haven't drawn in many years, you know, trying to color or paint a straight line ain't very fun. I knew markers weren't going to work because whenever they run out, they don't blend in well.

[00:06:51] And the only thing that I knew that was going to work would be crayons. Now, mind you, I knew nothing about this, printed or not, since I was new to it, I had no clue this was back in twenty seventeen. I was mostly on social media because I had just launched the woodworking business to try to get that out there and mainly to keep an eye on my kids. So I didn't see very much things going on. And I was working on this project and I was coloring in the giant four foot by six foot frame with all these crayons. And I grabbed the crown and put it in my mouth and switched colors. I started Nowlin on this and I'm like, wait a minute. I saw a couple things. You know, these Marines eating crayons and stuff. And I'm like, I'm new to this, Gryner nonces, let me dig into this, so I started digging into it and actually seeing Marines on video, on social media eating real crayons and the memes that are out there just started, you know, I'm like, OK, I wasn't called a grenade or I was a ground pounder, double dog, Jarhead, you know, all those things. Like maybe there's something new to this cranton or nonsense thing. Let me see if we can do something about that.

[00:08:05] Yeah. Wait a minute. So just so people know, you know, those are all like nasty things that call a Marine, you know, like a bullet sponge and, you know, all this stuff. So. So this wasn't something that, oh, we love you and call on Ukraine. You know, everybody makes fun of it and jokes about it. But still, it's not the nicest thing to say.

[00:08:27] I the thing is, is the greatest thing about the military is, is that we can crack jokes on each other and we embrace them. But like the civilians crack jokes on us. That's not going to be fun. Right. Right. You know, so so we embrace the jokes. Right. And I'm like, we dig into this thing. I'm like, OK. So I started looking to start looking and I'm like. I want to see how I can bring the joke to reality. Started doing some research, spent like three months digging in, and I started seeing some different things of colored chalk, and I'm like, I wonder if this could work. So, mind you, I know nothing about chocolate, I have no clue about any of it. I know how to eat it pretty much and that it tastes good, you know, and then somebody that's like this who tolerate you know, it doesn't do very well, everybody. But, hey, I enjoy it. And I remember when I worked at one of my my first and one of my employers, my first employer was when I moved out here to California. And I would recommend that story. You know, we can go into later on, but that when I took over as a store manager and the outgoing store manager was leaving, this team member brought in these amazing peanut butter truffle. And they were better than any resee Covid I ever tried in my life. They were pretty phenomenal. And at that time, we had learned that she had went to school to be a pastry chef.

[00:09:51] So that was in the mental Rolodex. And when this idea came about in the. August end of August, timeframe of 2017. She's the first person I reached out to. Now, mind you, she's got phenomenal work ethic. I knew how she worked the way she she had phenomenal leadership. She moved from one position up into a management position. And her dad is an Army veteran. Know he's airborne. So she has an understanding of military experience and being raised in the military and stuff. So it was a no brainer to reach out to her. And I was I asked her was like, hey, I got this idea, I want to make a chocolate carreon. You ever make chocolate, right? Was like, no. They recovered it. Just like I guys like, OK, you think you could try? She's like, sure, I'll give it a try. Two weeks later, she sends me a video on September 12th, 2017, for actually making chocolate rain. And it was like perfect. It was like we had to start. We spent all the way into 2017 and we get into mid 2018 creating, you know, the great the colors, the finding the right shapes and everything. So it was it was amazing. And she is a phenomenal person. And I am glad to have her on my team as not only the co-founder, but is now our CEO.

[00:11:25] All right. Let me ask you about her name. Yeah, go ahead and give her name.

[00:11:29] So her name is Cassandra Gordon. So it was this is only it was it was only fitting, you know, that not only because she knew about pastry chef, but it was also a plus that she was a daughter of, you know, an Army veteran. Right.

[00:11:43] Right. So let me ask you to see that when I first heard about you and this idea, I'm thinking, oh, man, is it that's going to be rough because kids are going to start eating them and then they're going to get sick and then it's going to get sued. How did you get around that problem?

[00:11:59] So we got around that problem very simple. I wanted to make sure, because now, mind you, my kids are older, my kids are in their 20s now. I had younger kids and I know how they put things in their mouths. Right. Ultimately, our product right now is a novelty for the military, because you know how we we named it and what our packaging looks like. But when it came down to the ultimate design, it wasn't only for the kids that we wanted to make it look different. We also wanted to make it for the military because we wanted the higher ranking officials to be able to tell the lower ranking officials as well which ones were safety and how we had done that as we came out with a triangle shaped crayon with points on each end. Now, there are triangle shaped Koreans, but ours are a little different because ours are set at the right size for the hand, whatever they call your hand goes your hand naturally goes a triangle anyhow. So we created a triangle shape. We put the two points on the ends because you never know what you're going to grab whenever you pick it up or whatever you put out of the pocket, you don't want to go at it or you just might want to play with it or with it. And while you're calling on one side, you can nibble on the other side. So the main the main reasons are, is that it's flat. When it's flat, it doesn't roll off the table and you don't lose your food.

