Hey, what's going on, Pinball Land? Welcome. It's another edition of the Flip N Out Pinball Podcast. My name is Ken Cromwell. With me today is Greg Bowen. Greg, we've got a very special guest in studio today. Yes, we do. Very unique guest. Yes, yes. He's going to be on the top of everybody's mind, the tip of everyone's tongue, and that is Mr. Brian Vincent. He is the owner, Greg, of American Pinball. The new, the new owner of American Pinball. the new owner of American Pinball. Brian, welcome to the show. Hey, glad to be here, guys. Yeah, me was right. It's like working day three. And it's probably been a whirlwind for you, hasn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's been a little crazy, but it's been great. You know, I wanted to be there, you know, with the team day one and, you know, kind of start talking about the vision of the company and, you know, what our plans are and, you know, just getting our feet well, getting to knowing people. But I've been working on this, you know, behind the scenes, you know, trying to get this deal done for about a couple months now. That's pretty quick, honestly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it was – sometimes acquisitions can take longer, I guess. But, you know, this one was pretty straightforward. The previous group was, you know, ready to move quickly. And so, you know, we were able to accommodate that. But so with that, what kind of hit the ground running here? What initially attracted you to American pinball? And how did all of this come about? Was it something, I mean, I know you're a fan of pinball. I've talked to you for quite some time now. I know you're a giant hobbyist and collector. But how did you find out that they had the company up for sale or they would possibly part with it? And then, again, what drew you to them? Right, right. I had my brother and I started an LED lighting manufacturing company about 20 years ago and we grew it. And last year we sold it. You know, I'm still have some, you know, some responsibilities there. But for the most part, you know, things started changing. And I thought, you know, I want to do something different with something I can do and enjoy. And I started thinking about pinball because my wife's like, well, that's all you think about. And I thought about doing some distribution. and, you know, I went to the show, kind of, you know, visit around with a couple of other manufacturers. And I got home and I said, you know, and I just, I don't know, I'm too creative. You know, I want to make, I make stuff, you know, I want to, I want to have a company that makes stuff. And, you know, I said, you know, I don't know that I just want to sell somebody else's machines that just wouldn't hit the creative sort of, you know, innovative side of my brain. um yeah i'm very light brain i like to paint and some other stuff so i'm kind of like one of those creative inventor types and uh honestly i i thought well i don't want to i could start from scratch um but and i kind of looked around at manufacturers and like my first thought was who has a really quality bellies as far as manufacturing that i can build from not necessarily some of the other stuff, but suppose who can manufacture and who might be interested in selling. And honestly, I just literally sent an email. I had to track down the AP owner's email, and I literally cold called him and said, hey, are you interested in selling your company? I'd love to talk to you. And that's where it started. Oh, yeah. Wow. Hey, my dad told me when I was a little kid that asking is free. That is true. That's true. That's true. Never harm in it. Yeah, and it just worked out. The timing just happened to be perfect. It was just one of those things that lined up. Yeah, how does that phone call go? So you call up, you're saying, hey, this is who I am. I'm considering purchasing the company. And they're like, yeah, I'm going to put you on hold. And no, let's put you through to the purchasing department. How does that go? I literally sent an email to the current president of Ametron, the owner of Ametron, and just said, hey, let me introduce myself. I know this is coming out of left field. and you know he responded and said you know had his cf phones people say hey visit with these guys this guy and see what's going on and so you know it's i've done this before you know we with my previous company we did a couple of smaller acquisitions and um you know you just kind of get started somewhere and just start talking and having a conversation and like i said timing was great i think it was time for them they were ready to kind of move in a different direction and, you know, I kind of knew from, you know, I'm involved with the community. I know that American had some issues and I thought, you know, it's a great company though in far as like, you know, when it first started and, you know, I mean, Hadoop when it came out was a great game. They've got some good things that they brought out, but more than anything, I know that they have, they were building a quality product. Some of the other stuff's easy, but if you have to come in and fix a bunch of manufacturing stuff, the time it takes is just, you know, a lot longer. So that made it easy to kind of, you know, make the decision that these guys might be the right guys to start with and build from. But there are a lot of things we got to change that I'm going to change. As you said, you come from a manufacturing background. You know, when you first went in there and you met with those guys, you started looking around, got a tour of the place, started getting into real talks, you know, and like you said, you spent the last, you know, few days there nonstop. So coming from that manufacturer background, knowing like what you mentioned that, you know, there is a perception, you know, of their games currently that, you know, in them as a company, you know, what did you see when you walked in? Was there things that stood out immediately to you that was like, okay, with my experience of what I know, this needs to be changed. Like I see a couple of flags that I would like to immediately take care of. