#1331 Deck My Diabetes

October 14, 2024Scott Benner

Andrew Hollis from Deck My Diabetes has a daughter with type 1.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome back to the next episode of The juicebox Podcast.

Today, we'll be speaking with Andrew, who is the owner of deck my diabetes, and the father of a daughter who was diagnosed with type one diabetes right when the covid lockdown began, nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. If you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes, and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. When you place your first order for ag one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. Ag one.com/juice, box. You juicebox.

This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by touched by type one. This is my favorite diabetes organization, and I'm just asking you to check them out at touched by type one.org on Facebook and Instagram. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the continuous glucose monitor that my daughter wears, the Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox, get started today using this link, and you'll not only be doing something great for yourself, you'll be supporting the juicebox podcast.

Andrew 2:01
My name is Andrew. I'm the father of a daughter with type one, and the owner of deck my diabetes. My wife and I started that company in 2020 and it has sort of become our new identity, if you will.

Scott Benner 2:16
Is it a full time job now or or is it still something you do to supplement your your work. So

Andrew 2:21
I do work a full time job in another career. I won't say it's not a full time job, because it has kind of grown into that. But it is not our main revenue stream, if you will, right? So we do that on the side. So tell me

Scott Benner 2:34
a little bit about your family. There's you, your wife, your daughter. Is there anybody else?

Andrew 2:38
Uh, nope, just the three of us, and we have three dogs as well. So my wife said, after our daughter was diagnosed, she said, I think I'm done. There's just, there's just so much stress involved in raising a child with type one that she want to be able to put all of her focus and effort into making sure my daughter has the best, you know, the best care possible, and she doesn't want to have to split her attention. So I agree with her wholeheartedly. You know, as well as I do that, raising a child with type one, there's a lot of hurdles to encounter, fair amount

Scott Benner 3:12
of work, that's for sure. How old is your daughter?

Andrew 3:15
She is seven. She'll be eight in October. When was she diagnosed? May of 2020, and it was the week that they announced covid lockdown here in Michigan, where we're from, so that that added a whole new level of stress beyond just the diagnosis, but also the limitations put on the hospitals at the time, for one parent in at a time and that kind of thing. So definitely made it complicated for us. Am

Scott Benner 3:40
I losing my mind on years? Was covid? Not 2019?

Andrew 3:44
In 2020? Is when, when our covid lockdowns hit here. I think, you know, depending on what part of country. And I think there were different there were different lockdown restrictions at different times.

Scott Benner 3:53
But oh yeah, you might have got a Midwest lockdown. I got an East Coast lockdown, yeah, yeah. Immediately they were like, what's that get in your house? I'm like, Uh, okay, yeah, no, no, yeah.

Andrew 4:03
For us, it was kind of like, hey, it's spreading. Hey, you know, we're looking at all these, these other states that are having lockdowns. And then finally, there they said, Okay, now there's mass panic. People are mass buying bread and milk, and the stores are empty, so inside for a little bit. Yeah, that's when they started that, and I work in the transportation industry, so we, you know, for for my career job, and we were considered essential personnel. So I, you know, I still had to venture out and about, even amongst all of that mess.

Scott Benner 4:32
So she's diagnosed just as this lockdown is happening, yes,

Andrew 4:36
so the kind of leading up to the diagnosis, my wife had said, hey, you know, I'm seeing these signs. Our daughter is she's drinking a lot, she's going to the bathroom a lot, she's just doesn't look healthy. And I said, Oh, she's probably just growing. I did the dad thing, you know, you brush it off a little bit. Say, yeah, it's, it's, it's normal. She's just growing, and she's hydrating. It's no big deal. And I was. Is at my day job, working overtime on a Saturday, and she sent me a photo of my daughter, and her face is white and her eyes are sunk in. She's got black circles, and she said, Something's not right. I said, Okay, I'm leaving work now call the pediatrician and see if they can get us in on a Saturday. So my wife called. They said, we'll meet you at the office. So I drove home, grab my wife, my daughter, we jump in the car, drive directly to the pediatrics office. The doctor meets us in the room and says, I can smell ketones from the door. He said, I'm pretty sure that we're dealing with diabetes. Let's do a blood test just to check and their test me. Their meter came back and said, Hi. She said, Okay, go get in the car. Don't go home. Go straight to the hospital. Go straight to the ER. And then they'll they'll do a battery test there and confirm, but I'm pretty sure it's diabetes. So we jump in the car. Had to reach the hospital. My daughter didn't even have shoes on because we weren't expecting to have to go anywhere. We were ill prepared. Didn't plan for anything. Show up at the door and they say, Oh, no one adult.

Scott Benner 6:05
It was panic. But could you put issues on one of these people?