[00:13:22] Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't fall in the bunch of stuff on the floor.

[00:13:26] Yeah. So we've got the triangle shaped freezer grip. We've got the roll out the food. And like I said, we wanted the higher ranking officials to tell the lower ranking officials, as well as when parents do give these to kids, they can tell their children, you know, the flatworms, the triangle shaped ones are OK to eat, the round ones are not OK to eat. And hence, we don't look like a traditional crowd. We don't want it to look like a grand. And that's how we got around it.

[00:13:51] Now, does this is it actually right?

[00:13:54] Have you not been aware of social media yet?

[00:13:56] Yeah, I saw that, but I couldn't believe it. That you could write with chocolate. And then what happens to it after you write with it? What happens to the picture after you draw it with chocolate crayons?

[00:14:11] I have a picture of our mascot, Lance Corporal Critch, that we collared back in 2018. That is still looks just like it did when it colored it in two thousand eight. It's amazing.

[00:14:24] That's amazing. And I want to mention everybody. You know, this isn't up to our standard audio quality, but the moment that I went to introduce Frank and his Internet just disappeared off the face of the earth. So he has to be on a phone now, which is not our normal. So so that's that's just crazy. But but everything wasn't to use a Navy term. Smooth sailing, right.

[00:14:50] Oh, no, it was not, you know, and when we came about this, I give you a quick example. I went through this and I had met a few people on social media back in the day before Zoom was really big. And we were doing zoom meetings and just getting together and having a good old time and stuff like that. I didn't have a name for it. And I'm like, what am I going to name this? How am I going to figure out the name for this? And one of the one of the the live events that we did was with the guys, Ada and Marie on the live event, and I was talking with John later on and we were talking about, you know, how what I'm going to name and everything else, he was like. You know, why don't you call crayons ready to eat, just mimic it after the MRIs, and I was like, fucking genius. I'm like, holy crap, you got it. I'm like, wait. So, you know, John is the guy that helped name the company, and that is where we derived our packaging to look like the meals ready to eat. Mm hmm. That, of course, we all eat, not training in combat and stuff of that nature. For there civilians that are out there. You know, there's a quite a bit of them that do know what meals ready to eat are, because they're getting into that craze of hygiene and minimalist living and living on buses and pre program and stuff.

[00:16:06] You know, preppers.

[00:16:07] Exactly. So, you know, we got the name of it. And when we launched it was it was a call to action by the Marine Raptor. I had no clue where this is going to go. I'm not I granted, yes, I do have my woodworking business, but I'm still learning business, still trying to figure it out. And when I told a Marine rapper about the idea of record action and wanted me to come down to the bunker labs and talk about the business, wait a minute, what's a Marine rapper?

[00:16:41] So the Marine rapper, his name is is his official name is Raymond Lott. Well, what is the. He is a musician.

[00:16:50] Oh, he was a rapper.

[00:16:52] Oh, yes.

[00:16:54] Yeah, I thought there was a military term or something.

[00:16:57] No, Raymond Lord, a.k.a. the Marine rapper. He does rap music based with the military. And I'm a country bumpkin, so and I'm from the backwoods of Ohio. And I appreciate a good country. Music and 80s rock. When I heard his music, I could relate to it because it actually hit you with military experience. But most importantly, any age can listen to it. He has none of the foul language, none of the, you know, the vulgarities and none of that. So it's an all around good thing to listen to. So if you want to listen to some hip hop and rap, you know that the military could relate to exegetical. Listen to him. But very. He called me to actually.

[00:17:46] Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say I was going to ask you, do you have a picture that we can put in the show notes of the of the packaging?

[00:17:55] Yeah, I'll get your pictures of the packaging and I'll get you pictures of, know, the Marine wrapper munching on it and many other people, we extract a Medal of Honor winner recipient, I should say, recently, try our products and I'll get you that for everybody to be able to view.

[00:18:13] All right. But everything wasn't smooth sailing, so.