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there was a there was a small team there. What I did notice about the team is they were I mean, I think they were struggling for some leadership, you know. And so one of the things that as far as the people that I met, I was super pleasantly surprised at how excited they were to have me come in, how hard they were working. You know, there were some good things there. Um, I think, you know, if you look at sort of what happened when they had their big sort of, I think they had some layoffs, you know, back at the end of, uh, 24, you know, they just haven't had the resources that they need to be able to, to grow the business. They've been sort of just hamstrung, you know, kind of waiting and that's, that's just a horrible place to be. And so I think they're excited to see that, Hey, now we're going to have some resources to go out. Um, we've got some leadership to go out and do some good things. And, you know, overall, I mean, I kind of call it, you know, I told the guys, I kind of have to keep things simple for me because it's easy for the team to remember and for me to remember. But, you know, my first order coming in, guys, was, you know, is to build trust, you know, with the employees, but more as important, probably most importantly, with the community out there. You know, I think, you know, many say we're going to do something, we do it. And people said, well, what do we need to do first? And I said, well, let's finish the code to Galactic Tank Force. Because people have been waiting for it. I didn't build Galactic Tank Force. This is not a new company thing. But, you know, there's some things that still need to be cleaned up on that other end as well. So, you know, starting to build some trust right away is important. And then building on the good team that we have there. I mean, Lon's fantastic. He's really, really a good leader. There's some engineering folks there, some team members there that are really some folks we can grow with and build on. But we're going to have to add the team for sure. And that being said, so you are carrying over a lot of people or a few people. You don't have to go into details, but you are carrying over some of the current staff that is there. That's correct. Yeah, so the little people are like, oh, what did they purchase? Because I think in a press release it said something about being an asset purchase, which that's really more of a legal structure. Essentially, what we did is we bought forward all the assets. We didn't buy certain liabilities that we're not interested in carrying forward. But as far as the people, they're going to get transferred. It's almost like interviewing for a new job, but they're getting transferred over to the new company, if you will. Nice. Everything will be completely separated. Antron's not involved anymore. The only thing is, in fact, we kind of padlocked – I have to say padlocked. We definitely isolated our part of the building. I didn't want to whoop up the manufacturing. I mean, Chicago's great because, like, everything happens there. There's great people. There's a lot of resources. So, you know, all we're really doing as far as our relationship with Amcon is leasing the building. And, you know, some of their board sets, stuff like that, we have a negotiated deal to, you know, to buy them on kind of a cost-plus basis. So, you know, the board sets are good. There was a lot of R&D that went into that. So we're going to continue using those, you know, for now. Yeah, earlier you had mentioned that Ron is great, and that's Ron Lindeman. Do you want to talk a little bit about Ron and his role now at American Pinball? Yeah, yeah. I love Ron, too. I agree. Ron's a good guy, man. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's awesome, and he knows the industry. What I like about Ron is he's straightforward. But, you know, for me, like every company I've ever had, and I'll talk about Ron in this vein, is, you know, I have a sleep in your car test. If you'll sleep in your car for a couple of days to come work with our company, I'll find a place for you. I'll hire you because you can hire people with skills, but what you can't hire is commitment and passion. And I've always done better hiring people who are committed to what they want to do. I mean, a dairy cow, she's dedicated to her job, but a pig, he's committed, right? He's going to the slaughter. He's coming with you. And those are the kind of people. So I like to hire towards, you know, but Ron's one of those kind of guys that's just totally committed, totally bought in. He cares about the community. You know, he just, he's, it's almost like, you know, it's a bird that opened from a cage because, you know, he just didn't have the resources he needed before. And, you know, the team trusts him. So he's going to be serving as our president, kind of our general manager and president. You know, but I'm going to be involved. I'm not one of these absentee owners. You know, I know people have been reached. You can't find me on social media because I just like I don't do it because I like my my life and I like privacy. But I do. I know the only place like thread or public social media place you can find is on Pennside. So that tells you something. I would say that's a relaxing area to go hang out at is Pennside. That's very laid back and nobody's up front or brutally honest over. You know what, it doesn't bother me. I mean, you know, I look at it like, I have nothing to hide or worry about. I mean, you know, if you have questions, you know, I'll do my best to answer them. Yeah, I'm not one of those that, you know, like anytime someone says something, the first thing is like to be critical, or I believe most people out there are trying to do the right things and doing the best that they can. And I try and remind people you know we not doing brain surgery No one is gonna die today as a result of anything You know we making and enjoying pinball machines The rumor on the street and you know this might be a sensitive question and if it's something that you want to talk about, I totally understand. But would you say that it was American pinball closer to going out of business than maybe the public realized? Because a lot of the speculation, you know, leading up into this year was that, you know, the company might not have another game and it might just kind of go away. and the introduction of you taking over the company is a breath of fresh air for a lot of people