Steve Seger: Al, welcome to the show.
Al Perkinson: Thanks, Steve. Great to be here, man.
Steve Seger: Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one and I'm gonna kick things right off with some warm-up questions here. they'll they'll be a little
Al Perkinson: Mm.
Steve Seger: weird but quick, just to get the blood pumping on this fine Monday morning. So first one being sunrise or sunset.
Al Perkinson: Sunset.
Steve Seger: One book that you would gift to a friend.
Al Perkinson: Hmm. Yeah, there are a lot of different kinds of books, but if it's a business book, it would be Hero and the Outlaw by Margaret Marks.
Steve Seger: What's one song? Sorry?
Al Perkinson: Hero and the Outlaw is by Margaret Mark.
Steve Seger: Got it. What's one song that you know every word to?
Al Perkinson: I would say it's gotta be a Bob Dylan song, and it's probably tangled up in blue.
Steve Seger: It one person, alive or dead, you could have to dinner with you. Who would it be?
Al Perkinson: So somebody that I've not had dinner with, I would imagine.
Steve Seger: Yeah, yeah. It could be anyone throughout history.
Al Perkinson: throughout history. Wow, that's a big one. I could do two or three.
Steve Seger: Yeah. You can do two or three too if you can't think of just one. Yeah.
Al Perkinson: yeah. Definitely Kim Bassinger, just from that standpoint. And Johnny Uninas was one of my heroes. And Pete Merovich was o another one of my heroes. So I would I would definitely love to have dinner with those guys if they're still
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: around.
Steve Seger: Pistol Pete. I like that. what is your most useless talent?
Al Perkinson: Most useless talent. Wow. These are tough questions, man.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: I hope it gets easier from here on out. My my most useless talent.
Steve Seger: Let's see, the the next two are easier.
Al Perkinson: Okay, I can I can hit a trash can with a paper wad from a long distance, I would say.
Steve Seger: You learn a lot about people when you put them on the spot like this. That's good.
Al Perkinson: Ha ha ha.
Steve Seger: would you rather your dogs be able to talk to you? Just they can communicate openly to you or live as long as you do?
Al Perkinson: definitely talk to me and I think I have a dog that pretty much does talk to me all the time. When I when I walked
Steve Seger: What what kind of dog is it?
Al Perkinson: it's actually called a Carolina dog and I got her at a at a rescue and when I walked past the cage she just looked at me and started talking to me and she would not you know, be denied. Like I had to take her home. So
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: so yeah.
Steve Seger: Love that. What's what's one business buzzword that you just cannot stand?
Al Perkinson: Content.
Steve Seger: Content. Got it. Last one, and I asked this of all of my guests. It's a it's a very important question. do you
Al Perkinson: Ha ha ha.
Steve Seger: think you could beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight if it came down to it?
Al Perkinson: Absolutely not.
Steve Seger: So that's a bit I stole from Family Guy. And the Peter Griffin has a couple beers and anytime he's with his buddies, he's like, I totally beat up Liam Neeson. And so I I ask everyone it and it's always interesting seeing people's reactions to that one.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, he was pretty tough in that what was it, kidnapped movie that he did? Or got kidnapped.
Steve Seger: yeah, taken.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, he was pretty tough there, so I don't know.
Steve Seger: Yeah, he so he boxed and was trained professionally, I guess, from like the age of nine to like seventeen. And a a lot of people don't know that about him. He's a really interesting guy.
Al Perkinson: Hmm.
Steve Seger: so he's he's dangerous. I mean, he is the real deal.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, well that's that seals it then. Definitely could
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: not beat him up. Yeah.
Steve Seger: So all right, let's jump on in. I I think your background is super, super interesting. especially your business background in recent years. but I want to start learning about what life was like for you growing up, where you're from, and kind of lead me up to where you are today.
Al Perkinson: Okay. Well, I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was a suburbs type of kid. And but fortunately we, you know, we had a lot of fields before they got all filled up with track homes, a lot of fields and creeks and lakes and stuff like that. So Even beside our house, we had a couple of vacant lots that were woods. So as a little kid, you know, that's all you need is just you know, a little bit of wilderness and you can make up the rest. So that's that was when I was young, and then we moved a couple of times. We moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and then we moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where I went to high school and then back to North Carolina where moved to a small town. My dad worked for for a college, became president of St. Andrews. And so that was a different experience going from city life to country life. But the people were were really nice and really embraced me. So that was that was interesting. And then you know going I went to college at UNC Charlotte for a little bit for a year. Didn't do too well there. You know, I I was not really into school and I think my last semester I had a couple of D's and a C. And I actually I think I had an A in logic. For some reason I liked logic. And so then I took a couple years off and and did rural land surveying. And that was the coolest job. We just stayed out in the woods all day long, and it was like a treasure hunt because you go down to to the you know courthouse and you look up these old deeds, some of them from the 1800s, and you try to piece together with the property lines were. I had a crew. I was only probably eighteen or nineteen and they gave me a crew, a truck and, you know, all this equipment and, you know, we would just go off for days and, you know, explore. So I thought I was like David Crockett or Daniel Boone or something out there. It was it was super fun. then I got back to reality, went went back to college and you know, I Yeah, I I got a I got an older girlfriend for a while. I think I was nineteen, she was twenty-six and did the Maggie Mae thing for a bit and lived with her, much to my parents' chagrin. And then went back to college and you know, I started out as a business major, but then I was like, well those classes were so boring and the people in those classes, you know, no offense to business majors, but just boring and didn't have any imagination. So I switched over and I I took a couple of art classes and and I asked my art teacher, I said, you know, can you learn to be creative? And they're like, absolutely, you know, develop the right side of your brain and all that. So I became a sculpture major and ended up, you know, finishing up with a major in sculpture and a minor in extra economics because I figured I'd probably do business at some point. And you know, sculpture was cool because you just start with You know, lump of clay or just a blank slate, and you have to figure out your point of view and ideas and from scratch, right? So it really teaches you how to formulate ideas. And then the other thing sculpture does you have to work in the round. So you don't just work on one side like a painting, two-dimensional, it's a three-dimensional deal. So you're constantly looking at the whole thing and developing each piece of it all at the same time. That became a super useful I don't know technique or tool or way of thinking even as I build a business, because with business you really have to look at the whole. So an odd sort of an odd you know type of study. curriculum for business, but it it actually worked. And so I I think that's been my point of difference all along is that I'm able to be sort of take a more creative approach to business. And that's what lifestyle brands are all about. It's bringing a fresh perspective, something new, something original to the table. And I think that you know, really helped me do that. I ended up going to Columbia University for grad school and actually was it was a business sort of an arts management type of deal. So it was a I was beginning to cross over from art into business. And then I started at Ogilvie and May their advertising after Columbia, which was a creative business but, you know, kind of went farther into the business world and Did that for a bit, you know, worked on American Express. And while I was there, we invented something called cause-based marketing. And that had not existed before, but that is, you know, my boss has developed that and made an impression on me that businesses could make money but do good at the same time. And so that stuck with me really throughout my career. Then I moved back to North Carolina to raise a family, worked at a bank for five years, and that was not a good fit for me. They just wanted me to cut my hair all the time and conform. But I did learn a lot about numbers and learned
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: a lot about research. I think they spent more on research than they did on media just because they wanted to be absolutely sure they were spending their money correctly.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What was your role there? It was Bank of America, right? Yeah.