[00:18:15] Oh, no. So we go down. We pitch this. I didn't know it wasn't pitch and it was just talking to people, you know, see where we're at. And it was a proof of concept. There was we made it. And not only did we enjoy it in our our friends and family enjoyed it, but this was the first time to actually see if people would actually like this. And I'm sitting in a room with about eight or nine other people and given a chance to try it. And we literally went from 11 people following our social media watch, just our friends and family to by the time I left that meeting, four and a half hours later at about 200 people, all of our social media. And we started getting asked, you know, what can we get this from, we get this, you know, we want to try this, we want to try this. And it was like, OK, here we go. Not knowing anything about the food industry, we decided to launch it up on our website and say, hey, we're going to start selling this. Needless to say, that was short lived about a week and a half because the county of San Diego called us and told us we needed to stop. And we need to call them immediately.

[00:19:25] Well, I did that and here to find out that I was in violation of about 11 different codes and regulations, and I almost we almost got fined ten thousand dollars. Oh, my God. Thank goodness the the lady at the health department was very understanding, and she knew that we were new and we were learning this and she liked the concept that we did that she only gave us a warning, walk this through what we needed to do to get our cordage food permit. Now, the cottage food permit did not allow us to ship when we're not allowed to sell outside of San Diego County. And we basically were going to different events and stuff like that or getting, you know, pop ups and networking events and having, you know, be able to sell our product. So that was the first major hurdle then it came into. You know, how are we going to be able to. Make this a much larger scale. And we started looking at different options and getting into rent kitchen and we were just ready to pull the trigger to get into irenic kitchen and Covid hit. And Covid hit, I felt a decline in my woodworking. The county wasn't reissuing the health of the cottage food permit's. And we're just like, OK, what are we going to do? So I went back to work.

[00:20:55] We we went through and we still had the information on our website, we were still posting and stuff like that. So twenty twenty was a rough year. Not be able to get much. I'll be able to get any word out there and stuff like that. And then twenty twenty one came around and I got introduced to an app called Clubhouse. Mm hmm. If anybody doesn't know, clubhouse is a basically. I can put it as simple as Gore is, it's radio meets networking on steroids. Because you get to meet people in many different areas of expertise across the world, and there I was able to meet a plethora of people that helped me understand the need to take the business to an hour from basically small time to LLC. And we did that, and I met the founder of a crowdfunding organization called Fund the First. That is a verified crowdfunding source for military law enforcement, first responders, teachers and stuff like that, where they use ID to verify you. And there's no chance of there being a double crowdfunding out there based on something that was to go wrong or, you know, a fallen hero. You know, where it's going to. Mm hmm. And they also did business ventures. So I'm like, I need to raise capital because I want to take this to the next level and I want to mass produce this.

[00:22:23] So we launched a crowdfunding campaign. And. As I got perfect, now we can start getting the funding so that the crowdfunding campaign. Brought on another person onto the team that has been with us from the beginning that helped us understand the cottage food pyramid, brought her on to help out with some research and find us the facility to mass produce this, as well as handle some of our marketing and get things set up on our social media. And Flosse Hall was an amazing individual. She is a spouse, her husband is a Navy. Get ready to retire and. It was just it was just a perfect fit to help us get to that next level. So we finally get to the opportunity to find some facilities and, you know, you run into when you're in the chaulk, when you're in the food industry. It's not like anything that me and woodworking that I can make and just send it out there. There are regulations and requirements that you have to have in order to be able to ship your product to be a bit for people to consume it. There's FDA requirements, there's packaging requirements, there's nutrition facts, there's, you know, C20 ones.

[00:23:37] There's there's all these things that, you know, it discourages people to start a food based business because there's a lot to it. Whatever comes into the FDA needed to have their, you know, the regulations you have to meet. And so you find these companies and some of them like either you're not too big or they just don't talk to you. And then you find a company and then they're either going to take advantage of you because they see the great idea behind it and charge you an arm and a leg. And, you know, it's a big struggle. And right now, we have actually got, you know, a great team of advisers that has helped us get us into the right places to where we're able to get our custom molds made. We're able to get the packaging made. And we found a facility that is being very transparent with us and understanding and supporting us and to be able to mass produce this. And right now, it's a matter of getting the additional funding that we need. And we're only about sixteen thousand dollars short of what we need to be able to meet these demands to make our first run and get 5000 units of the minimum requirement for this facility to be able to produce this.

[00:24:54] Hey, I'm wondering I'm wondering, Frank, about it melting when you ship it well.