Andrew 6:10
Right? Right? So, yeah. So my my wife, of course, she's, you know, at the time, my wife and my daughter really have the special bond. And, you know, as mothers typically do. And so my wife decided to take her into the ER and I waited out in the parking lot for hours, probably eight hours, waiting to, you know, kind of get an idea what's going on. She's keeping me updated via text. Thank goodness for technology. Then I ended up leaving to go get her an overnight bag. As soon as they admitted my daughter. I said, Okay, what do you need? Send me a list. I went and got, you know, got my wife a change of clothes and all snacks and stuff, and went and got some cash so she could use the vending machines if she needed. And picked up dinner on the way back through, they had a nurse come down and meet me at the door, and then they carted it all up to the room for me. So, yeah, it was very complicated. No

Scott Benner 6:59
kidding. Oh, so how quickly do you I mean, that's just a handful of years ago. So what happens that makes you think, like, I'm gonna start a, like, a, I don't know a company that like, make adhesives for you know, that's just an interesting leap. I'm trying to figure out how that, yeah. So,

Andrew 7:18
so the LEAP started something like this. We get back from our diagnosis. We're a month in. We are fortunate enough to be given the Dexcom g6 as the CGM, and my daughter goes to put it on. She puts the first one on. She's three years old at the time, and she looks at it and she says, I can't go anywhere with this on. I said, What are you talking about? She said, people are gonna look at me funny. Look at me funny. I have this thing on my arm. Nobody else my age has this thing on their arm. I try to coach her. And you know what? We try to teach her. Everybody has something they're dealing with, and this just happens to be what your thing is, and it's manageable. And this is a great piece of technology. It's gonna help people try explaining that to a three year old. So I ended up finding a version of a shield online, and I had a three printer. So I printed one. I printed it out of purple material, and as soon as I showed her that, her reaction to putting her Dexcom on completely changed. She went from I don't want to wear that to showing everybody pointing to it. Check this out. I got I got purple. I got a yellow one. My dad's gonna make me more colors. And it just seeing the attitude shift, I knew that there was something to this shield, okay? And so I reached out to the maker of the shield and said, Hey, I really like your product and and your your design is something that that I would like to be able to sell. And he said, Yeah, no, this is kind of my thing. You go make your own. So my wife and I went back to the drawing board. We redesigned from the ground up and and essentially we believe we created the better mousetrap with the g6 design. And shortly after posting, Facebook blew up, hey, can you make my kid one? Can you make my kid one? So it started as a hobby, and we were just, yeah, you could pay pals a few dollars make it one. No big deal. And then we had people asking for one, for the OmniPod and for the Libre system, and it just kind of exploded. From there, we went from one printer to 16, 3d printers currently,

Scott Benner 9:10
jeez. Did they just run constantly, almost,

Andrew 9:13
almost so the the issue with manufacturing, withd printing, is that you have limitations for how much you can fit on a print bed or at a time, and then you have to go down there and manually move, you know, remove those items, and then you can print more. And what we've got now with the 16 of them is we kind of have this flow where we have a set number of stock we have on on the wall so we can fulfill orders. We have enough colors now that as the wall starts to empty out on a particular color I'll go load that on one of the printers. My wife runs them during the day, and then I do all the maintenance and things in the evening after my daughter goes to bed.

Scott Benner 9:49
Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, and I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about the continuous glucose monitor that my daughter wears, the Dexcom G set. In the Dexcom g7 is small, it is accurate, and it is easy to use and wear. Arden has been wearing a Dexcom g7 since almost day one of when they came out, and she's having a fantastic experience with it. We love the g6 but man, is the g7 small, the profile so much closer to your body, the weight, you can't really feel it. And that's coming from me. And I've worn one, I've worn a g6 I've worn a g7 I found both of the experiences to be lovely, but my gosh, is that g7 tiny? And the accuracy has been fantastic. Arden's a 1c. Are right where we expect them to be. And we actually use the Dexcom clarity app to keep track of those things. That app is built right in to Arden's Dexcom g7 app on her iPhone. Oh, did you not know about that? You can use an iPhone or an Android device to see your Dexcom data. If you have a compatible phone, your Dexcom goes right to the Dexcom app. You don't have to carry the receiver, but if you don't want to use the phone, that's fine. Use the Dexcom receiver. It's up to you. Choice is yours with Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox who does the order processing and the shipping and everything

Andrew 11:15
we do, we kind of tag team it. We're finding as we grow and we're getting on more platforms, like we have our product now on Amazon and on Etsy and our website, but with like, Amazon orders, as we as we grow, the orders are coming in so rapidly that we're now we're packing daily. We used to pack, like, twice a week, but if we do that, we'd be loading our mail carrier with, you know, two, 300 items, and that's not fair to them, and it's not fair to our customers either. We find out to have to wait. We really want, yeah, we really want to get these to people as soon as possible. So we're typically, if you order, you know, sometime between 9pm Eastern Time, or, yeah, 9pm Eastern Time and about 10am the next day. We're packing it to be shipped that day, that 10am day, right? So if you order on Friday at 9pm between Saturday, Friday at 9pm and Saturday at 10am it's probably going out Saturday at 11. Oh, wow. Mail Carrier comes. We see the change in what this does for kids and for parents and, you know, making diabetic living a little easier. And we don't want them to have to wait a week for us to process. So we typically don't.