Al Perkinson: Bank of America, yeah. I was in the marketing department and so
Steve Seger: Okay.
Al Perkinson: I I developed products and so it was good training from that standpoint and did a lot of segmentation work. with research and stuff. So that was that was pretty fun. I mean, financial yeah, your finances they touch everything in your life and they're just a part of everything in one way or the other. So that looking at it in that way made me feel like it was important work and that it was something worth doing in helping people with their financial health. So And then eventually I got back into advertising and went work at Costa and that became sort of a fifteen year project that really helped me develop all my marketing skills more fully and and you know left there when it got bought and then you know moved out to Montana for a couple of years, did a lot of fishing and worked for Sims for a bit and then started Bahio and decided to just cap it off with with creating something from scratch and and it's been more work than I thought it would be, but it's I think in the end it will be super rewarding.
Steve Seger: Yeah. When were you in Montana?
Al Perkinson: I was in Montana from twenty seven for twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen and part of twenty nineteen. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And I I understand that that that Costa chapter was really important and instrumental, it sounds like, in building, I guess, the network and the skill set in in your industry. How did that opportunity come up originally?
Al Perkinson: Well, when I went to I went to I decided to get back into advertising and I yeah, I had a couple of gigs that just didn't work out and you know, I was kind of at that place where I didn't want know what I really wanted to do and I you know it was just kind of I don't know, it's just kind of searching for what to do. So actually I went and took these courses that where you take a bunch of tests and you do all this like stare at your belly button kind of stuff. And it came out that, you know, hey, you know, you need to get back into something more creative. So I found a I found a job, actually became a partner at a an ad agency down in Greenville, South Carolina called Henderson. And so I was head of account management there. And one of my account people that I hired had a connection. she had worked for Albemarle Boats, and she had a connection with a little sunglass company called Costa that was down in Florida. It was a little six or seven million dollar brand. And so, you know, come to find out. out the the owner of Costa and I had a little bit of a connection and so went down and and pitched them and was able to get that account for our ad agency and then you know just decided that that would be my little brand that I would experiment with and try new things when over invested in it and eventually they asked me to come over and and run marketing for them and then Yeah, that started the journey and we were it sort of became like a little like a little laboratory in a way. And I was able to just work out my branding strategy and the go to market, you know, marketing strategy and growth strategies and So I was super lucky to have the freedom to do all that and to sort of play with all that. And and those those strategies just kind of began to develop over time. And I guess it's kind of like a a football coach that has their, you know, their way, their philosophy, the way that they do things, and they come into a program and then implement that system. So I I kind of think in systems, and that's what I was able to do with COSA is develop that system that. You know, I felt like I could really take anywhere. And and so, you know, pretty much that's the system we're putting in place at Bahio.
Steve Seger: Yeah. How many people were at Costa when you started?
Al Perkinson: I don't know, I would say probably about forty maybe. Thirty or thirty or forty.
Steve Seger: Okay. So small. Yeah.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, we were about seven million dollars. And then over that fifteen years we grew we grew cosa to like a hundred and sixty or seventy million. And
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: so we're hoping to do the same thing with Bahio.
Steve Seger: Yeah. W did you f start to feel like an itch to do your own thing? Or what what was the kind of inflection point, or if there even was an exact point where you were kind of like, I want to go off and build something that is my own thing? Because I'm sensing that you seem like you want to pursue things where it aligns with your values and kind of having a mission that you believe in. what kind of goes through your head when when you hear that, I guess?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, well, you know, I think in my mind I thought that I would be at Costa forever. And when our CEO left and we were bought by Esselor, which then merged with Lexotica and they still own them. So I you know, I had been sort of the thought leader for Costa. We had a great team and and we all did it together. But when it came to strategy and what we were gonna do and how we're gonna grow the brand, that was all my responsibility. So I think, you know, folks felt like I should be the next CEO of Costa. So we that was the plan, you know, you have a si succession plan and and that was the plan. And then Esslor bought us, you know, they decided that they wanted to do a search. So they did a search of people all over the place, had all these interviews, took all these tests, and all this stuff, and then decided that I was gonna be, you know, I won. So I was gonna be the CEO. And then the CEO of Esslore who lived in Singapore Decided that no, he didn't want an internal person. He wanted to make headlines. So he wanted to hire somebody who at the time they were sort of arch rivals with Lexotica. So he wanted to steal somebody from Lexotica and make headlines for doing that. So he called up Holly Rush, who was head of sales for Essalore at the time, I mean for Lexotica at the time for the United States, interviewed her for 30 minutes and hired her in places. Of me. So that was kind of a shock. And but I was like, okay, I'm gonna work with her. She was really nice and like had a big smile and seemed really friendly. And so I was gonna work with her and just you know, we were gonna be a team, just make it work. But then it became pretty obvious that you know, she was a salesperson. She didn't really like marketing. She wanted to do her own thing. She thought all the cause based stuff that we were doing was a waste of money. And so it just kind of became clear that it wasn't gonna work between us. And I'd been, you know, approached by some other companies over the years and one of them was Sims. And so they called me up and said, Hey, you know, would you be interested in in coming over. I think they had just been brought by private equity and the private equity people knew who I was or something. And so I'm like talked to my wife and it was a really hard decision, but we decided, you know, it was time. It was just time for Costa to be over and and time to move out to Montana, get a little bit of a fresh start. Well, we did sims and then that ended up not working out for several reasons we don't need to get into I guess but we can if you want to but and then so then we moved back to Charleston and I worked for Hook for a year then I did some consulting in between with Orbis and a couple other companies. and after all that it was like a two year three year period that were probably a three or four year period that we were gone. You know, I'd been keeping my eye on what was happening with Costa and Lexotica and I figured that what happened was gonna happen because that was just sort the way they they rolled. You know, they would they would just suck it up into the corporate world and kind of abandon the local community. So we after I left Hook, it was kinda like I don't think I'm employable anymore, you know. I wanna I wanna get all these other people to run my playbook and do my thing, but it's you know, it's their company. It's not my company. So the only way that and even if I became CEO of one of these companies it's still, you know, probably owned by private equity or somebody like that. So I'm gonna be handcuffed in terms of what I can do. And and what I like to do is probably not the sort of normal business type of stuff. You know, it's it's cause based, it's doing some crazy stuff. And so anyway, we just concluded that that I was kind of unemployable and that if we want to do what we want to do, that we just need to start our own thing. And about that time Luxotica came down to Daytona and laid off all three hundred Costa employees in one day. And we're like, okay, I think that's that's a sign we gotta it's time to do this. And so so that's kinda how we did it, you know. Sorry for the long answer.
Steve Seger: No, I love the long answers. Those the best. and so you from my understanding, you you had a little bit of a of a gap there before you started Bahio, where you were kind of brainstorming during COVID. what was that time period like? I mean, were you did you know like right away, like I want to do sunglasses? and this is the kind of business I mean, playbook, like you said, or was there any other ideas that were floating around out there?