in the community. But, I mean, how close was that to just not having another – having American Pinball existing anymore? Yeah, I can't really – you know, I can't say what the – you know, what Ametron's plans were. What I can tell you is there wasn't a whole lot of investing going on and probably for a lot of reasons. I will say this. It was kind of funny. Someone someone put out in the community somewhere like it was like the second day I was there and they were like, I've been trying to get something for Houdini for two years and they're already calling me back and send it out today. So, you know, so the question is not what are they doing business, but would it be something that really had a lot of viability or could you take care of customers? And so without them coming back and putting more investing in, I can't speak whether they would or wouldn't have done that. You know, Enroll wasn't a place where it was functional in the sense that you would expect a company who's serving the community and serving its customers to be. You know, I mean, I don't think the previous group would deny that. It was just one of those things that, you know, they kind of said, we're not spending a whole lot much more money because, you know, a lot of the things that happened. And some of that, you know, really wasn't their fault. The company needed some change. I'll just leave it at that. It's probably the easiest way to say it. Yeah, I get it. And I think, you know, to your point, you know, of anybody, because I think it raises some concerns, you know, with you bringing people over like Ron and so forth. But I think that you hit the nail on the head that, you know, it's not even their fault. You know, it was just that lack of guidance, like you said, because Ken and I both, because we were having issues personally at Flip N Out Pinball with American Pinball. and not being able to get parts and warranty stuff, not being able to be taken care of and just anything like that. So, you know, Ken and I, you know, we went and we found Ron at Expo and we grilled Ron pretty good. And, you know, I gained a lot of respect for him because it would have been hard for anybody to stand there and take what Ken and I was asking and giving him. And he handled himself very well. He was very articulate. He was very, you could tell that he was dedicated to the company, But you could almost see that his hands were tied and he was doing the best that that he could, because I feel that Ron just kind of stepped into almost like a VP president type role unexpectedly just to kind of keep things alive, kind of his own discretion. I feel, you know, and I don't know if you feel that way, too. But, yeah. So, I mean, it seemed like he got very creative with other ways to kind of bring in revenue and to keep everything afloat. Because at the end of the day, he really wanted to see that pinball, you know, division, which was the main division of American Pinball Thrive. And that was the only way that he could do it. I imagine there was a lot of survival tactics that went into place, you know, to kind of keep the business going. But, you know, I think a lot of people would have probably phoned it in and said, hey, thanks for the opportunity. I'm going to be out of here because he doesn't even live in state. Right. So he had a lot of traveling. I gained a lot of respect for Ron, too, so I'm happy to just see where everything's at. And I think that's my point to the community. Like, you know, we see Ken and I from a distribution standpoint and everything we have to deal with. We deal with these people all the time. We see things in and out. And I will have to say, coming from me, I'm very happy that Ron is staying with the company and is moving forward with it because I do think he is an asset. So don't let previous issues with American Pinball, you know, project onto him of, you know, he was any kind of issue because I don't think he was. I think he was actually a savior. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. A hundred percent spot on. And, you know, there's nothing harder than having to answer questions about, hey, where are my parts? I mean, now that's easy to solve. That's solved with liquidity. but I bought some pretty good businesses doing the things, you know, principal was built out on. I always said that things you learned in kindergarten, like do what you say you're going to do. Be nice. You know, if you scrimp something up, just say, Oh dude, don't say, Oh, well the parts gone because of my vendor. No, we got laid in ordering that part. We totally screwed up. How can I make this right, man? And then communicate. Most people like if you're, if they're loading on something or there's an issue, All they want to do is be kept up to date. And a phone call goes a long way saying, hey, I just want you to know I haven't forgotten about you. I'm working on this. So no one's going to do everything perfectly, but the worst you can do is cast blame onto someone else. Even if the vendor is through, well, that's my responsibility because guess what? That's my vendor. I'm responsible for me. I mean the buck stops here, right? And I tell people people make mistakes, and things happen. And we've got a lot of moving parts. And when we're growing in this process, we're going to – some folks are going to take a little time. Rome wasn't built in a dairy. And we don't want to rush something to market and it not be something that's complete enough where we feel good that customers are comfortable with the product, the performance, et cetera. So we've got some good plans going forward. So I'm super excited. And, you know, I've heard American pinball has been, I always sold, there's sort of four things. And I kind of started with the, you know, sort of the trust thing. And that's, I think, number one. But, you know, and building out a team, you know, we touched on that. That's number two. But, you know, the other thing is, you know, themes and intellectual property and, you know, titles and going out there and getting some meaningful things that people are interested in. AP has always sort of just sort of done unlicensed, you know, titles. And we're going to do some licensing. and we're already working on some stuff. We've got some stuff in place. And so we're excited about that. There's an opportunity