Scott Benner 12:21
So you, you make the grip the grip shields. The first one is that,

Andrew 12:25
right? The g6 grip shield is the very first, yeah, the very first one that we made. And we've, you know, tweaked the design several times, and then, yeah. And then we evolved and got into OmniPod grip shield, the libre two grip shield. And then, as technologies progress with CGMS, we've also moved into, you know, the new CGMS, libre three, the g7 there's some additional new products that are coming to market, especially in the European market right now. We're trying to get our hands on some of those so we can design around them. Yeah, because there's, there's obviously a need like

Scott Benner 12:56
so I've my daughter's worn OmniPod OmniPod arrows, OmniPod dash, OmniPod five, she's worn g6 She's worn g4 She's worn g5 She's worn g7 in my life, I've never thought that any of this was necessary, but I see people wearing it constantly. So what is it doing for people that I guess we don't seem to see the need for? Because it has to be something, yeah, tell me about it, please. Yeah,

Andrew 13:22
yeah. So there's, there's really three things that I make the claim our grip shield does, and then there's a fourth item out there that our customers claim that I have no data to back up, so I won't make the claim, but I'll tell you what it is anyway. So the three things that I make the claim that we claim our product does, and that our customers see benefit from. One, it provides the ability to change an over patch anytime throughout a cycle without accidentally tearing off your device. Because the way the flange on our grip shield sits over the adhesive for a device, your over patch will never touch your device, which means if you're out swimming and the patch starts to peel and looks kind of ratty and not very good looking, then you can just peel it off. Grip shield comes with it. You put the grip shield back on, put a new patch. You're fresh and set to go. Oh, I see. So, so there's a huge benefit for people that work outdoors, for people that are that are, you know, sweating a lot, that swim a lot. Summertime is obviously our busiest season just because of that. Yeah, but there's that's one benefit. Well, that makes

Scott Benner 14:21
complete sense. I don't even know why. I couldn't think of that by looking at it, but sure. But yeah. So, yeah. So it basically goes over top and creates this like exTO skeleton shell around the device. And then you're basically, when you put an over patch on, then you're really holding that down, not touching the device at all. So if you want to rip that off and put a new one on because it got wet or because it started to get dingy or whatever, you're never ripping at the device. Okay. Oh, that makes complete sense. How about that?

Andrew 14:50
Yeah, so that's one, one benefit. So the second claim that we make is that we is it provides bump protection. So we, we can't tell you how many times people say, Hey, I bump. My Dexcom off on the door of my car, or I was putting my shirt on, and I ripped it off on accident, got caught and snagged on my shirt. So the grip shield has this vertical wall that is about the same height as the as the Dexcom or the device, the CGM or the pod, and it disperses that bump, that that accidental bump, so that you don't dislodge the device. So OmniPod, you know, is can be pretty bulky depending on where you put it, and so it would kind of glance that blow and prevent you from tearing it off. So that's the second thing, which is great for young kids who are rambunctious and playing. And that's kind of what we geared that one toward.

Scott Benner 15:38
Okay, did you say there were three things, yeah, yeah. The

Andrew 15:41
third thing is, it adds a nice pop of color. That's really the third one is, we offer, you know, right now, I think we offer 12 colors so you can color coordinate. And then we started last year doing multi color so you can actually customize your grip shield to whatever you want. So we've seen, like, people order colors for Clemson, and we're like, I wonder if this is going to go to somebody that's, that's a Clemson fan, because it's going toward, you know, South Carolina area, and it's their colors. Or, you know, in we see orange and blue coming all the time for, for people that are in Florida. I'm assuming that's the Florida Gators, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 16:14
how about that? Oh, that's super interesting. Then you have a couple of other items too. Like, you're the wall mounted insulin caddy for the for the refrigerator. I feel like I've seen that. I feel like I can't get away from that. Actually, on social media

Andrew 16:26
so that that product there stems specifically from another It was another Facebook post where somebody had showed a picture of their insulin vial on the floor. Their kid had left the butter door compartment door open, and they swung the door open really fast, and the insulin bottle hit the floor and broke, and they were you know, of course, insulin, insulin is not cheap, and there was a kind of a complaint online about that, and and a lot of people chiming in and saying how bad they felt about it. And I looked at my wife, and I said, Why do we store it in the butter door? I don't understand why it goes in that compartment. I mean, I know why I can't go anywhere else, because it gets shuffled around the refrigerator. You don't be able to find it. But how come there's nothing out there? So I started doing some research, and found out there's lots of organization things that people have created. And I don't want to negate any of the any of the makers out there, like there's since three printings become very popular, you could go to any craft site and find, you know, a tray that goes inside the on a shelf or inside the butter compartment, and you can find things that hang on the door shelf of your refrigerator. There's all kinds of options, but there was nothing that was easy and simple to organize to so I created one with a flat back that you can adhere to the wall of the refrigerator and stick your insulin vials in it, and now you'll know exactly how many vials you have, where they're at. For us, we rotate them. So as I pull one out of the front, I push everything forward. So you know, first in, first out. So I'm always using the older vial of insulin first, yeah, and helps me keep organized. We know exactly where they're at. And that's kind of how that came about. It was really about convenience for me. And then again, posted online, and people like, can you make us these? And we saw that there's a need for it, so we started making

Scott Benner 18:09
them. How long does it take to, I don't know, like a grip shield for an example. How long does it take for the printer to make it