Al Perkinson: You know, th th I think that this was it was the idea. I mean we could have done some something in apparel perhaps, but sunglasses was what we knew and we saw the opening in the market because of you know Costa just stopped being a company and just became a brand on the shelf at Luxotica. And so we thought that was going to create an opportunity. So from a business standpoint, you know, that was that was the opportunity. And then the other piece of it was just, you know, looking inwardly and you know, looking at what we love to do and what we really wanted to do. And we're like, look, if we're gonna do this, it's probably gonna take a lot of time, a lot of energy. It kind of better be something that we love and that we get up wanting to do every day. And so I didn't really look at Costa as a fishing brand, as as a sunglass brand as much as a fishing brand. And so we were looking at Bahio as as more of a fishing conservation brand that gave us a chance to fish a lot and do a lot of conservation work that's funded by the company. And so that was kind of how we looked at it. And so that was, you know, our mission, what we wanted to do was we really cared about the environment, we cared about, you know, the habitat, water quality, we cared about the people that You know, lot of indigenous people who were in all the places where we loved to go and travel and fish and and we cared about getting young people who were kind of going off in the electronic world more engaged in the natural world. And so with those three things in mind, we just, you know, set about during COVID of envisioning what what it would look like. And So we started before COVID, did a business plan, you know, put everything together, actually went out and raised money. Then COVID hit and everything had to be put on hold. So we just took that time, which ended up being, I don't know, three or four or five months, to just really re envision everything in the company. And you know, that that was really that was really interesting because You know, it was one it's kinda like that dream boarding thing you hear about, where if you en envision it, it will happen. So we just decided that we would take away all the well, you can't do that because. Well, you can't do that because or that's gonna be too hard, or somebody's already we just said, let's put all that aside and let's just think about, you know, what we want to have happen, what we want this thing to look at. Dream big, you know. And we had a little room upstairs. in our house in Charleston and we'd open the windows, the breeze would blow and the trees were out there rustling and and put up boards all over the walls and just made that our our dream boarding room in the house and and it was cool. And w what we came up with I I went and looked at it the other day and it's like almost everything on there actually happened, which was crazy, you know? But Yeah, that taught me something about just kind of envision it and believe it and you know, you can't you can't not like plan and do all you know the finances and all that kind of stuff too. But yeah, I think
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: just thinking about a clear clarity of vision is is super important.
Steve Seger: If you were going back and doing it again, would you plan those three to five months out and block out and say, like, okay, like I need this time to brainstorm on that idea? or would you do it any differently?
Al Perkinson: No, I you know, lots of times if you're starting a business unless you're independently wealthy and we were not, I mean we we didn't have any money, then it's hard to find three or four months where you can just kinda dream and and e so even for us, I mean, it wasn't Yeah, I had some consulting gigs on the side that were paying the bills that I was doing at the same time. And so it wasn't just a hundred percent dedicated to that, but yeah, and and I would say also it's like keep that all the time. So, you know, if you can carve out some time on your calendar to just go like sit on the beach with the notebook and and just think and dream or whatever. Every week, you know, I think that's super healthy.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. What did the first couple of weeks or months look like once you did get things rolling with Bahio?
Al Perkinson: Well th the you know at first it's kind of a you know, a what if conversation with people cause we had to pull together a team of people. And so the first the first part is raising the money. So I'd I found a guy who actually knew how to raise money. he didn't have any people or any contacts to raise money from, but if I would find all the people, he knew how to do the paperwork on it and and you know, he would he knew all about investing and finance and so he could give them a comfort level that we knew what the hell we were doing. So that was the first piece. But then when we started to sort of operationalize the business, I you know, I had people that I've worked with over the years that and almost all of them said yes, that they would like to come on board, but you know, they needed to get paid and I didn't have any money to pay them. So we had to go out and raise the money while keeping these conversations with the team going. And then once we closed on the raise, then everybody could actually start working and we had the business plan in place. They could come in and look at it and make tweaks or whatever. And then, you know, it was off to the races. And I knew that you know, at least I felt that we need to launch this thing. in the spring of the following year and and we raised the money at the end of July in 2020 and I wanted to launch April 1st, 2021. Well it normally takes about 18 months to to design and and build sunglasses. And so my product development guy he's like man you're freaking crazy. there's there's no way. I'm like Dude, we have got to launch because there's a couple other groups who are thinking about doing the same thing we are, and we've got to beat them to market. And, you know, now is the time. The timing is just right and we've got to do it April first. and so somehow we got it done. We built the whole company in like six months and got it launched and I'm glad we did because the other guys who are doing the same things, another group of ex Costa guys, actually, they didn't get theirs launched to the following year. And by that point, it was too late. We had been the first to market. We told the story. We had the retailers signed up and you know, they they kind of didn't have a chance. So
Steve Seger: Were you aware that they were working on the same thing too?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, I was yeah, we didn't know a hundred percent, but we were pretty sure. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Yeah. And when you were I mean, you spent years building Costa, you you were building brands, you were building her playbook. When you launched on your own and you were running the the business, was there still a lot that was coming up that you're just like, I don't know how to do this and I'm gonna figure it out? Or was it was there a lot that you already just knew from your experience?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, I mean there was a lot that I knew, certainly at a high level in order to put all the pieces in place. Cause I I was on the leadership team at Costa and there was, you know, like three of us really, four. And so we would have weekly meetings, we would talk about the company, the issues, you know, I knew the financials and so I knew a lot and about the whole company, even though my specialty was in branding and marketing and apparel and product design. but I so I knew a lot, but there was a lot of details that when we got down in, you know, to the next next level that I did not know. And You know, being a CEO versus being a member of a management team, it's it's different. And, you know, it's I'd been, you know, been a leader in a lot of things over my life, so I'm very comfortable with leadership. I'm the oldest of four brothers and I think you just naturally are the leader, right? And but sports and everything else, so I was comfortable with that, but But there's a lot that I had to learn, you know, about being a CEO and financial part of it. I knew I needed a strong CFO to h to handle a lot of that, but I had to learn as well, you know, a lot of it about expense control, a lot about cash management. you know, those those types of things are critical to a startup. You run out of money, then you're toast. So So putting all those systems in place, super important. And, you know, paying attention to every department in the company, not just not just one or two is is a bit of a change. But so I feel like I've grown a lot and learned a lot over the last five years and you know still got a ton to learn, but it's you know, it's feeling feeling pretty good settling in, settling into the role.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. How close in age were you and your brothers? Like did you guys play sports with each other too?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, we were two years apart and then the last two were three years apart. So yeah, a lot of competition, a lot of fighting, you know. And my my brother that's just the second one in in line, the one right under me, was a really good athlete and I was a pretty good athlete as well, but he was just a natural. And so even though he was two years younger, we were pretty even and that just drove me crazy, you know. So we were we competed so hard, you know, and it was mostly me driving it and you know, I feel bad because I I probably, you know, I probably sort of squelched a lot of his competitive drive because I was such an asshole. But But anyway he ended up doing fine.
Steve Seger: Yeah. I got a a brother who's a year roughly younger than me, and we were always in the same sports teams and everything. And like I I grew and then he kept growing. He just got like a little taller than me. So it was always kind of like frustrating me. I'm like, man, like you're just a little bit bigger than me. And it would yeah, it was annoying.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, totally annoying.