here and that's sort of in the technology space. I mean, how do we make, my idea is I want to make, my other company, our mission statement is we exist to simplify the lives of our customers, right? Like we want their lives to be more complex. And that includes our distributors. It includes our, you know, actual customers that are out there buying and playing our machines. You know, we want the experience to be great. And that involves like customer service. I always say we built a company on things we learned in kindergarten. But, you know, we can't control everything right now. Like we don't have the kind of huge name designer, you know, right now that other people have. But what we can do is we can sure can answer the phone, you know. We can sure, you know, make sure we're taking care of our existing customers. And then when it comes back to technology, you know, there's just opportunities. There are a lot of things that I think we're not doing as an industry that are really simple things to do. I don't want to get into the details. I want to take my hand. But we're going to be creating some products and integrating some things into our machines that people are like, wow, why hasn't anyone done that? We need that. And the grateful about pinball and the pinball people out there and people in the communities, they'll tell you what they want. That's true. It's like a lot of the market research is right in front of your face. for whatever reason. It seems like there are a lot of decisions where people want to kind of take this concept of I'm going to tell you what you need and you never knew that you did, but it's like you don't need to tell them what they need. They're telling you what they want. That's right. That's right. Now, now they may not tell you in a way that's super cool. You might have to ask them follow up questions to make sure. But generally speaking, you're right. And, you know, what you can't do, though, is get lost in the 10 loud voices and you got to make sure you're asking the thousand other people who are buying machines, you know, because they may not tell you. You got to reach out and say, hey, what do you think? And so, but generally, you know, people tell you what they want. Go watch someone pull a pinball machine and you can learn a lot. And you play a pinball machine. Like when I play, what are the frustration points for me, right? What are the things I like? And what I like, I'm not a pro player, right? I'm not like, I'm just okay. I might like something a little different than what someone who's a really experienced player wants. So that's a balance too, is, you know, having machines that have enough depth and shots and things like that, that really good pullers want, but also don't make it unapproachable for, you know, a casual player. And that's, that takes some creativity. With that mindset and that approach to kind of taking the community feedback, you brought up licensing. Do you find yourself being in a situation where you're open to the community suggesting licenses? Is this something that you take into consideration when you're trying to acquire licenses and bring them to the pinball machine? It sounds like original themes aren't something you're looking to dabble in for the time being at least. No, no. We're going to change directions there for at least for a while. It's not the same that we won't do original themes. You know, we're probably going to get up and running. We'll be producing two titles a year. You know, we've got an interesting strategy. I don't want to get into the details of that right now, but people will hear more soon. But, yeah, I mean, we're more open to hearing feedback always as far as what people want, what people are interested in. In fact, one of the things I think Ron's studying up, he says, I'm going to be sending out a survey where you can go online and say, hey, here's the titles that I'm interested in. You know, I've already we've already moved down the path of some of those. I've been doing a lot of this in the background, and I actually have some some relationships with some folks in the film and in the music industry that we're evaluating. so um and we're going to be utilizing you know some some folks as well we're already doing that to to go out and try and find some licenses that matter like you know i don't want to go i don't necessarily think you know it's it's different approaches you can go out and just get a disney license right or you can go out and get like kind of like uh you know dutch did with the big lebowski something that's more cult classic you can do you know music there's a lot of different approaches you can take but um and again but the key was theme integration too right I mean, you can go get this title, but if it's all wonky and doesn't fit into like how you play, how you progress through the game, you know, it doesn't matter as much. And I always say you can have the best license in the world, but if it's a crappy shooting game, who cares, right? I don't want to have a good shooting game that's fun to play and doesn't actually have the best license. Although, you know, I'm kind of an artist, so like part of my decision-making process, I'm a little bit different maybe than some people's. Man, I like the art to be beautiful. I like the machine to be beautiful. And that kind of, that's what's important to me. But that may not be important to everybody. And so one of the models that we're going to, and this is my kind of, I did this with my previous company, you know, on the manufacturing side. We're going to go to more of a bespoke model. And this is what I can tell people. You know, when we go to, you know, if I want to go buy a Lexus, I can go to the Lexus site and I can configure my Lexus for whatever I want. Right. Because what I hear a lot is people say, oh, man, I like that machine. I hate those chrome legs. I wish they had done it in black. So, you know, what we want to do is when you can go online, even a distributor, you know, there will be some stock items that we sell. But people can go online and order, customize the machine they want with a topper, with whatever powder coating options they want. They can choose an alternate art package. And so, it's like when you go buy a Lexus, the base model's 50 grand, but you can go up to 70 grand if you