[00:25:00] So that is a great question. In the cold months, you know, it's not hard to ship chocolate because the weather's not as bad and stuff like that. And the fact of where our facility is going to be located at is pretty much in the middle of the area. So the transfer to the ship time is pretty much the same in each direction of the United States. Mm hmm. In the hot months, there is going to be a little bit of an additional cost, and we know that. So it's going to be a little low because, you know, the extra cost it would be to put cold packs onto the chalk under the pack into the packaging to keep the crayons from melting and when they're sitting on people's doorsteps. So that is that is already been covered. But there will be, you know, during the hot months, there will be an additional charge on shipping or cold packs to ensure that when you get your crayons, they are the same as they were when they left the facility. So you can enjoy them.

[00:25:59] So amazing now. Another thing another question in my mind is the last time I looked at a crayon, there was a piece of paper around the middle of it and then on the end stuck out. What is that? The same with yours?

[00:26:14] No, ours is going to be without any rapping or anything on it, any names, you can actually be imprinted into the chocolate because we don't want to have people have to read the paper off of it. When you add different textures into there are things that are apt to get out there that are edible and stuff like that. And it does change the taste of it and stuff. We want people to enjoy the authentic taste of the chocolate. Mm hmm. When they do this. So are you going to be straight chocolate? Getting there in the packaging, coming straight to you and everybody out there that is looking to get our crowds?

[00:26:51] Well, I'll tell you what a lot of people would have as soon as that lady from San Diego called where to just quit. But that's one of the things about people in the service. They're they're not quitters. They just go, oh, no, they go, go, go now. Now, I understand that you've talked about your woodworking a little bit, but I understand that it helps with an affliction you have, right?

[00:27:15] Yes, it does. But first, I want to I want to do want to say one more thing about the. Yes, we brought a joke to reality. We have kept that joke of all military branches within our crayon. Hence they started calling us parameters. We decided that we are going to keep the names going. So we've named each color after each branch of service. Oh, now those are in the military. They do know we joke about each other. So we've named each color, of course, keeping jokes going, because that is one of the things that keeps the morale and the support of the military going is a joke at each other. So we have Jarhead read the Marines, we have squid blue for the Navy. We have Dogface Green for the Army. We have flyboy's yellow for the Air Force. We have Puddle Pirate Orange for the Coast Guard. And those were our five primary colors.

[00:28:14] You got space. So lots space for us.

[00:28:18] Those were our primary five colors. Since we've launched the space force has been introduced. And once we are in the mass production and we are into the main feature where we can ship our product, we are going we are introducing one for the space force. And we are officially nicknaming the space force by introducing space cadet white,

[00:28:42] You know, and you won't have to put icepacks if you're shipping them up to a space station. It's cold up there.

[00:28:48] Ain't that the truth?

[00:28:50] Yeah. This is a really great. But anyway, before we run out of time, just tell me a little bit about your woodworking and how it has helped, though. One of the things that it's bothered you

[00:29:01] So with with me in the woodworking, I'd say how that started. You know, I came from you know, my childhood wasn't the greatest childhood in the world. I can tell you, everybody that mentored me and everybody that helped get me involved in the scouts and farming and and learning about heavy equipment and stuff like that. But inside the home, it wasn't the greatest environment. And I don't remember a lot of it inside the home. But I do remember working on the farms, making stuff and building things that need to be built. And it got me to want to be part of woodshop while in high school. And one of the first things that I made in high school was a cherry cutting board. It's not the prettiest thing. It's not the most symmetrical thing. And I still use it to this day. And it and it goes made it, you know, show that, you know, with a good quality product. How long it can last. And that was me in my freshman year. The end of the beginning of nineteen ninety two. Hmm. Ok, so that gives you an idea how old I am. And I always throughout my time in the Marine Corps, I had made stuff. And whenever I was stationed in Kuwait for a while, we needed something to sit on. So I made benches and chairs and stuff out of brick and pallets. And I was always involved in scouts when at a younger age and with my kids, and was always making things that I knew that I had a love and passion for woodworking.

[00:30:31] And that's when I decided back in twenty seventeen to quit the day job and start my own woodworking business. And for me, with woodworking, it's a form of therapy for two main reasons. I do have Tourette syndrome. And I don't have the verbals, I don't have that I have more of the text and the and the twitches in the eye blinks and stuff like that, and if anybody has an understanding with the laterite syndrome, it's a nerve. It has to do with the nervous system. It is hereditary. There's no real medicine for it, and there's not a cure for it at this time. But to be able to go and make something and know that I'm sitting there and I'm not having any any issues or anything like that, and then it's what was, you know, the things that I've been through and, you know, childhood and stuff and the things in in the military and and personal things that have happened within, you know, being a single dad and divorced and, you know, going through a lot of those things just to to go there and just have a place of peace. And making stuff is calming and relaxing and it keeps the hands busy. And it keeps the mind from wandering and other places that we don't want to wander to. So I decided to to make it as a business because, you know, yes, it's a hobby as a therapy session. But I want to eventually, at one point, at some point in time, I want to be able to turn this into educating other veterans about woodworking and about how to help help them cope with things in life.