Steve Seger: I digress though. How did you end up with a eagle painted on a bus on your back? I was reading about that beforehand.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, so I had never had a tattoo before. And then Casey Anderson is our our artist, who's a tattooist. And so Jay Jay Johnson's been a really close friend of mine for a long time. And he had, you know, Pig Farm and he had Ironfly and did did the whole get trashed. He had a a lot of stuff that he did. that was all about, you know, giving back and being a good person and all of that. and and those guys had created these a film series back in, you know, while I was at at Costa and I always felt like what fly fishing needed was more of like a surf a surfing vibe and that the you know, the endless summer type of surf film was something that we should try to do in fly fishing. And I remember being at a trade show and running into these guys and I was telling them that. I was like, you know what I'm you know, they they said they were filmmakers and I'm like, well, you know what I'm looking for is I'm looking for like the endless summer of fly fishing where you're just exploring and and you know looking for that next big fish and they're like, Well, that's what we do. And so we just our first film down we did spent I don't know a couple months down in Patagonia roaming around and and made this film and so I watched it and I was like hell yeah that is it so anyway not to digress but long story short they ended up having a company, they started the fly fishing film tour and so they would just go around and show these films in the wintertime when people were Jonesing to get out there and couldn't get out. so we developed this relationship. They got in this a legal battle with these people who bought them who were like from Converse or Nike or something. and so they all quit and when they quit they got sued and had to take a year off of doing anything. Well when that year got over, I decided to hire all of and and then pay them to travel the world looking for exotic bass and which were not really bass but the and so we s we had this great relationship and these guys had the time of their life. I mean they went to Africa and Papua New Guinea and at that point in Kosa we could afford to do something like that.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: well Jay was always the one that I thought, you know, he just was the center of the whole deal and felt like he had the most talent. and so he and I have have had a great relationship you know since then. So Jay he always is just like I'm in. You know, he d well I hadn't told you what you're in on. He goes, I don't care, I'm in. So he had this old school bus that he had found and he was like, Yeah, I've got a school bus. I'm like, I don't know if that's the right vibe for our company or not, you know, a school bus. But he he had the vision, he was right. So he brought the school bus here, and so we talked about well, we need to paint it. We need to wrap it or something. He goes, Well, I don't want to wrap it, that's kind of like lame. And I don't want to make it all slick looking. It's a school bus. He says, I've got to friend named Casey Anderson who lives out in Reno and he's a tattoo artist and he's a huge fly fisherman. He he built this, you know, the whole program out at out in Lake Tahoe at Pyramid Lake with the natives and stuff like that. I'm like, well that's super cool. So we flew in Casey to tattoo the school bus and we put it in a warehouse And he just went over there and and started painting on it by hand and and, you know, did all that and then just stayed and became part of the Bahio family. So he ended up moving here from Reno, he brought his girlfriend and he and Jay actually lived at the office for about a year, 'cause, you know, nobody had any money and and This used to be a race car garage, so it's gonna have showers and you know had a kitchen and all that. So I'm like, yeah, just stay here. So and I remember the first time all the all the gals in accounting were downstairs, and we had like two two, I guess. But anyway, Jay they were down here, they get in super early. Well, Jay comes walking downstairs in his bathrobe, and they didn't had no idea who he was, and they were like Wow, you know, somebody broke in. He's like, no, I'm through the
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: house. It's cool. It's cool. And
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: yeah, and the shower was right beside the controller's desk and in the bathroom. So Jay goes in, takes a shower, comes out. Anyway, that was pretty pretty crazy times. But back to the tattoo on my back. So so one night, it was the fourth of July, I think it was a Sunday, and they they called me and they're like, Hey, man, we're making a film in the in the office and we need somebody to pretend like they're getting a tattoo so we can put it in the film. So then I got here and and I think Marguerite was in on the whole deal. So They're like, well, it'd be better if you got a real tattoo, you know, because that would be more authentic. And so I said, Okay, well, if I were to get a tattoo, I'd get the eagle that you painted on the bus. And but I said, So I want it to be, you know, like four or five inches. You can put it on my back. Well, it ended up being like this big, you know, covering almost my whole back. And you know, I'd we did it on the ping pong table upstairs and You know, I didn't really know I'd never had a tattoo before and so I figured I just had to sit there for the whole time and just kinda man up and it hurt like like heck, you know.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: And so when they finally got through it took three or four hours for him to do it. They were like, Dude, you sat there for the entire time? That would have been like three seatings for somebody. I'm like I don't know, I thought that's what I was supposed to do. But anyway, that's how I got the the tattoo on my back. And it's still the only
Steve Seger: it's funny.
Al Perkinson: one I have, but I'm I'm probably gonna get a couple more.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you know what the next one is? Do you have it planned yet or
Al Perkinson: No, I'm just trying to think, you know, it'll it'll it could be like just some more graphic symbol kind of stuff. I th also thought about the eagle, you know, is up at the top of my back and maybe we do like an island at the bottom with some palm trees, so the eagle's like flying over some palm trees or something. I don't know.
Steve Seger: I like that. What's what's the thing that you're most excited for next right now with Bahio? Like what is the next big project or what are you working on right now that you guys are super excited about?
Al Perkinson: Well, you know, last year. was a really hard year for a lot of reasons, but I was determined for us to get profitable or EBITDA positive. So we squeezed and squeezed and people were doing three jobs. I mean we just you know but I was just determined that we had to get over that hump. And so we got over that hump and then this year, you know, that's it's not a problem. We're EBIT positive and and everything is kind of stabilized, right? So we've gotten through we've gotten through the know, gotten over that ten million dollar threshold, we've gotten profitable, and you know, we've we've now put all the systems in place. You know, it's just kind of like every company goes through those phases. But now as we look forward, the you know, it's gonna give us an opportunity to be bigger and stronger and put more money and and more attention into, you know, doing the cause based stuff that we really love to do and it's sort of why we created this company. We we've been lucky to be able to do a lot of it so far, but we've got some amazing ideas that we want to put in place. And you know, these are ideas cause-based marketing is it's you know it's it's smart from a financial standpoint because it builds a brand that people love and they really care about. And And it, you know, it it really fulfills our mission at the same time. So those are the types of programs that we hadn't been able to do as much of. And and also just getting out in the market more. You know, I I'm locked behind this desk and just been, you know, cranking for like six years on, you know, seven days a week. And so to kind of come up out of that and hand over some of the day-to-day functions, you know, to other people, and I have a strong team and they're already doing and a ton of it. but you know, give freeing me up with not as many issues to solve to be out in the market and you know just going to events and going you know starting up projects and things like that. that's really that's really exciting. So I'm super stoked about that.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Although my listener here find you. I learned a ton too. So thank you.
Al Perkinson: we're good. where can people find us? you know probably just go on the website bahiosunglasses dot com and then you know obviously our social media Instagram has a lot of a lot of cool stuff on it in terms of what we're up to so either of those places will be terrific.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And last thing, what does Bahio mean to I wanted to ask that earlier?
Al Perkinson: Bajio is an old Mexican word that means the shallows. So it's the places that we think are in probably the most peril and that we want to protect. And it's because a lot of them are really close to land. So you think about salt marshes, think about saltwater flats, think about swamps and you know, those low-lying places that are the recipients of a lot of the on land nonsense. But they're so important because they're the nurseries for the ocean and it's where all the young young people start, young fish and and so if we don't protect that then our future is in peril. So that's that's where the name came from. It's the world that we love and the world we want to protect and the world we like to fish in.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you, Al. I appreciate your time too.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, no worries, man.
Steve Seger: Talk soon.
Al Perkinson: Thanks, Dave.