wanna buy all this other stuff. And it gives people choices. It creates a price point where people can come in and say, hey, this is the machine I want, I'm happy with this. But if you like me and you have to put a bunch of stuff on your machines including mods and other things it gives you that option It tracks with your serial number So you place that order You going to get a serial number assigned on that machine and it going to track you all the way through And, you know, you'll get an estimated ship date. The product will be packed, and it will ship, you know, to your distributor or, you know, directly to you depending on how you're working that out with, let's say, flipping out. And they can actually help you, you know, do that. So, you know, you could call Greg or Zach or you and just say, hey, I want a machine. And they can say, hey, go to their site. You click flipping out pinball as your distributor. It'll go through and build that whole machine for you. And then flipping out will coordinate having it delivered. But you'll get your own serial number. And when you get it shipped, you'll have exactly what you want. Now, some people say, hey, I just want one with the, you know, the blue powder coating on the legs and the wire forms. And Greg will say, oh, yeah, we got one of those. You know, hey, we'll get it out to you today. you know some people want you know they want to go and place the order but if people are willing to wait a little and they say you know i just cannot stand that art package i gotta have a different art package and it's not in stock you know you can go in and customize it so i mean i think that's a nice feature like that's giving people what they want right i'm not going to make them take something that they don't want or have to come back later and change the legs or I've got piles full of legs. And I know that's a little different. We're working out the details, but we're excited to partner with our distributors to do that. One, if you think about a pinball machine, you're not really changing. The most complex thing are all the stuff on the play field. Adding a toy or a mech is actually pretty straightforward and or changing our work on the cabinet. You know, we've got a good relationship with some folks that do powder coating. where they'll do some small batches for us so we can carry, you know, two or three different options of powder coating. Like, like I would imagine, like, let's say, you know, you're buying a machine and all the wire forms, the rails, everything's like a chrome color, but you want a blacked out version or you want to, you know, maybe a color that integrates with the thing. You can choose a wire, a powder coating option where the wire forms, everything will be matching, including the hinges. so you know you get a complete like option there if you want to powder coat yeah you know that was one of the things that was one of the things running through my head that i think i was a little concerned about as you were saying that as you know what kind of uh parts issues that you were going to run into you know with your bom anything else of being able to have those or just keeping those in stock or what that was going to look like you know as we all know within manufacturing you got to order so many of certain things and so forth and i didn't know if you thought that that would end up being some kind of issue, but I think you kind of answered, you know, having some of those smaller companies in a place that you can utilize with a quick turnaround time for small batches. And that's where the market's changed in printing. I mean, think about it. I mean, we can digitally print things today where, you know, you didn't have that flexibility. You know, you had to screen print something. You had to order the screens. You had to get it set up. It took a certain minimum to kind of get your price where it needs to be. But today, digital printing with even powder coating, most people out there will powder coat small batches for you. And so we're not going to – we're talking about ordering 50 at a time as it goes through the line, not having to wait on 200. Do you think it will be something that you start off small with doing something like, okay, we're going to have some alternate artwork, alternate back glass, alternate cabinet decals, that sort of thing? We're going to have powder coat options. Do you see starting off with just smaller things like that and then progressing up to mods and stuff after you kind of see if this works and after you've implemented it for a while? Or are you going to kind of come out of the gate with this first game and, okay, we've created additional mods that can – multiple mods that can be installed, shooter rod, all that stuff. Or, again, are you going to kind of keep it a little small at first with options to see how things run? Yeah, I think we're going to keep it a little smaller at first. but we will we're not going to have every option probably in game one but pretty quickly after that it's going to evolve into a full package of options to choose from and so yeah I think we're going to do this step wise but the key things that people want are art packages, powder coating things like that I don't think it's going to be a deal where you can choose your own play field art maybe eventually Maybe eventually. But we're going to start with some of the basic things people ask for. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if game one, but even things like a shooter rod, right? Do you want to – we have an alternate shooter rod you can pick if you want that. Considering game one, because you referenced game one a couple times, I love it. and I think the question that everybody's going to want to have or has right now is like, when would be a realistic timeframe for us to expect game one, whether it be an announcement of a theme, the game is on the line. And again, not to push the issue, but I'm sure talking about the company and the background and all the things that are going to be in place is great, but it's like, so when does this start happening? So, and I think it would make more sense as you see sort of our strategy and when we release game one, But game one should be out this year, and it'll be before Q4. And when you say that, will it be the announcement, or are you thinking games in box starting to ship? Yeah, I'm thinking games in box. We're going to have a certain number of games in box and a certain stock. And then, obviously, we'll continue with production as people also choose to customize their games. So, you know, it's not a deal. You know, I'm looking at our production capacity, kind of seeing where we can be there. The great thing is, you know, we can add another shift. We've got more room. We just added in the process of adding the third line so that we can ramp up and, you know, getting – well, we have a good core group of people, but we're also adding people that, you know, for the production and assembly positions as well as, you know, we are – We're in the process of adding a couple of artists and coders as well. And so I feel like we're in pretty good shape. You know, as far as one of our big, big license titles, not that this wouldn't be buried, but that's going to take a little time. You know, obviously there's a lot to do there. And, you know, again, we don't want to let something out to market that's not ready to go. With your manufacturing background, Brian, when you walk a pinball manufacturing floor, you know, walking through American pinball, considering what you've done in the past and how you've automated things like pinball is very unique in the sense that it's very, it's very hands-on. It's very handcrafted. You know, there's not a whole lot of electronic robotic movements for assembly. Like, have you, have you figured ways or thought about ways in your mind in which you could streamline or even revolutionize portions or even the entire assembly process for pinball? Because it just seems like it, it's always been the same for the most part for decades. Yeah, you know, I've given some thought to some of that. You know, one of the things that I think as far as a model that we didn't go to at my previous company that I think kind of Americans doing right now, but, you know, we got to look at it piece by piece is, you know, there's been this, you know, this light assembly model works really well for smaller companies like AP. where you're not full vertically integrated. The problem with being fully vertically integrated where you're doing everything from every little cabinet is you've got to keep that factory full. And then all of a sudden you start making decisions around filling a factory versus making games. So I want to be smart about it. I don't want to create a model where I'm all about being streamlined and automated because that will actually start, I think can start hindering creativity. So we always kept a fairly light manufacturing model, even if it cost me a little bit more. I think the reliability testing is just the key thing and that you have test points throughout the process so that, you know, what you don't want to do is you don't want to find out at the very end of the line that you have a problem with something that creates more time to go back. And if you have to pull a profile back out or do something like that, I think those are the things to avoid and having the right standard operating procedures, which actually APL has done real good ones in place. I mean, I think they've done some good things there because the previous owners come from sort of a manufacturing, obviously a manufacturing background where that's important. So, yeah, are there things to revolutionize pinball as far as the manufacturing side? You know, I mean, this Henry Ford sort of process actually works pretty well. So I think it's more of a push-pull line where you have people – when you're smaller, you have one person doing a lot more tasks. And as you get bigger, you'll have people that are more focused on the tasks that they do. And so I think we'll see more of that as we grow. But am I going to fully integrate like every little bit in the factory? I think it's a mistake. I don't want to make decisions. I want to make decisions on creating great games and not – and manufacturing shouldn't have a lot of impact on that, right? manufacturing should be able to respond to the creative side of what we're going to build. No octo manufacturing? No. You ever hear that term, Greg? Yes. No, no, no. Oh, yes. Hey, you know, I'm one of these guys that like keep it simple. Well, and I'll be honest with you in this whole thing. I think that if you can just get back to the original build quality of what AP was in their early days and create that same quality control, because other than the EOS switches on Houdini, that was a solid game. I mean, it was a super solid game. I think it was a tank from every standpoint. Oktoberfest really wasn't that far off. Um, you know, some stuff that early models I felt of hot wheels was the same way. And that kind of declined over the years. And I think it's like you said, I think it was just Amtron stepping back a little bit and the company being in some dish, you know, not disheveled, but, you know, just the lack of someone standing up in there. Um, I think that one of the decisions was, Hey, let's, let's throw a cheap power supply in the, in the thing. And we have tons of power. them out. It's like, I produce and sell, there are other business, you know, we produce and sell 50, well, we buy, I should say, we don't actually make them, but we integrate them into our systems, 50,000 power supplies a month for outdoor use that have to go on the tops of buildings. Like, we won't mess around with the power supply. It's just like, you buy the best power supply out there because, you know, that's something, if that fails, your machine's not working at all. And that's an easy thing. Like, you know, I just said we're not doing that. So that fixes that problem. And I have some, you know, I can bring some products to bear there as well that, you know, we make sure we're building the – to your point, Greg, we've got to build good quality machines. And I think it's not like – some of the decisions they made were small things. It wasn't like big things that created it, and they're very fixable. So I'm not that concerned about getting right back to that quality point. good because i mean yeah they were good games and and i think that if you couple that with bringing some good titles because i think that that was always i mean i'm a lover of houdini it still one of my favorite games um you know