Andrew 18:17
so for depending on the on the grip shield, obviously there's different sizes. So something like, something like a g7 is around a 20 minute print per g7 I typically do, like, six on a plate at a time, and so I it's, you know, it's right around an hour 15 to spit that whole plate out. If you get into something like an OmniPod, it goes up because it's a lot more material, it's a lot taller, and there's ways to, like, speed that up. We could make it faster, but then the quality goes down. Okay, so I don't want to sacrifice quality just to push more product out. I'd rather have a higher quality product. The end game is to get out of 3d printing altogether into let a manufacturer injection mold them for us, which will be an even higher quality it'll be faster, less time for me to do that, so I can focus on on growing our business and and working on all of the other background items that come along with owning a business and get Mike, it was

Scott Benner 19:14
absolutely going to be my next question, like, what? Why don't you get these made somewhere? Man,

Andrew 19:20
but yeah, there. But yeah. The issue, the issue that I see right now is that technology has has moved so rapidly, in the CGM, in the in the pods, well, pods have been kind of the same for a while. There's the same shape because OmniPod smart doesn't want to recreate, you know, the wheel from scratch. But as these products are coming out, every single time you want to have a mold made, it's it's 10s of 1000s of dollars to have a mold made. So there's a very high, expensive front, and I'm all I'm trying to figure out how to justify spending that without having to increase pricing, because I don't want to be more expensive. I want it to be affordable, that that's our that was our whole goal. We started this is, you know, I don't want to sell it for $25 that doesn't make sense to me. Logically, the value is probably there. But I don't need to make a million dollars off of one person my you know, I want the Walmart mentality where I make $1 off of everybody, and that's the way I'll make my money and make it affordable. So

Scott Benner 20:22
also they're not, it's not like they're disposable. They must last for a while, right? They

Andrew 20:27
do. They do. So my daughter, when she was on the g6 of course, we have one of every color, because we make them here, but she would know the guy, yeah, yeah. She she would rotate through them. And we had some that were three years old. She was still using the original ones on and so I have customers that that have them. They they had them for a year, year and a half, almost two years. I have one customer say she had hers for two years, and it finally broke on her, or got another customer said she had hers for a year, and the adhesive got so sticky, the buildup was gross, and she wanted to replace it. So they do last quite a while, and they're compatible with a lot of the patches that are already on the market. So like, we team up with the sugar patch out of Texas and given us their secret sauce recipe and how they manufacture the patches. So we can make the white ones and can can include them with our grip shields. But we also know that, like skin grip is another big name out there. They're compatible with our shields. We make our shields to be, I'd say, very narrow walled so that they're they can fit a lot of patches without trimming right out of the box.

Scott Benner 21:35
When I look at them and they have kind of like the fin cutouts around the border. Is that so that the adhesive can go there, or is that for flexibility?

Andrew 21:44
It's for flexibility and it's for breathability. If you had a solid flange there, that plastic, that context, your skin would get really sweaty and gross, and it just wouldn't be comfortable long term wear. So really, the gap there is to let moisture escape and then create that flexibility as well, so that we have freedom of motion. It's

Scott Benner 22:05
going to breathe through the overlay patch. Most of them correct. Some of them are thicker and not as breathable. I've seen a couple that, you know, are thicker.

Andrew 22:14
You know, I am the guy. I'm always in the pursuit of perfection. So we're constantly updating our designs, a little here and a little there. And as we get feedback from customers about, you know, I really wish that this, and so we may, we may go revisit that. If we hear it for two or three customers that are not talking to each other, right, that are totally strangers, and we hear that feedback, we take all of that feedback from a review, from a message to us, you know, from Facebook comments, as we're sorting through our groups that we're a part of, and we see people commenting about our product. We my wife and I will both look in and say, Huh? They said that. I never really thought about that. So, you know, some of them are tighter, like the libre three has smaller gaps in it than than, let's say, the jet Dexcom g7 right? And that's really because I haven't had anybody come back and complain about it, so I haven't made any changes yet.

Scott Benner 23:01
And the overlay patches that you sell on the site, they did, they come just in white, or are there colors there as well? So

Andrew 23:08
because we partner with the sugar patch, we have an agreement that out of our site, we will only sell them in white, and that's because they do a lot of a lot of custom printing like I think, I think Ashley there has, I think she said less, something like three, 4000 designs that she has available on her website you can pick. So I don't want to take their business. I just wanted to be able to supply a quality patch with our product. And that's the that's kind of the agreement we came up with was they would allow us to to include the patches we make, the white ones. And then if people want custom color or whatever, they would go to the sugar patch to get a refill. And you

Scott Benner 23:45
have those manufactured or you get them from sugar patch. Sometimes

Andrew 23:49
we get them from sugar patch, and sometimes we're cutting them here. Yeah, we have, we have a machine here that we can cut patches with. It just depends on, on how many hours are in a day and what I have going on, if I can, if I can manage to sit there and cut patches. In fact, I ended up having to contract my father in law to cut patches for all of our stock because we sell so many I can't keep up on my own. So he has, he comes over and cuts the patches. We include two with every single grip shield, and he'll cut them and pre pack them in our packaging, and then when the grip shields are ready, we'll stuff them into the bag and zip them up, heat seal them, and then ship

Scott Benner 24:27
them out. So this is not like, obviously, hand cut. You're not trimming with scissors, but, but although, boy, that would be you're not charging enough if you're doing that right. But I mean, somebody, is it like a press or how do you like? Is it a stamp? What? How do you cut them?

Andrew 24:45
It's a machine cutter. Think along the lines of a craft cutter, right? But obviously you got to know, there's a there's a lot involved. I don't want to go too far into detail, because it's kind of the like I said, It's the secret sauce for

Scott Benner 24:59
the sugar. No, no, don't. Have anything away. I'm just trying to imagine if your living room is full of machinery or something like that. No, no,

Andrew 25:04
no. So, so I live in Michigan, we have a basement, and I have a we have a pretty large area of our basement that is dedicated to deck my diabetes. So I've got shelves with printers on it. I've got shelves with stock on it. I've got a set, a setup for shipping. I just put up some slat wall, and we keep our our stock on. So, like, I keep an example, I keep like, 24 of our g7 any color g7 grip shield is on the wall at a time. So, you know, obviously there's just, just pegs full of them. Yeah, that room, and that's all it's dedicated for. I think, I think that pretty much explains it like, like we are, we spend a lot of time in that, in that office on a daily basis, if we're printing pretty heavy, you know, a printer is nice, because you can set it and forget it, like you said it, and then an hour you come back. Yeah. So throughout the day, we may, we might spend, you know, two hours total, but then we got to pack orders, and we have to prep the Amazon shipments for Prime and and so, I mean, realistically, in a week, we're between the two of us, we're probably spending 40 hours down there as, like, part time gig. So

Scott Benner 26:08
is this a thing you can continue to do? Like, is this a pace you can keep up? Yes,

Andrew 26:12
well, no, not really. And that's why we need to get into injection mold, because the three printing is the printing itself isn't a lot. It's the maintenance that comes with running a machine. As much as I do. You know, if I looked at some of these machines, I mean, I probably have racked up 1000s of hours of print time on each one about every six months. I basically have to refurb, refurb them, so they're like, on a schedule. So six months out, I'll do printer number one, and then I'll do printer number two the next month, and printer number three the next month, so that I'm kind of spreading it out, but yeah, yeah, we can't maintain our growth cycle if we continue to manufacture ourselves. And that's a to me, that's as a business, that's a good thing, but as a as a father of a diabetic, that makes me a little bit sad, because it tells me that the diagnosis are still ramping up and and, you know, there's a lot of families who are having those scary moments where they get the diagnosis and they weren't, you know, weren't ready for it, or, you know, their lives are being flipped upside down, and they're looking for support. So like I said, as a business is great. I honestly would hope that someday there's a cure for diabetes, and I don't have a business, then you know that that would be my ultimate goal. Of course.

Scott Benner 27:25
How does your daughter feel about like that? You're doing something around diabetes like this depends on

Andrew 27:31
what day you ask her. She loves the fact that we're helping people. In fact, she's very involved in the business. She will help us pack orders. She helps me with the with the doll products that we sell. So we sell like doll look alikes. They call them the warrior buddy line, which is really was designed as a coping mechanism for my daughter because she didn't want to rotate her Dexcom site to different spots. So now she can make her doll look like her and change the site at the same time. Andrew,

Scott Benner 27:56
let me. Let me help you a little bit with your Michigan accent there. Okay, yeah, doll. I'm afraid people are like, What is he talking about? Like, a wooden dowel, yeah?

Andrew 28:08
Sorry, yeah.

Scott Benner 28:10
So you have, oh, my god, so you have little, like devices for dolls, like, but it's everything. It's like a Jesus you have a Medtronic set. You have looks like a Dexcom OmniPod. You have them all. But that's insane. Yes, you know, we

Andrew 28:31
started with the g6 because that's what we were familiar with. That's what my daughter had. And, you know, again, it was one of those things like, Oh, hey, I bet you people would like this. So we put the g6 online, and suddenly we had questions, hey, can you make a libre one? Can you make it this one? Can you make it that one? Can you make a T slim and and we started growing them. And Medtronic is the guardian version is fairly new to us, because we had somebody ask, and I made a design and send it to them. And basically said, hey, I want some feedback. I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping. And I never heard anything back, so I just kind of let it sit. And we didn't think there was a big demand for it, but then we started getting these inquiries and emails from people saying, Hey, I don't see a Medtronic one, and my kids being left out because they're on Medtronic. That's what my insurance pays for. So I think last year we we finally redesigned and made it a little bit larger. Now they work with patches we used to use, like a double stick tape you we would send you, and it just wasn't quality. So now we actually use the same patch material that you would get with the sugar patch, and that sticks much better. Turns out, look at

Scott Benner 29:38
that. Hey, did the companies give you a problem with this, or no,

Andrew 29:43
no, we may need to address, you know, at some point changing the name to say, you know, look alike. I don't I have to look and see what the title says. Now, because, you know, because we were constantly changing things for SEO, but, yeah, I have not had any any issues with it for companies coming out. For us for using, using the name in the in the device name. I really think they should, most of them. Yeah, I think most of them are really looking at it as if we if it's more normal for a child to wear it, then they're more likely to select our product. So it's actually a benefit. It's to their benefit to have other things out there. I

Scott Benner 30:16
can't imagine they haven't tried to buy some of them from you by now. It's possible. Yeah, that's something look at that. It's so like, it's so adorable and tiny. Yeah,