[00:32:11] As well as bringing back. You know, family heirlooms and bringing back quality furniture to their homes that they can pass down. And I only guarantee that the cutting board that I am using to this day, I will be giving it to my children. And once they get places their own, they will be having their own cutting boards that they can use forever and forever. And and having quality furniture that is going to work no matter what home they're in, because it will last a lifetime and it gives what a second chance to be able to do those things. So woodworking for me is has been a massive. Call in and gives me the opportunity to. You know, make somebody with my hands for others to be able to use and learn and use every constantly learning I've learned. I learn every child individually joinery, and I can do what, burning by hand. And I'm recently picked up laser engraver that I started making custom wooden dog tags. It's something that nobody's anybody out there is doing. Know, get your company, your logo, your business information, some extra swag and get a dog tag. Even if somebody that has a Shadowboxer on it and getting a shadowbox made, you know, and they don't have their original dog tags. You know, I can help them make those out of wood and be able to have that memorial and stuff like that as well.

[00:33:46] Boy, that's some really cool stuff, Frank. So so tell people how they can support you.

[00:33:53] They can support me in many different ways. Ultimately, for the crown business, if you go to crayons ready to eat BCOM, we have things on there that are not only because we can't sell the crowds just yet, but we are preordering through our crowdfunding campaign at the top of the website. There'll be a bar that will take it to the crowdfunding campaign. If you pick a tier here, PFC, Private PFC and Lance Corporal. Our privateer get you one pack of crowns and a custom coloring sheet. Twenty five bucks. You get up to this Tier two, which is PFC Crown Etre, and that gets you a case of crayons, 12 coloring packs and a T-shirt, and it gets you your name on our banner that we take the different pop up and stuff as a founding supporter. And that's one hundred. Or you can get our lance corporal. Here is Lance Corporal Crown after. It's 500 that get you everything up above. Also get you a custom limited edition. Granite or founding creditors challenge coin. That is not traditional challenge coin. And get you listed on our website as a founding sponsor for life. And also, if you pick tier two and tier three, tier two is going to get a ten dollar gift card gift going to our website and tier three.

[00:35:20] Five hundred is going to get you a twenty five dollar gift going to our website. And that will help us to be able to scale and get us to where we need to be. Now, you can also pick any donation amount that you want in there. That was that way. You can also go to our website and purchase our certified decals, because we have our mascot, Lance Corporal Krunch, as a sticker that you can purchase as well. We also have our own Eater T-shirts available for sale on our website. In the word of the woodworking, you can find me at kamikazewoodwerks.com. As I said before, I'm a country boy, hillbilly, redneck from the backwoods of Ohio. We don't have the greatest grammar in the world. So I had to change it up a bit. And you can go to kamikaze woodworks. You can purchase the laser engraved custom dog tags. I have some serving trays that are serving up there. I'm getting I'm I also have my cutting board.

[00:36:28] It's up there that I'm going to be loosening up soon. You can purchase to be able to get a custom made cutting board and commission me for anything that you were looking for in the world of woodworking coasters, stove covers what you're also called, noodle boards and anything of that nature. If you're looking at anything for furniture, home decor, kitchen décor, military memorabilia that you made out of wood. Hit me up and, you know, find me on social media. You can find us on with the crayons at crayons ready to eat on most of the platforms between. Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Clapper, LinkedIn or on Twitter, which is crayons_r_e, and then everywhere else on social media, for my kamikaze, what works is you can find me at Comikaze, you woodworks. And if you go to. Any of my social media is you can find me at on my main social media Instagram and Facebook is Frank Manteau or type in the Crayon eating King. Just do a search. You'll find me. And any support can be helpful. And I appreciate it. And to keep me from having to do the commute.

[00:37:49] There you go. Well, thanks so much for coming on all this stuff that he just said was going to be in the show notes, folks. So you don't have to worry about writing it down. We'll have it written correctly and you can click on the stuff in the show notes. So thanks a lot, Frank. Thanks for your service and thanks for this great idea. That's it's going to go really big for you.

[00:38:11] I'm glad to be here, and I appreciate being on your show. Thank you.

[00:38:14] Ok, man, we'll catch everybody on the next episode as part of Vetrepreneur Month here on Screw the Commute. Catch you later.

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