.Manly Bands is a direct-to-consumer seller of males's rings. The firm introduced in 2016 after John Ruggiero, the co-founder along with his wife Michelle, couldn't locate an appropriate wedding ceremony band.This is Ruggiero's second appearance on the podcast. In April 2021, our company covered the provider's founding, distinct ring components, and also even more. Ever since, Manly Bands has acquired its maker. The making of rings coming from, state, Jack Daniel's whiskey gun barrels or even Fender guitar strings generates engaging online video, mentions Ruggiero, perfect for storytelling on social networks and also elsewhere.The whole audio of our conversation is inserted listed below. The records is actually revised for span and also clearness.Eric Bandholz: Give our team a rundown of what you do.John Ruggiero: My other half, Michelle, and I began an online ring provider referred to as Manly Bands in 2016 to resolve a complication of wedding bands for males. Our experts were just wed. I have large hands as well as couldn't locate a ring that I suched as that was certainly not overpriced. My options were actually ordering coming from a brochure or having one thing tailor-made.I ended up buying coming from a site. The ring arrived in a standard mailer, without box or even client service. It was actually an awful knowledge by today's ecommerce specifications.Our team acquired wed, relocated to Florida, as well as needed to have a project. Our experts informed our own selves, "We're both business owners. Why do not our company develop our very own business?" We went over the types of issues our team will found and just how to fix all of them. My ring knowledge showed up, and also our team decided to attempt to solve it for other guys.Our target when our team started was to pay out lease. Our company thought creating a married couple many thousand bucks a month coming from this would certainly be actually wonderful. Our company considered it a way of life business, not high-growth. It was only Michelle and also me in our garage making rings and sending them out to consumers. We had appealed one thing. Our message sounded with customers.Michelle as well as I make a great crew. I formulate concepts, as well as she's the implementer. A ton of our effectiveness heads to her imaginative thoughts. She labels the bands and also establishes characters. She connects the rings to clients. Describing a band exclusively as "eight-millimeter dark" really did not cut it.Our team created bands from special components, including Port Daniel's gun barrels or special metallics. The business took off. Since then, we've developed significantly. Our company now have over 55 folks in the Manly Bands family. About half of those are actually band artisans who work in our lately gotten production outlet in Utah.Bandholz: When did you get a producer?Ruggiero: Concerning a year as well as a fifty percent earlier. Our experts had been their consumer for several years, so we understood all of them effectively. A lot of their organization was wholesale, which really did not enthusiasm us-- visiting mom-and-pop jewelers. They maintained their wholesale clients and also brand name. Our team acquired some of their properties and took over staff members.Bringing on a production crew has been one of the best things our experts've performed. It's been actually amazing to go out there certainly as well as view them bring in bands out of Fender guitar strings or steel coming from an M1 Abrams container.Bandholz: Just how performs in-house production impact advertising and marketing?Ruggiero: It's been actually substantial. Taking a video camera to the opposite side of the office as well as filming the group utilizing turrets to reduce the metallic rods or whiskey barrels into rings produces amazing video. Our company have our cam crew on the market all the time. We utilize that video on our social networks and also in our advertisements and also email lists. Our experts make an effort to ensure that given that many providers in the men's band space don't manufacture. They fall ship or order coming from international and then deliver it out. But our company wish it to last a life-time and be actually something people may take pleasure in.Our team have actually possessed a great deal of success with our armed forces ancestry selection, where our company resource unique army components. Our experts have the M1 Garand rifle inventory, the lumber component, coming from World War I. Seeing our crew put that in the turret and also reduced an item out for a ring is amazing.Our advertising and marketing for those bands talks about the history, the soldiers, where the item was utilized, as well as factors like that. My other half and I researched filmmaking in university. Our team utilize our skill-sets to inform and also narrate. As an example, I recently got an e-mail coming from a client that shared that his grandfather used to drive M1 containers. The consumer skilled one of those bands to his grandfather, and they possessed fairly a mental substitution. It behaves to assist clients connect with their past times and also develop one thing purposeful.Bandholz: Where can people buy a ring from you?Ruggiero: ManlyBands.com. Our team have photos on Instagram, also. I get on Twitter and also LinkedIn.