Andrew 30:26
you know, really, what it came down to is trying to normalize wearing the device. If you look at our tagline, every once in a while in our website, you'll find our logo with a tagline on it, and it says, deck out and show off. And the goal here is really so that we can normalize the device wearing and stop hiding those devices, and make it, make it easier for kids to see that, that it's okay, right? But really, because we have a child, our mission is geared more towards children, yeah, and that's what the dial thing is for. And I can't tell you how many people email us and say I got your warrior buddy kit. My daughter is thrilled that her doll looks just like her and has a device like her, and she's doing device changes at the same time we are. We're gonna have to order more refill pack patches, because we keep moving the device around. It's wonderful. That's that's what we want to hear, because that's why we do it. Oh,

Scott Benner 31:19
it's fantastic. Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, we've met before, am I right? Yes, yeah. We

Andrew 31:25
met. Well, early on, when, when our company first started, I had heard about the juicebox podcast and gave you a call. Oh,

Scott Benner 31:33
we talked, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that way, way, way

Andrew 31:36
back when we talked about, kind of, what the device, what this, what the space looks like, and diabetes in general, because we were only three months into it, you gave us a lot of really sound advice. We started listening to the podcast and picked up a lot of your catch phrases that we still use around the house, like crush it and catch it. You know, I if you don't have a T shirt line, Scott, you should have one. I

Scott Benner 31:57
don't know if I do or not. I think there's T shirts somewhere, but I don't pay a lot of attention to it. Yeah,

Andrew 32:02
yeah, but yeah. Then Then we met last year at touch by type one.

Scott Benner 32:06
That's, yeah, that's why I remember that for sure. Oh, it's wonderful. So I put this kind of, like, the call out, I think I did it on LinkedIn, and I was just like, if you have a company that helps people with diabetes, you know, you can come on the show and tell people about it. Because I started getting into this, like, headspace where I can't sell you. I sell ads to big companies. Like, if I try to sell you an ad the way they pay, like, you're selling things $12 at a time, you're not gonna, it's not gonna benefit you. You don't even mean, like, it's never gonna work out. And if we do something where it's like, I get a couple of pennies off of I'm like, I don't want to, I'm not involved. I don't care. And so, like, I don't want to do that either, but I would like to shine a light. But I also, like, I couldn't figure out how to do it, because I don't want, and I can't have the podcast turn into a billboard, like, for like, you know, it can't be two weeks of people, like, I make this and I make because it's just a, first of all, there's, it's never ending. Yeah, it'll never stop. Right, right, like, so. But I did just want to pick a couple of people out, and I and I kept looking around, and I thought, You know what? Let them pick themselves like. And so I like, just kind of put it up online honestly, truth be told, that's how beta bionics ended up on the show this week. Okay? Because they reached out, and they were like, we'd love to talk about our pump. And I was like, great, come on, you know? And I almost did that purposely, because I'm sometimes stunned that like companies that aren't advertisers don't want to be on the podcast, like, I wonder. I always wonder, like, did they think because I don't buy an ad, they don't want to like Scott doesn't want to talk about libraries or like something like that, like, because that's not the case. I don't know. It feels like maybe that's the idea in some people's minds. And I thought, oh, I'll just do this so I can say a couple of times, you know, if you want to come on, come on. It's absolutely fine. It gets to the point where people are like, why won't you have someone on to talk about this? And I'm like, What do you think I'm in charge of who asked to come on the podcast? It's like, I just, I can only answer the people who, who, you know, who reach out. And there are plenty of people. I'm like, No, I'm sorry. I'll tell you the one thing I can't do Andrew's books if I, I don't. If every person who wrote a children's book about diabetes, I the podcast would be over first, everybody be bored to tears, and then, like, you know, it would, it would be a book club. And I, and I just don't have, like, the, I don't have the content space for that. And that is one of those things. You don't realize how many people are doing that until you're one of them. You show one of them some kindness, and then all of a sudden, it's like, there's a line out. It feels like you, if I don't mean it like this, but it feels like you fed a cat tried to go out your back door the next day. You're like, whoa. Where'd you guys all come from? I'm really glad you did this. And I don't like, I don't have to keep you much longer. I just, I just wanted to hear about the business and hear about what it does and why you're doing it, and what it provides, and that's it. I just want to put it up, and hopefully people will come take a look for you. So it's deckmydiabetes.com Right,

Andrew 34:50
correct. Yep. You can find us@deckmydiabetes.com that would be our website. There's an About Us section. You can learn a little bit about our family. You can see. Photos of us, but attending some J ref events and things like that. And then there's a page for each one of our product lines. If you want to learn more about a specific product line, grip shields explains what it is, how it got its name, where your buddies, and so on and so forth. And then, of course, there's a shop now link and you can go visit the site and shop. And we're constantly running promotions and specials and and really just trying to find ways to market to different people that are in different stages of their life, right? So some people just don't have the finances or the income to afford things. So, you know, sometimes we run a sale and it'll be like a $10 grip shield, and I don't make anything when, when we do that, but it gets them out there for people to to try and wear, and they're not super expensive. So when we do something like that, that's all announced on our Facebook page,

Scott Benner 35:48
nice. So, so follow on Facebook, Instagram, stuff like that to get those kind of updates. Absolutely,

Andrew 35:54
yep, Facebook and Instagram are, are the two primary that we're on. We also have a Tiktok, but we are, I don't think we're super active in that. Emily, my wife, handles all of the social media stuff. I tell her, she's my marketing director. I like her as well as the boss, the CEO, the CFO, whatever else she wants to title herself, right?