Al Perkinson: Thanks, Steve. Great to be here, man.
Steve Seger: Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one and I'm gonna kick things right off with some warm-up questions here. they'll they'll be a little
Al Perkinson: Mm.
Steve Seger: weird but quick, just to get the blood pumping on this fine Monday morning. So first one being sunrise or sunset.
Al Perkinson: Sunset.
Steve Seger: One book that you would gift to a friend.
Al Perkinson: Hmm. Yeah, there are a lot of different kinds of books, but if it's a business book, it would be Hero and the Outlaw by Margaret Marks.
Steve Seger: What's one song? Sorry?
Al Perkinson: Hero and the Outlaw is by Margaret Mark.
Steve Seger: Got it. What's one song that you know every word to?
Al Perkinson: I would say it's gotta be a Bob Dylan song, and it's probably tangled up in blue.
Steve Seger: It one person, alive or dead, you could have to dinner with you. Who would it be?
Al Perkinson: So somebody that I've not had dinner with, I would imagine.
Steve Seger: Yeah, yeah. It could be anyone throughout history.
Al Perkinson: throughout history. Wow, that's a big one. I could do two or three.
Steve Seger: Yeah. You can do two or three too if you can't think of just one. Yeah.
Al Perkinson: yeah. Definitely Kim Bassinger, just from that standpoint. And Johnny Uninas was one of my heroes. And Pete Merovich was o another one of my heroes. So I would I would definitely love to have dinner with those guys if they're still
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: around.
Steve Seger: Pistol Pete. I like that. what is your most useless talent?
Al Perkinson: Most useless talent. Wow. These are tough questions, man.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: I hope it gets easier from here on out. My my most useless talent.
Steve Seger: Let's see, the the next two are easier.
Al Perkinson: Okay, I can I can hit a trash can with a paper wad from a long distance, I would say.
Steve Seger: You learn a lot about people when you put them on the spot like this. That's good.
Al Perkinson: Ha ha ha.
Steve Seger: would you rather your dogs be able to talk to you? Just they can communicate openly to you or live as long as you do?
Al Perkinson: definitely talk to me and I think I have a dog that pretty much does talk to me all the time. When I when I walked
Steve Seger: What what kind of dog is it?
Al Perkinson: it's actually called a Carolina dog and I got her at a at a rescue and when I walked past the cage she just looked at me and started talking to me and she would not you know, be denied. Like I had to take her home. So
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: so yeah.
Steve Seger: Love that. What's what's one business buzzword that you just cannot stand?
Al Perkinson: Content.
Steve Seger: Content. Got it. Last one, and I asked this of all of my guests. It's a it's a very important question. do you
Al Perkinson: Ha ha ha.
Steve Seger: think you could beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight if it came down to it?
Al Perkinson: Absolutely not.
Steve Seger: So that's a bit I stole from Family Guy. And the Peter Griffin has a couple beers and anytime he's with his buddies, he's like, I totally beat up Liam Neeson. And so I I ask everyone it and it's always interesting seeing people's reactions to that one.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, he was pretty tough in that what was it, kidnapped movie that he did? Or got kidnapped.
Steve Seger: yeah, taken.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, he was pretty tough there, so I don't know.
Steve Seger: Yeah, he so he boxed and was trained professionally, I guess, from like the age of nine to like seventeen. And a a lot of people don't know that about him. He's a really interesting guy.
Al Perkinson: Hmm.
Steve Seger: so he's he's dangerous. I mean, he is the real deal.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, well that's that seals it then. Definitely could
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: not beat him up. Yeah.
Steve Seger: So all right, let's jump on in. I I think your background is super, super interesting. especially your business background in recent years. but I want to start learning about what life was like for you growing up, where you're from, and kind of lead me up to where you are today.
Al Perkinson: Okay. Well, I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was a suburbs type of kid. And but fortunately we, you know, we had a lot of fields before they got all filled up with track homes, a lot of fields and creeks and lakes and stuff like that. So Even beside our house, we had a couple of vacant lots that were woods. So as a little kid, you know, that's all you need is just you know, a little bit of wilderness and you can make up the rest. So that's that was when I was young, and then we moved a couple of times. We moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and then we moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where I went to high school and then back to North Carolina where moved to a small town. My dad worked for for a college, became president of St. Andrews. And so that was a different experience going from city life to country life. But the people were were really nice and really embraced me. So that was that was interesting. And then you know going I went to college at UNC Charlotte for a little bit for a year. Didn't do too well there. You know, I I was not really into school and I think my last semester I had a couple of D's and a C. And I actually I think I had an A in logic. For some reason I liked logic. And so then I took a couple years off and and did rural land surveying. And that was the coolest job. We just stayed out in the woods all day long, and it was like a treasure hunt because you go down to to the you know courthouse and you look up these old deeds, some of them from the 1800s, and you try to piece together with the property lines were. I had a crew. I was only probably eighteen or nineteen and they gave me a crew, a truck and, you know, all this equipment and, you know, we would just go off for days and, you know, explore. So I thought I was like David Crockett or Daniel Boone or something out there. It was it was super fun. then I got back to reality, went went back to college and you know, I Yeah, I I got a I got an older girlfriend for a while. I think I was nineteen, she was twenty-six and did the Maggie Mae thing for a bit and lived with her, much to my parents' chagrin. And then went back to college and you know, I started out as a business major, but then I was like, well those classes were so boring and the people in those classes, you know, no offense to business majors, but just boring and didn't have any imagination. So I switched over and I I took a couple of art classes and and I asked my art teacher, I said, you know, can you learn to be creative? And they're like, absolutely, you know, develop the right side of your brain and all that. So I became a sculpture major and ended up, you know, finishing up with a major in sculpture and a minor in extra economics because I figured I'd probably do business at some point. And you know, sculpture was cool because you just start with You know, lump of clay or just a blank slate, and you have to figure out your point of view and ideas and from scratch, right? So it really teaches you how to formulate ideas. And then the other thing sculpture does you have to work in the round. So you don't just work on one side like a painting, two-dimensional, it's a three-dimensional deal. So you're constantly looking at the whole thing and developing each piece of it all at the same time. That became a super useful I don't know technique or tool or way of thinking even as I build a business, because with business you really have to look at the whole. So an odd sort of an odd you know type of study. curriculum for business, but it it actually worked. And so I I think that's been my point of difference all along is that I'm able to be sort of take a more creative approach to business. And that's what lifestyle brands are all about. It's bringing a fresh perspective, something new, something original to the table. And I think that you know, really helped me do that. I ended up going to Columbia University for grad school and actually was it was a business sort of an arts management type of deal. So it was a I was beginning to cross over from art into business. And then I started at Ogilvie and May their advertising after Columbia, which was a creative business but, you know, kind of went farther into the business world and Did that for a bit, you know, worked on American Express. And while I was there, we invented something called cause-based marketing. And that had not existed before, but that is, you know, my boss has developed that and made an impression on me that businesses could make money but do good at the same time. And so that stuck with me really throughout my career. Then I moved back to North Carolina to raise a family, worked at a bank for five years, and that was not a good fit for me. They just wanted me to cut my hair all the time and conform. But I did learn a lot about numbers and learned
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: a lot about research. I think they spent more on research than they did on media just because they wanted to be absolutely sure they were spending their money correctly.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What was your role there? It was Bank of America, right? Yeah.
Al Perkinson: Bank of America, yeah. I was in the marketing department and so
Steve Seger: Okay.
Al Perkinson: I I developed products and so it was good training from that standpoint and did a lot of segmentation work. with research and stuff. So that was that was pretty fun. I mean, financial yeah, your finances they touch everything in your life and they're just a part of everything in one way or the other. So that looking at it in that way made me feel like it was important work and that it was something worth doing in helping people with their financial health. So And then eventually I got back into advertising and went work at Costa and that became sort of a fifteen year project that really helped me develop all my marketing skills more fully and and you know left there when it got bought and then you know moved out to Montana for a couple of years, did a lot of fishing and worked for Sims for a bit and then started Bahio and decided to just cap it off with with creating something from scratch and and it's been more work than I thought it would be, but it's I think in the end it will be super rewarding.
Steve Seger: Yeah. When were you in Montana?
Al Perkinson: I was in Montana from twenty seven for twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen and part of twenty nineteen. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And I I understand that that that Costa chapter was really important and instrumental, it sounds like, in building, I guess, the network and the skill set in in your industry. How did that opportunity come up originally?
Al Perkinson: Well, when I went to I went to I decided to get back into advertising and I yeah, I had a couple of gigs that just didn't work out and you know, I was kind of at that place where I didn't want know what I really wanted to do and I you know it was just kind of I don't know, it's just kind of searching for what to do. So actually I went and took these courses that where you take a bunch of tests and you do all this like stare at your belly button kind of stuff. And it came out that, you know, hey, you know, you need to get back into something more creative. So I found a I found a job, actually became a partner at a an ad agency down in Greenville, South Carolina called Henderson. And so I was head of account management there. And one of my account people that I hired had a connection. she had worked for Albemarle Boats, and she had a connection with a little sunglass company called Costa that was down in Florida. It was a little six or seven million dollar brand. And so, you know, come to find out. out the the owner of Costa and I had a little bit of a connection and so went down and and pitched them and was able to get that account for our ad agency and then you know just decided that that would be my little brand that I would experiment with and try new things when over invested in it and eventually they asked me to come over and and run marketing for them and then Yeah, that started the journey and we were it sort of became like a little like a little laboratory in a way. And I was able to just work out my branding strategy and the go to market, you know, marketing strategy and growth strategies and So I was super lucky to have the freedom to do all that and to sort of play with all that. And and those those strategies just kind of began to develop over time. And I guess it's kind of like a a football coach that has their, you know, their way, their philosophy, the way that they do things, and they come into a program and then implement that system. So I I kind of think in systems, and that's what I was able to do with COSA is develop that system that. You know, I felt like I could really take anywhere. And and so, you know, pretty much that's the system we're putting in place at Bahio.
Steve Seger: Yeah. How many people were at Costa when you started?
Al Perkinson: I don't know, I would say probably about forty maybe. Thirty or thirty or forty.
Steve Seger: Okay. So small. Yeah.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, we were about seven million dollars. And then over that fifteen years we grew we grew cosa to like a hundred and sixty or seventy million. And
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: so we're hoping to do the same thing with Bahio.
Steve Seger: Yeah. W did you f start to feel like an itch to do your own thing? Or what what was the kind of inflection point, or if there even was an exact point where you were kind of like, I want to go off and build something that is my own thing? Because I'm sensing that you seem like you want to pursue things where it aligns with your values and kind of having a mission that you believe in. what kind of goes through your head when when you hear that, I guess?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, well, you know, I think in my mind I thought that I would be at Costa forever. And when our CEO left and we were bought by Esselor, which then merged with Lexotica and they still own them. So I you know, I had been sort of the thought leader for Costa. We had a great team and and we all did it together. But when it came to strategy and what we were gonna do and how we're gonna grow the brand, that was all my responsibility. So I think, you know, folks felt like I should be the next CEO of Costa. So we that was the plan, you know, you have a si succession plan and and that was the plan. And then Esslor bought us, you know, they decided that they wanted to do a search. So they did a search of people all over the place, had all these interviews, took all these tests, and all this stuff, and then decided that I was gonna be, you know, I won. So I was gonna be the CEO. And then the CEO of Esslore who lived in Singapore Decided that no, he didn't want an internal person. He wanted to make headlines. So he wanted to hire somebody who at the time they were sort of arch rivals with Lexotica. So he wanted to steal somebody from Lexotica and make headlines for doing that. So he called up Holly Rush, who was head of sales for Essalore at the time, I mean for Lexotica at the time for the United States, interviewed her for 30 minutes and hired her in places. Of me. So that was kind of a shock. And but I was like, okay, I'm gonna work with her. She was really nice and like had a big smile and seemed really friendly. And so I was gonna work with her and just you know, we were gonna be a team, just make it work. But then it became pretty obvious that you know, she was a salesperson. She didn't really like marketing. She wanted to do her own thing. She thought all the cause based stuff that we were doing was a waste of money. And so it just kind of became clear that it wasn't gonna work between us. And I'd been, you know, approached by some other companies over the years and one of them was Sims. And so they called me up and said, Hey, you know, would you be interested in in coming over. I think they had just been brought by private equity and the private equity people knew who I was or something. And so I'm like talked to my wife and it was a really hard decision, but we decided, you know, it was time. It was just time for Costa to be over and and time to move out to Montana, get a little bit of a fresh start. Well, we did sims and then that ended up not working out for several reasons we don't need to get into I guess but we can if you want to but and then so then we moved back to Charleston and I worked for Hook for a year then I did some consulting in between with Orbis and a couple other companies. and after all that it was like a two year three year period that were probably a three or four year period that we were gone. You know, I'd been keeping my eye on what was happening with Costa and Lexotica and I figured that what happened was gonna happen because that was just sort the way they they rolled. You know, they would they would just suck it up into the corporate world and kind of abandon the local community. So we after I left Hook, it was kinda like I don't think I'm employable anymore, you know. I wanna I wanna get all these other people to run my playbook and do my thing, but it's you know, it's their company. It's not my company. So the only way that and even if I became CEO of one of these companies it's still, you know, probably owned by private equity or somebody like that. So I'm gonna be handcuffed in terms of what I can do. And and what I like to do is probably not the sort of normal business type of stuff. You know, it's it's cause based, it's doing some crazy stuff. And so anyway, we just concluded that that I was kind of unemployable and that if we want to do what we want to do, that we just need to start our own thing. And about that time Luxotica came down to Daytona and laid off all three hundred Costa employees in one day. And we're like, okay, I think that's that's a sign we gotta it's time to do this. And so so that's kinda how we did it, you know. Sorry for the long answer.
Steve Seger: No, I love the long answers. Those the best. and so you from my understanding, you you had a little bit of a of a gap there before you started Bahio, where you were kind of brainstorming during COVID. what was that time period like? I mean, were you did you know like right away, like I want to do sunglasses? and this is the kind of business I mean, playbook, like you said, or was there any other ideas that were floating around out there?