zach and i on stream had proven quite a few people wrong uh that it was a very difficult tight shooter which it is but once you learn the shots it opens up And I mean we blew that thing up on on stream It was crazy But you know I think going to you know getting good license and moving forward And if you can get back, like you said, to that, that quality control that they had a good, solid machine, man, like, I think you have a winning recipe on your hands that, that will take them above and beyond what they were when they were in their best. Yeah. Yep. I agree 100 percent, and that's why I said there's certainly the press release that we first put – and by the way, it's funny. All these people are like, who's this venture capital firm or this private equity firm? It's like – because I think it had our family limited partnership name in the press release. This is J.D. Vinson, LP, and that's basically me and my wife and my three kids. So it's not like – it's not like we want any – the good thing about that is like I don't have to answer to anybody. Right. I want to I get to make decisions based on, you know, what's best, not like some somebody telling me, oh, you got to shave full percent off of this. And by the way, when I buy companies, our family buys companies, we buy them for life. We're not buying companies to resell them. That's not especially like this, because this is like this is my hobby, too. So, you know, this is not something we're just going to go out and we're looking to improve it and sell it. I just want to make that clear because some people I think there were some questions about that. Can I bring up just going back into the company's history? Recently, the rumor was that there was a pinball machine that was almost going to be released. And the rumor was that the title was Cuphead. And it was designed at the time by Ryan McQuaid, who'd come over from the homebrew community, worked for American Pinball. When things weren't working out, they parted ways. are we looking at resurrecting any older existing titles that might have been in the works or are you in the kind of the mind frame where you just want a fresh start and it's more of like American Pinball 2.0 at this point don't know yet um you know those are some things that I'm evaluating um you know as far as I know that project's kind of dead but you know nothing's off the table I mean you know when changes happen sometimes it reopens doors and I'm not closed-minded at all to taking a look at that. But I'm also, you know, number one and foremost is let's look to the future, right? I mean, you know, sometimes it's easier, you know, and the tendency is when you clean out the garage, you're hanging on to some stuff just because, oh, let's keep that around. And sometimes it's just best to clean out the garage. But as far as my understanding of that Game 7, I don't have much of the details on it or I can't share much of the details on it. But, you know, my understanding and what I can tell you is it's a very good game. And that's really, you know, all I can say right now. Because you're in a tough spot in the sense in my in my mind that I mean, there are less successful pinball designers than there are like starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Right. So and I think when everybody thinks about pinball and designers, you probably have like a core three to four that are considered absolutely elite. and then you've got maybe, you know, another five to 10 that are still great designers, but maybe they're just not coming out with consistent titles that the public's asking for. So for you coming over, taking over the company, can you say, do you have a designer on staff right now? Or, and if you don't, like, what does that look like as far as recruiting a designer? Does it come from a fresh new designer? Are you open to people changing employment? Like, how does that, how do you, how do you get your team? So again, I'm getting back to the sleep in your car test, like here's the problem with some of the big designers out there. And not a problem. I mean, I would love to, you know, hey, Keith, if you're listening, you know, call me. You know, I mean, I'm not like, I mean, heck, you know, or whoever, you know, I'm not opposed to big designers. What I want someone to come over is to be bought in and say, hey, we can do something that's really special here, right? And we're going to go build out something that's awesome. What I will say for the designers is I want – and I'm looking at both. By the way, there's some homebrew guys out there that are super creative and are doing some really interesting things. What I'm looking for is creativity. We're going to take a risk or two probably with a game, just trying to do some new stuff. But what I'm really looking for is someone who's really creative. The good thing about coming over to American is like I'm not going to hinder people. um you know i'm not one of these hands-on like okay that's going to cost an extra 12 dollars we're not doing that um yeah you know i'd rather build a great game and you know i think from a design standpoint if you join american you're going to have a lot of freedom and a lot of autonomy and so you know i don't i want you know designers are creative people but i also want designers who they're not just designers this is any employee that don't have big egos yeah you don't want a There's a diva in there, right, because it just wrecks the whole team unity. That's right. I totally get it. Sure. That's right. And I'd rather have someone who's young and hungry and has a great attitude and can be cut loose creatively than if someone big is going to come in and start – culture is everything. Sure, I agree. It's everything. And it's not – when I look at it, it's not that designer's game. It's the team's game. Yeah, the designer is going to have their mark on it. They're going to be – but you know what? just as much effort and work went into coding, just as much effort and work went into sound, to artwork, to all the control assembly. It's, it's, you can't, yeah, it takes a village. Yeah, exactly. Can. So that's the kind of people with that attitude I'm looking for. But, you know, there's some great designers out there. And when I love to have one come over and say, you know, I'm ready to do something