Scott Benner 36:12
I chuckled under my breath a little while ago when you were like, you know, we have to change these things for SEO. And I thought I'd love to go back four years and say SEO to Andrew and see if he doesn't look at me and go, What are you talking about? Yes,

Andrew 36:23
well, and you know, what's crazy is like owning, owning a business, I've learned so many things that I didn't know I needed to learn. And one example, the warrior buddy line, the the toys that we produce, we we found out that if you produce a toy, you're supposed to get certified through the child protection safety agency or CPSC. I don't even know what the acronym is. There's a whole line of testing you're supposed to do on toys. When we first started, we didn't know that. So I had to go through a process and figure out, how do I get a third party tester to test the materials I'm using to make these and how do I ensure that they're safe? And so we, I mean, it was like a four month process, and we did finally get the CPSC certification. They're tested safe, they're lead, free, satellite free. And that's something I didn't know. I needed to know until, until we crossed that bridge. And so imagine that. But times the entire business, yeah, it's been an incredible growth as a as an owner of a business, I now understand more about how important reviews are. You know, I now like to leave reviews if I've had good service. Turns out people really like to leave bad reviews, but very few people like to leave good reviews that they don't see the need for you.

Scott Benner 37:33
Want me to read you my bad reviews, Andrew, they're hilarious. Yeah,

Andrew 37:38
and you, I mean, I'm sure you see it as, yeah, don't worry. You have a bad experience, you're probably 10 times more likely to leave a review that if you had a great experience, right? And unfortunately, that doesn't really give valid information as to whether or not the company met expectations of the majority of people. Yeah. And so it's, it's one of those things now, because I know that my behavior has changed. If I have really good service somewhere, I'm I'm leaving them a review. A great example, I just had some concrete board. The guys did a fantastic job. They're going to get a five star review, because I really appreciate the effort and the attention to detail they put into the

Scott Benner 38:13
concrete work. Yeah, they trust me. That's happened to me as well.

Andrew 38:16
I think, I think every small business, I think every business understands that. But if you don't have a business, you don't understand how important positive reviews are to a company and how they ultimately affect the growth of that company. Yeah, you know. So maybe a little shout out is, you know, if you, if you've had good experience with a company or or you really enjoy listening to Scott's podcast, leave a good review. That's you know, that will help other people find it. And it does. It changes the algorithm and how Facebook presents us, how Google presents us,

Scott Benner 38:47
yeah, the things I know now that I didn't know before about stuff that you would just be like, it's some of its mind, absolutely mind numbing down to, you know, I, I have, I put a post up the other day for end of the month, like, I do over, like, a review of the what was on the podcast this month. Because the truth is, like, I probably put out more content in 30 days than most diabetes places put out in a year. And so, like, they can get lost sometimes for people. So I'm like, Look, here's a recap of what's going on. And the person who compiles the recap list for me. Said, Hey, you haven't put that post up yet. I said, Oh no, I'm waiting for Thursday, because Thursday's a stronger Facebook day than other days, and you're and by the way, like my coverage on Facebook is very, very consistent. The podcast is. The podcast has a private Facebook group that is pretty much 24/7 busy, I guess ability or time to interact is different on certain days, like putting something up on Monday, you won't get a lot of responses from and then there are certain days of the week and certain times of the day and like that might sound obvious to people, but I didn't know that when I started doing this. Like, I like what you. I mean, like, it's better on Thursday after 4pm like, Are you kidding me? Like, I didn't even want to be on Facebook, right? Yeah. And, or the I got, I got an email this morning from someone like, you know, we want to pay you for these ads, but you have to pick a letter to your bank. And I'm like, I don't, why do you want me to do that? I'm like, I have other advertisers. No one else asked me to do that. Well, this is the anti phishing agenda that we're working on, and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, You think I like, it's just me. Like, I don't have right? You either get the podcast or I go to the bank and get the letter. I don't have both options available to me today. You know? I gotta package this stuff, or I gotta do this. That's the it's crazy,

Andrew 40:41
right? Well, our customers are very surprised to find that it's my wife and I that do this, like, yeah, for the for the for the way that the company is presented. We, you know, we intentionally try to give you the mom and pop attention, right? We want to be a mom pop shop, small business attention, but to give the big business experience, right? We want you to be able to come in and get a quality product, get a good price, be able to get all the information you want from the website, so you can make a wise decision. But ultimately, what comes down to it, it's if you send us a Facebook message or a email, it's my wife or I that are replying to you, you know? And it's the same thing, like, I can only do so much in a day and and sometimes we have to say, No. I had somebody the other day asked if we can make a custom color insulin mount. And I said, I'm sorry. I I do not have enough time in a day to do that, you know, I I

Scott Benner 41:33
don't know where my shoes are. I wore this pair of shoes last week, and I took them off, and I don't know where they're at. I don't have any time to even go look for those. I'm getting ready to do something with sanafi diabetes to, like, kind of raise attention about being tested for antibodies and stuff like that. And I was working with their PR company, and they said, like, you know, just give us everybody's email so we invite your whole staff to the meeting. And I was like, the what

Andrew 41:56
staff? What's that?

