Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Max Gondek. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Max thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

GondekEDC was originally made by myself (Max) and my wife (Lauren) helped teach me how to sew and provided some initial support for design and marketing. It was this way for the first year or two of our business as she had a side business herself.

Fast forward a little and now we both run the business together. I was originally concerned about mixing business with our relationship but it has been a fantastic experience. Having someone who knows me so well, and is so good at marketing, is a huge benefit to our business. We both are very good at different things which also helps us use each other’s strengths to improve.

Having a husband/wife combo also is great due to us being together all the time and always able to bounce ideas off each other. Over Thanksgiving holiday we were able to discuss upcoming product drops and new ideas during the hours of driving to family. A huge benefit that we both really enjoy. Also, we are working together for the common goal which helps push us as well.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I started GondekEDC in 2020. My wife Lauren had recently started a side business in the child space and I was running out of things to entertain myself while she was working during evenings (we have three small children so time is a hot commodity in our house). So after catch up on my Netflix queue I had to find something.

I am an Engineer for my day job which which I currently still have. Specifically, I am in manufacturing so I have a good idea how products are made and what can/cannot be done. I have always played with the idea of starting a business but could never think of the right product. At this point I am very much into EDC (everyday carry) which is basically the gear and items you carry with you everyday. As you dig deeper into it, you expand what you are carrying in order to fit your specific needs.

My normal carry as you would call it was a wallet, a pocket knife, a flashlight, and a handkerchief. This worked great locally but I traveled a lot for work and TSA is not very kind to carrying pocket knives on air planes. I decided I could solve my gear problem, fill up my evenings, and maybe even make a little beer money by making a product. This is how I designed and started to make our first product, The Traveler. Basically, it is a titanium pry bar/bottle opener that meets all the TSA requirements so you can travel with it. Kind of a travel replacement for a knife but also provide utility in a day to day world too.

So fast forward a little bit an I have my first prototype made, website is up, and we are officially a business according to the state of Wisconsin. While waiting for the first manufacturing run to finish (we outsource most of our metal work to USA machine shops) I thought it would be fun to make our own handkerchiefs, or hanks for short. There are other makers out there but they charge in my opinion way too much. As a manufacturing engineering, I understand the production and how to do it effectively and efficiently. That knowledge, with the help of my wife teaching me how to actually make them, allowed me to price them less than half of most makers out there. We got the price down to $10 and call them Hamilton Hanks after the $10 bill.

From there we have continued to expand our metal work to different products (knives, additional pry tools, etc) and lots of fabric items (hanks, pouches, wallets, organizers, etc). We have learned a lot in the past few years and having my wife as a full time business partner really helps push our limits. When we come up with new ideas we go back to our mission statement; “Just good people making good gear at good prices.” This continues to push us forward in the right direction and has not let us down yet.

Have you ever had to pivot?

At GondekEDC we make two styles of products; metal and fabric. When I created the business I expected the metal side of the business to be the main sellers and the fabric gear was basically done to pass the time in between metal products. I was totally wrong.

While we are very happy with how our metal gear does, all of our fabric items are way more popular. The pivot was really thinking of GondekEDC as a metal tool business to an all encompassing EDC business with a heavy push on fabric goods. Since we hand make every fabric item ourselves, we are able to try new ideas very quickly. This, with Lauren’s amazing sewing skills, is really our secret sauce as they say. We take feedback from the industry which I am very much involved, and use our sewing and design skills to solve problems as they come up.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

We really have two main streams of revenue. Online product sales and our Hank of the Month Club (HOTMC). Our online sales is pretty self explanatory as customers go to our website, find what they like, and get it. These are one time purchases, and while we have a great return rate, not guarantees them coming back.

Our HOTMC is a subscription based revenue stream where we ship a mystery hank once a month for $10. This was Lauren’s idea and a solid, consistent revenue stream for us. It has been so successful we play with the idea of additional subscription based models for our business.

We feel the exclusivity of the club (once hanks are shipped they never ship again) and the low price point keeps people very interested in the club. It also allows us to go wild designing fabrics which we really love.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.gondeked.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gondekedc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gondekedc/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gondekedc