different. Sure. Sure. And I'll pay them, by the way. um for nothing that's great but uh so will you be walking the uh the homebrew sections of like texas pinball festival and and kind of feeling out the recruits so one thing i know that that american pinball has they kind of split off and kind of had some other acquisitions or things they were selling uh such such as the uh the whirl of ball and then they had the polycades Are you taking all of that over as well, or is that a separate company and a separate brand? I am taking that over. It's under the American Pinball Company umbrella, but it will be completely independent. We're not bringing Lola Balls to Expo. We're a pinball company first. There's opportunities there and some other markets that are adjacent. And I think a lot of that, you brought this up earlier. I mean, Ron had to figure out ways to make money. Right. And but some of those are good opportunities, too. But what I want, the team will be completely firewalled. What I don't want is anyone get getting distracted from our core business on something like that. Some of those are pretty easy to execute, though. And, you know, we have a good relationship with Polly Kay. They've been you know, we're working with them on on shipping and doing some stuff with their games and then we'll roll the ball. And I think that's great for the entertainment market, but it's a small, small piece. And it will be allowed to continue up until the point at which it ever distracts what we're doing on the pinball side. That I've made very clear. With the focus on pinball then, I mean, what's the company goal? Is it to be dominant like the big player? Are you looking to go up against some of the bigger companies? Are you looking to just be annihilating everybody in the, like, smaller niche boutique type of thing? I mean, what are you looking to do? So the market will tell us that. You know, when I started Principal, we set up the company, this and my other company. I kind of go back to it a little bit because it's kind of, you know, I know from that history and kind of the way things happen. But, you know, we started that company in a 1,000-square-foot cinder block building with a dog room. It was an old dog room facility and a shed in the back. And, you know, in eight years to 10 years later, we were, you know, the number one. We had the largest provider in North America and now we're the largest provider globally of LED lighting to the commercial brand signage industry. Do I want to do that again? Probably not. You know, I enjoy my family and I enjoy my sanity. So what I will say is we're going to make great games. If we make great games and we treat our customers well, we'll probably grow. If we don't, we won't grow. And, you know, so that's what I mean by the market's going to tell us. The market reward of growth will be doing the right things. But do I have any vision of being the number one biggest manufacturer and, you know, going and trying to dominate Stern and JJP? You know, no. No. I mean, could it happen? I mean, what happened with me in this? You know, I always say our in this side business, our competitors are our best customers because they just kind of mess things up. And we just sort of, you know, if you do the right things, things happen, you know. I'm not worried. I'm not. You know, I think the reason I have these games. Yeah, I think there's always, you know, somebody has a new pinball company. And it seems like in the past we've seen several startups that might have had good intentions. Goals were set. They were very lofty and a lot of people thought were unrealistic. Right. So you're setting these goals that just probably aren't attainable. So you immediately put yourself in a situation where it looks like you're failing and it's because you set lofty goals. So it's just it's refreshing to kind of hear you say that, you know, the market's going to kind of determine the direction of the company and where we pivot to versus saying, hey, we're going to out manufacture everybody here and we're going to make six games a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, but at the same time, we also have to be prepared if, you know, I have to be prepared that when we release the game, it's going to be wildly popular and we can support it. from a manufacturing standpoint, right? So there's sort of a trade-off there. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we're going to push this with humility. We're not going to go out there trying to toot our own horns. We're just going to, you know, I think people say, hey, Brian, you're saying all the right things, but let's wait and see what happens, right? And I would say the same thing, right? You know, I mean, anybody can talk, but, you know, we've got to deliver. And that's what really matters in the end. What are your most important things that you want to do over the next year? My goal would be a year from now, we've released or we've gone into production with two games and we're getting pretty close to releasing a big title. That would be my goal. But at the end of the day, my real goal is when I go to Expo or I go to TPF or something a year from now, people are like, we trust American Pinball. They are doing the right things. If you want to know what my goal is, that's my goal. you know what do i make a thousand games a year five thousand games a year five hundred what i want people saying is they build great machines and they have great people and why i feel good about buying a machine from ap that's what i want that's my ultimate goal well look brian we appreciate your time and we hope this is the first of many talks that we have down the road thanks for joining us on flipping out pinball podcast before we leave though for those that might want to get on board put in a resume in american pinball they want to join uh how do they reach out how do they get their foot in the water yeah i mean i was told the best way to do it right now is just shoot ron an email it's ron ron at americanpinball.com as far as me getting to meet some people i'm trying to get out to some shows i will definitely be at tpf we're gonna have a booth there and i'm looking forward to really kind of meeting people in person engaging the community i think that's a great event and i'm looking forward to seeing folks there