Al Perkinson: You know, th th I think that this was it was the idea. I mean we could have done some something in apparel perhaps, but sunglasses was what we knew and we saw the opening in the market because of you know Costa just stopped being a company and just became a brand on the shelf at Luxotica. And so we thought that was going to create an opportunity. So from a business standpoint, you know, that was that was the opportunity. And then the other piece of it was just, you know, looking inwardly and you know, looking at what we love to do and what we really wanted to do. And we're like, look, if we're gonna do this, it's probably gonna take a lot of time, a lot of energy. It kind of better be something that we love and that we get up wanting to do every day. And so I didn't really look at Costa as a fishing brand, as as a sunglass brand as much as a fishing brand. And so we were looking at Bahio as as more of a fishing conservation brand that gave us a chance to fish a lot and do a lot of conservation work that's funded by the company. And so that was kind of how we looked at it. And so that was, you know, our mission, what we wanted to do was we really cared about the environment, we cared about, you know, the habitat, water quality, we cared about the people that You know, lot of indigenous people who were in all the places where we loved to go and travel and fish and and we cared about getting young people who were kind of going off in the electronic world more engaged in the natural world. And so with those three things in mind, we just, you know, set about during COVID of envisioning what what it would look like. And So we started before COVID, did a business plan, you know, put everything together, actually went out and raised money. Then COVID hit and everything had to be put on hold. So we just took that time, which ended up being, I don't know, three or four or five months, to just really re envision everything in the company. And you know, that that was really that was really interesting because You know, it was one it's kinda like that dream boarding thing you hear about, where if you en envision it, it will happen. So we just decided that we would take away all the well, you can't do that because. Well, you can't do that because or that's gonna be too hard, or somebody's already we just said, let's put all that aside and let's just think about, you know, what we want to have happen, what we want this thing to look at. Dream big, you know. And we had a little room upstairs. in our house in Charleston and we'd open the windows, the breeze would blow and the trees were out there rustling and and put up boards all over the walls and just made that our our dream boarding room in the house and and it was cool. And w what we came up with I I went and looked at it the other day and it's like almost everything on there actually happened, which was crazy, you know? But Yeah, that taught me something about just kind of envision it and believe it and you know, you can't you can't not like plan and do all you know the finances and all that kind of stuff too. But yeah, I think
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: just thinking about a clear clarity of vision is is super important.
Steve Seger: If you were going back and doing it again, would you plan those three to five months out and block out and say, like, okay, like I need this time to brainstorm on that idea? or would you do it any differently?
Al Perkinson: No, I you know, lots of times if you're starting a business unless you're independently wealthy and we were not, I mean we we didn't have any money, then it's hard to find three or four months where you can just kinda dream and and e so even for us, I mean, it wasn't Yeah, I had some consulting gigs on the side that were paying the bills that I was doing at the same time. And so it wasn't just a hundred percent dedicated to that, but yeah, and and I would say also it's like keep that all the time. So, you know, if you can carve out some time on your calendar to just go like sit on the beach with the notebook and and just think and dream or whatever. Every week, you know, I think that's super healthy.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. What did the first couple of weeks or months look like once you did get things rolling with Bahio?
Al Perkinson: Well th the you know at first it's kind of a you know, a what if conversation with people cause we had to pull together a team of people. And so the first the first part is raising the money. So I'd I found a guy who actually knew how to raise money. he didn't have any people or any contacts to raise money from, but if I would find all the people, he knew how to do the paperwork on it and and you know, he would he knew all about investing and finance and so he could give them a comfort level that we knew what the hell we were doing. So that was the first piece. But then when we started to sort of operationalize the business, I you know, I had people that I've worked with over the years that and almost all of them said yes, that they would like to come on board, but you know, they needed to get paid and I didn't have any money to pay them. So we had to go out and raise the money while keeping these conversations with the team going. And then once we closed on the raise, then everybody could actually start working and we had the business plan in place. They could come in and look at it and make tweaks or whatever. And then, you know, it was off to the races. And I knew that you know, at least I felt that we need to launch this thing. in the spring of the following year and and we raised the money at the end of July in 2020 and I wanted to launch April 1st, 2021. Well it normally takes about 18 months to to design and and build sunglasses. And so my product development guy he's like man you're freaking crazy. there's there's no way. I'm like Dude, we have got to launch because there's a couple other groups who are thinking about doing the same thing we are, and we've got to beat them to market. And, you know, now is the time. The timing is just right and we've got to do it April first. and so somehow we got it done. We built the whole company in like six months and got it launched and I'm glad we did because the other guys who are doing the same things, another group of ex Costa guys, actually, they didn't get theirs launched to the following year. And by that point, it was too late. We had been the first to market. We told the story. We had the retailers signed up and you know, they they kind of didn't have a chance. So
Steve Seger: Were you aware that they were working on the same thing too?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, I was yeah, we didn't know a hundred percent, but we were pretty sure. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Yeah. And when you were I mean, you spent years building Costa, you you were building brands, you were building her playbook. When you launched on your own and you were running the the business, was there still a lot that was coming up that you're just like, I don't know how to do this and I'm gonna figure it out? Or was it was there a lot that you already just knew from your experience?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, I mean there was a lot that I knew, certainly at a high level in order to put all the pieces in place. Cause I I was on the leadership team at Costa and there was, you know, like three of us really, four. And so we would have weekly meetings, we would talk about the company, the issues, you know, I knew the financials and so I knew a lot and about the whole company, even though my specialty was in branding and marketing and apparel and product design. but I so I knew a lot, but there was a lot of details that when we got down in, you know, to the next next level that I did not know. And You know, being a CEO versus being a member of a management team, it's it's different. And, you know, it's I'd been, you know, been a leader in a lot of things over my life, so I'm very comfortable with leadership. I'm the oldest of four brothers and I think you just naturally are the leader, right? And but sports and everything else, so I was comfortable with that, but But there's a lot that I had to learn, you know, about being a CEO and financial part of it. I knew I needed a strong CFO to h to handle a lot of that, but I had to learn as well, you know, a lot of it about expense control, a lot about cash management. you know, those those types of things are critical to a startup. You run out of money, then you're toast. So So putting all those systems in place, super important. And, you know, paying attention to every department in the company, not just not just one or two is is a bit of a change. But so I feel like I've grown a lot and learned a lot over the last five years and you know still got a ton to learn, but it's you know, it's feeling feeling pretty good settling in, settling into the role.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. How close in age were you and your brothers? Like did you guys play sports with each other too?
Al Perkinson: Yeah, we were two years apart and then the last two were three years apart. So yeah, a lot of competition, a lot of fighting, you know. And my my brother that's just the second one in in line, the one right under me, was a really good athlete and I was a pretty good athlete as well, but he was just a natural. And so even though he was two years younger, we were pretty even and that just drove me crazy, you know. So we were we competed so hard, you know, and it was mostly me driving it and you know, I feel bad because I I probably, you know, I probably sort of squelched a lot of his competitive drive because I was such an asshole. But But anyway he ended up doing fine.
Steve Seger: Yeah. I got a a brother who's a year roughly younger than me, and we were always in the same sports teams and everything. And like I I grew and then he kept growing. He just got like a little taller than me. So it was always kind of like frustrating me. I'm like, man, like you're just a little bit bigger than me. And it would yeah, it was annoying.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, totally annoying.
