We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Thomas Bender a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Thomas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

Success is a complicated word. What does it really mean? In our case @ACME success usually means navigating a​ clients​ challenge while on the road​ (read: on vacation​)​. This is probably the worst time to have an issue with their vehicle but inevitably​, it’s the only time something really could go wrong!

Here, success simply means walking through the “fix” with them on the phone, day or night, with hundreds of miles between us.

One scenario that comes to mind would be a client that was on a country long road trip. They had arrived in New York state (we’re in Utah) and between the travel, distance, weather, and autumn the air conditioner water drain on the roof of the vehicle had gotten clogged and water started coming in where it should not. We spoke briefly, they sent photos, and it was quickly evident that a challenging situation could be easily remedied with a quick swish of a small brush.

Success? Sure. They were able to keep on their cross country journey and we went back to our normal day to day.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My wife and I started ACME Overland because we wanted a van and could not find the person to help build it for us. We are both designers. I’m an industrial designer (fancy term for product designer) and my better half did interiors for both commercial spaces as well as homes. I sorta stumbled into this profession simply due to us wanting a van – and our abilities to actually build it.

Design is funny. Depending on the person, it can funnel you into creating the most specific widget on the planet – or – it can be broad allowing you to simply build, create, fabricate, on and on without thought. I fall into the latter category. I’m grateful for my ability to creatively problem solve.

I can’t, however, take all the credit. My team is the best out there. They assist me in figuring out any complication we run into.

ACME Overland specializes in fully custom vehicles (vans and trucks) that allow our clients to get off grid for days and months at a time.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding. Ugh, what a pain. I’ve grown more and more curmudgeonly when it comes to this conversation. It’s the most complicated, most frustrating, and most draining of all the things I do.

When we began we just rolled the profits from builds right back into the business. We were fortunate that my wife was able to support our growing pains for the first couple of years as we “figured things out.” Without that we would not have survived. We did not raise money, we did not ask for money – we just simply worked hard.

To this day we continue to fund ACME Overland out of our own pocket. Would I like an investor? Absolutely. I think it could get us to where I foresee us going much faster. I keep the conversation open in the hopes someone comes along but in the meantime we just continue to mosey along.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I don’t like to speak of this often because, well, it hurts. October 24, 2020 my wife, best friend, mother of our boy, and business partner passed away in an accident. It completely turned my world upside down and still has to this day nearly 2.5 years later.

I don’t know if I have “resilience” or I simply just don’t know what else to do…other than keep moving forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.acmeoverland.com
• Instagram: @acme_overland
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acmeoverland
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ACME_OVERLAND