Scott Benner 41:57
I was like, Don't worry, you've invited everyone in the business. They're all, they're all coming already. She's like, you don't have a PR staff. And I was like, That's me. And she goes, What about content? I went, me. She goes, What about the ads? Like, who's gonna write that? I'm like, I'll do that. Yes, yeah. I'm glad it looks bigger from the outside, which is usually how I take it. I'm like, oh, it looks like a real business from the outside, you know, which is great, well.

Andrew 42:19
And you know, we found things like we have. I have to start unloading things because I I work 40 to 50 hours a week in my in my regular career, and then I'm doing that as well. And there's only, like you said, there's only so much hours, and it's so many hours in a day, and I don't want to spend all of it not spending time with my daughter. I only have a certain number of years before she's an adult, but I make sure to carve out time for her, specifically when she goes to bed, that's my time to kind of work on, yeah, on the business stuff. So, like, one of the things that I recently unloaded was our, a lot of our graphic design and I'm very fortunate that my sister in law is a graphic design artist, and so I contracted her business, her small business. You know, when you buy from our small business, you're supporting her small business. You're support you're supporting the sugar patch as a small business. I've told my father in law, he should probably make a business for all the stuff he does for me, and then he can write more stuff off. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of the way it works is, you know, as a small business, we like to support small businesses, and you help across the board. But yeah, I had to start unloading things because I just can't do

Scott Benner 43:20
it all right? I hadn't thought of it that way, but the person who edits the podcast is the father of a of a child with type one. So, you know, it's the money he makes to to edit the show goes to his family and his small business, really, you know, his recording studio. It's fantastic. I hope that I can get to the point where there are other people I can bring in like that, truthfully, you know, so it's always the goal. Absolutely, yeah, Andrew, did I forget to ask anything? Or we got did we cover Do you think I think

Andrew 43:50
we've covered everything? And I Scott, I really appreciate having me on and allowing me the opportunity to talk about, you know, what our what our mission is, and what our vision for our company is and how we can help people. You know, again, not to, not to negate, there's a ton of options out there. We know that diabetes is not a one size fits all or one size fits most, but hopefully, you know, the products that we offer can be helpful to some people, hopefully more more than less. But we, we really strive to be in the community, to walk alongside people as part of the community, and not, not just be a company that's going to be after the dollar, right? So again, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. Oh,

Scott Benner 44:33
it's my pleasure. Also, you're, you're, you hustle, Andrew, I love that because, you know, make hay while the sun shines. This offer ink forever. And, you know, like, and I kind of went out in the world, and I was like, I don't know if it didn't come across this way, but if you were here, what that, what that note actually said was, I'm in a pretty good mood right now, so I'm gonna ask for people to come on the podcast. Like, I don't need more content. Like, the only mean, like, so it's not, it's not a thing like, where I'm like, oh my god, I gotta get some people and so I have something to put up. Like, yeah. I don't have that problem. Yeah,

Andrew 45:00
we saw that. We saw your, your message go out. And I was like, I know that when I talk to you, probably it's been almost four years now, right? Almost four years ago, initially, pretty much the the conversation we had was, you know, you're just starting out, and I don't, I don't see the value in adding you to my show. And I was like, Well, I totally understand. I agree. And here we are, four years later, having a conversation. And that just goes to show how, how the growth in our company, and how we've been able to benefit people and make our business known as well. As you know, your generosity to opening that up and having this conversation,

Scott Benner 45:34
but, but you're very welcome. And by the way, it wasn't the value, it was the I just thought the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze for you. I didn't think you'd, I thought you'd spend money and not get it back. That's what I was concerned about. Okay, yeah, yeah, for sure. Because,

Andrew 45:49
well, that's, and that's probably was a true statement at the time. At the time we were, you know, we were just starting. We didn't have, we didn't have two nickels together. Everything basically goes back into the business anyway, of course.

Scott Benner 46:00
Well, listen, if you're ever looking for a marketing plan, and once you get, you know, get it out of your basement. You let me know, and we'll look at getting you some ads. So, yeah, absolutely all right. Hold on one second for me. Thank you so much.

The conversation you just heard was sponsored by Dexcom and the Dexcom g7 learn more and get started today at dexcom.com/juicebox touched by type one, sponsored this episode of The juicebox podcast. Check them out at touched by type one.org on Instagram and Facebook. Give them a follow. Go check out what they're doing. They are helping people with type one diabetes in ways you just can't imagine. Don't forget, if you're a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of someone with type one, visit T 1d exchange.org/juicebox right now and complete that survey. It will take you 10 minutes to complete the survey, and that effort alone will help to move type one diabetes research forward, it will cost you nothing to help. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them. You're like, Oh, if I bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more? If you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would, I think I see something here, but I can't be sure, once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the juicebox podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 when you support the juicebox podcast by clicking on the advertisers links, you are helping to keep the show free and plentiful. I am certainly not asking you to buy something that you don't want, but if you're going to buy something or use a device from one of the advertisers. Getting your purchases set up through my links is incredibly helpful. So if you have the desire or the need, please consider using juicebox podcast links to make your purchases the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way, recording.com, do.