Steve Seger: I digress though. How did you end up with a eagle painted on a bus on your back? I was reading about that beforehand.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, so I had never had a tattoo before. And then Casey Anderson is our our artist, who's a tattooist. And so Jay Jay Johnson's been a really close friend of mine for a long time. And he had, you know, Pig Farm and he had Ironfly and did did the whole get trashed. He had a a lot of stuff that he did. that was all about, you know, giving back and being a good person and all of that. and and those guys had created these a film series back in, you know, while I was at at Costa and I always felt like what fly fishing needed was more of like a surf a surfing vibe and that the you know, the endless summer type of surf film was something that we should try to do in fly fishing. And I remember being at a trade show and running into these guys and I was telling them that. I was like, you know what I'm you know, they they said they were filmmakers and I'm like, well, you know what I'm looking for is I'm looking for like the endless summer of fly fishing where you're just exploring and and you know looking for that next big fish and they're like, Well, that's what we do. And so we just our first film down we did spent I don't know a couple months down in Patagonia roaming around and and made this film and so I watched it and I was like hell yeah that is it so anyway not to digress but long story short they ended up having a company, they started the fly fishing film tour and so they would just go around and show these films in the wintertime when people were Jonesing to get out there and couldn't get out. so we developed this relationship. They got in this a legal battle with these people who bought them who were like from Converse or Nike or something. and so they all quit and when they quit they got sued and had to take a year off of doing anything. Well when that year got over, I decided to hire all of and and then pay them to travel the world looking for exotic bass and which were not really bass but the and so we s we had this great relationship and these guys had the time of their life. I mean they went to Africa and Papua New Guinea and at that point in Kosa we could afford to do something like that.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Al Perkinson: well Jay was always the one that I thought, you know, he just was the center of the whole deal and felt like he had the most talent. and so he and I have have had a great relationship you know since then. So Jay he always is just like I'm in. You know, he d well I hadn't told you what you're in on. He goes, I don't care, I'm in. So he had this old school bus that he had found and he was like, Yeah, I've got a school bus. I'm like, I don't know if that's the right vibe for our company or not, you know, a school bus. But he he had the vision, he was right. So he brought the school bus here, and so we talked about well, we need to paint it. We need to wrap it or something. He goes, Well, I don't want to wrap it, that's kind of like lame. And I don't want to make it all slick looking. It's a school bus. He says, I've got to friend named Casey Anderson who lives out in Reno and he's a tattoo artist and he's a huge fly fisherman. He he built this, you know, the whole program out at out in Lake Tahoe at Pyramid Lake with the natives and stuff like that. I'm like, well that's super cool. So we flew in Casey to tattoo the school bus and we put it in a warehouse And he just went over there and and started painting on it by hand and and, you know, did all that and then just stayed and became part of the Bahio family. So he ended up moving here from Reno, he brought his girlfriend and he and Jay actually lived at the office for about a year, 'cause, you know, nobody had any money and and This used to be a race car garage, so it's gonna have showers and you know had a kitchen and all that. So I'm like, yeah, just stay here. So and I remember the first time all the all the gals in accounting were downstairs, and we had like two two, I guess. But anyway, Jay they were down here, they get in super early. Well, Jay comes walking downstairs in his bathrobe, and they didn't had no idea who he was, and they were like Wow, you know, somebody broke in. He's like, no, I'm through the
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: house. It's cool. It's cool. And
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: yeah, and the shower was right beside the controller's desk and in the bathroom. So Jay goes in, takes a shower, comes out. Anyway, that was pretty pretty crazy times. But back to the tattoo on my back. So so one night, it was the fourth of July, I think it was a Sunday, and they they called me and they're like, Hey, man, we're making a film in the in the office and we need somebody to pretend like they're getting a tattoo so we can put it in the film. So then I got here and and I think Marguerite was in on the whole deal. So They're like, well, it'd be better if you got a real tattoo, you know, because that would be more authentic. And so I said, Okay, well, if I were to get a tattoo, I'd get the eagle that you painted on the bus. And but I said, So I want it to be, you know, like four or five inches. You can put it on my back. Well, it ended up being like this big, you know, covering almost my whole back. And you know, I'd we did it on the ping pong table upstairs and You know, I didn't really know I'd never had a tattoo before and so I figured I just had to sit there for the whole time and just kinda man up and it hurt like like heck, you know.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Al Perkinson: And so when they finally got through it took three or four hours for him to do it. They were like, Dude, you sat there for the entire time? That would have been like three seatings for somebody. I'm like I don't know, I thought that's what I was supposed to do. But anyway, that's how I got the the tattoo on my back. And it's still the only
Steve Seger: it's funny.
Al Perkinson: one I have, but I'm I'm probably gonna get a couple more.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you know what the next one is? Do you have it planned yet or
Al Perkinson: No, I'm just trying to think, you know, it'll it'll it could be like just some more graphic symbol kind of stuff. I th also thought about the eagle, you know, is up at the top of my back and maybe we do like an island at the bottom with some palm trees, so the eagle's like flying over some palm trees or something. I don't know.
Steve Seger: I like that. What's what's the thing that you're most excited for next right now with Bahio? Like what is the next big project or what are you working on right now that you guys are super excited about?
Al Perkinson: Well, you know, last year. was a really hard year for a lot of reasons, but I was determined for us to get profitable or EBITDA positive. So we squeezed and squeezed and people were doing three jobs. I mean we just you know but I was just determined that we had to get over that hump. And so we got over that hump and then this year, you know, that's it's not a problem. We're EBIT positive and and everything is kind of stabilized, right? So we've gotten through we've gotten through the know, gotten over that ten million dollar threshold, we've gotten profitable, and you know, we've we've now put all the systems in place. You know, it's just kind of like every company goes through those phases. But now as we look forward, the you know, it's gonna give us an opportunity to be bigger and stronger and put more money and and more attention into, you know, doing the cause based stuff that we really love to do and it's sort of why we created this company. We we've been lucky to be able to do a lot of it so far, but we've got some amazing ideas that we want to put in place. And you know, these are ideas cause-based marketing is it's you know it's it's smart from a financial standpoint because it builds a brand that people love and they really care about. And And it, you know, it it really fulfills our mission at the same time. So those are the types of programs that we hadn't been able to do as much of. And and also just getting out in the market more. You know, I I'm locked behind this desk and just been, you know, cranking for like six years on, you know, seven days a week. And so to kind of come up out of that and hand over some of the day-to-day functions, you know, to other people, and I have a strong team and they're already doing and a ton of it. but you know, give freeing me up with not as many issues to solve to be out in the market and you know just going to events and going you know starting up projects and things like that. that's really that's really exciting. So I'm super stoked about that.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Although my listener here find you. I learned a ton too. So thank you.
Al Perkinson: we're good. where can people find us? you know probably just go on the website bahiosunglasses dot com and then you know obviously our social media Instagram has a lot of a lot of cool stuff on it in terms of what we're up to so either of those places will be terrific.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And last thing, what does Bahio mean to I wanted to ask that earlier?
Al Perkinson: Bajio is an old Mexican word that means the shallows. So it's the places that we think are in probably the most peril and that we want to protect. And it's because a lot of them are really close to land. So you think about salt marshes, think about saltwater flats, think about swamps and you know, those low-lying places that are the recipients of a lot of the on land nonsense. But they're so important because they're the nurseries for the ocean and it's where all the young young people start, young fish and and so if we don't protect that then our future is in peril. So that's that's where the name came from. It's the world that we love and the world we want to protect and the world we like to fish in.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you, Al. I appreciate your time too.
Al Perkinson: Yeah, no worries, man.
Steve Seger: Talk soon.
Al Perkinson: Thanks, Dave.
