.Manly Bands is actually a direct-to-consumer seller of males's rings. The provider launched in 2016 after John Ruggiero, the co-founder along with his wife Michelle, couldn't discover a suitable wedding event band.This is Ruggiero's 2nd look on the podcast. In April 2021, our company reviewed the firm's beginning, one-of-a-kind ring materials, and also a lot more. Since then, Manly Bands has actually obtained its maker. The production of bands from, mention, Port Daniel's scotch gun barrels or even Fender guitar cords makes compelling video recording, points out Ruggiero, excellent for storytelling on social media and somewhere else.The whole sound of our conversation is ingrained listed below. The transcript is modified for duration as well as clarity.Eric Bandholz: Provide our team a rundown of what you perform.John Ruggiero: My partner, Michelle, and I began an on the internet ring firm knowned as Manly Bands in 2016 to address a problem of wedding event bands for males. Our team were just married. I have big fingers and also could not locate a ring that I just liked that was certainly not overpriced. My choices were getting coming from a magazine or having something custom-made.I wound up getting coming from a website. The band got here in a flat mailer, with no carton or customer care. It was a horrendous adventure by today's ecommerce standards.Our company received married, moved to Florida, and also required a project. Our experts informed our own selves, "Our company are actually each business people. Why don't our company make our very own organization?" Our experts explained the kinds of concerns our experts would certainly seen and how to fix them. My ring expertise came up, and also our team chose to make an effort to address it for other men.Our objective when we began was actually to pay rent. Our experts believed making a couple many thousand dollars a month coming from this would be actually great. We considered it a way of life business, not high-growth. It was actually merely Michelle and also me in our garage making rings and sending all of them out to clients. Our experts had actually appealed something. Our information reverberated with prospects.Michelle and I make an excellent staff. I formulate ideas, as well as she's the implementer. A lot of our effectiveness heads to her artistic mind. She names the rings as well as establishes characters. She connects the bands to customers. Defining a ring only as "eight-millimeter dark" didn't cut it.Our company made rings from one-of-a-kind products, like Port Daniel's gun barrels or exclusive steels. Business took off. Ever since, our company've expanded dramatically. Our company now have more than 55 people in the Manly Bands family members. About half of those are actually band craftsmens that work in our just recently acquired production shop in Utah.Bandholz: When performed you obtain a producer?Ruggiero: Concerning a year and a fifty percent earlier. Our experts had been their customer for a long times, so we knew them properly. The majority of their organization was retail, which didn't passion our team-- mosting likely to mom-and-pop jewelers. They preserved their retail clients as well as brand. Our experts got some of their resources as well as delivered over staff members.Bringing on a production group has actually been one of the best things our company've carried out. It's been astonishing to head out certainly there as well as enjoy all of them create rings out of Fender guitar strings or even metal coming from an M1 Abrams tank.Bandholz: Exactly how does internal manufacturing influence advertising?Ruggiero: It is actually been massive. Taking a camera to the opposite of the workplace as well as shooting the group using lathes to reduce the steel poles or scotch gun barrels in to bands makes for fabulous video recording. We have our electronic camera team out there constantly. Our team utilize that footage on our social media sites and also in our adds as well as bulletins. Our experts try to market that given that a lot of providers in the males's band room do not produce. They fall ship or even purchase from foreign and afterwards deliver it out. However our experts prefer it to last a lifetime and also be something people can take pleasure in.Our company've possessed a great deal of success with our armed forces heritage selection, where our experts source special armed forces materials. Our team have the M1 Garand rifle inventory, the hardwood part, from War of the nations I. Viewing our group put that in the lathe as well as reduced a piece out for a ring is interesting.Our advertising for those bands talks about the past history, the soldiers, where the weapon was actually made use of, and factors like that. My wife and I examined filmmaking in university. We use our skill-sets to inform as well as tell a story. For instance, I lately obtained an e-mail coming from a customer that shared that his gramps utilized to drive M1 tanks. The consumer talented one of those bands to his gramps, and they had quite a psychological substitution. It's nice to help consumers connect with their past times and generate something significant.Bandholz: Where can people purchase a ring from you?Ruggiero: ManlyBands.com. We have photos on Instagram, too. I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn.