NOTES FROM THE SHEARING SHED
Entry No. 003
“You don't have to become what you already are, which is a relief.”
— Jim Harrison
It's been a little over a year since we started Ember Heritage. At the beginning, there was a strange outside buzz. Interest from people and agencies I hadn't heard of. As I was setting up our manufacturing ecosystem, word had gotten out that there was a new bison fiber company, and I was approached by brandsmithing marketers and independent computer men that knew how to tap into real money.
I went to lots of meetings and had people give me input on how to rebrand my company, how to focus the demographic, how to scale, and how to appear authentic. One guy actually told me to try and tap into the “motorcycle thing” because it's really big right now. I told him that I ride motorcycles, and they are already in our DNA, therefore the brand's DNA. I think he was thinking something different, which was confirmed by the vision board he showed me. Cowboys and girls, motorcycles, dirty hands, bison, more cowgirls looking off into the plains, and the words Grit, Authentic, and Modern Heritage. I'm not sure how authentic telling someone you are authentic sounds. And the craziest thing was, I had all those pictures of us already! I'm laughing now, but it was a crazy experience having people tell you what you need to be doing and that they will tell you everything that needs to be done to achieve peak Montana authenticity. You just have to pay their Los Angeles based firm $10k a month.
I had a series of appointments with different firms and groups and family investment firms and groups. I signed their NDAs, and when I had them sign my NDA, they always laughed while they were signing it. The meetings always started and ended with the same series of questions. Their questions and my answers were all typical boilerplate stuff. But there was always one question that usually happened at about 7 minutes into the meeting, and it came up every time at the same time.
“Pete, this is interesting, I kind of like it. But... how quickly can you scale this business to 10 million annually?”
And all the yes-men and influence takers would whip out their phones, already on calculator app mode, and start talking over each other and me while telling how many bison we would have to shear and how many crews we need and that we need to talk to the government about sedating all the bison at Yellowstone to shear them and to put calls into the governor and the tribes to see if we can get access to the different herds and then we need to expand to Canada and then start altering the bison breeding programs so they can speed up gestation and we need to get every Kylie Jenner yoga mom and wellness guru to promote bison and you need at least 5 million just for marketing... What if Loro Piana or Brunello Cucinelli comes calling? Are you ready? Or what if Ralph calls? Ralph Lauren? Are you ready??? And... and... and...
Fuck. I thought, here we go again.
Those rides back from the meetings were topped and overflowing with questions. Like, what just happened? Who in the world thinks that they can sedate all the bison at Yellowstone so we can shear them? But also existential. How do we take all of our knowledge and years of working with these natural fibers and apply all that experience to the bison in a truthful and respectful way? How do we honor the craft and the animal and the rancher? How do we build this ecosystem from shearing to finished product in the most undiluted way? And then, like an electrical current, the answer came. We stay true to our heart and vision and the animals and the land and the ranchers while creating something new and beautiful on our own terms.
We search for the visionaries and the craftspeople, and the artists, and travelers, and adventurers that can see what we see, and we can all ride the energy and discover the current along our path.
And scale, what is scale, and what is our relationship with it? Scale isn't about keeping the world out; it's about bringing the right people in and then sharing your creation. We can scale into the size we grow into.
Two constant sources of inspiration for Ember Heritage have been our shearing handpieces and motorcycles. Both have opened doors and introduced us to some extraordinary people.
Our friends at American Woolen were willing to take a chance with us, experimenting and developing a new fabric that showcases bison fiber.
Then there's Danger Dan, who invited me onto his motorcycle podcast. We talked about shearing, traveling through Mexico, and bison. We had a great time, and somehow, we forgot to talk about motorcycles.
Oops. Next time!
Then there are the people who choose to bring a piece of this journey into their own lives. The ones who see something in that first little ember, who believe in our journey with the bison and the beautiful things it will become, sometimes before we've even finished making them. They become part of the story too.
Whether you're riding an old chopper across the land or stepping out of a G-Wagon, there's a certain pleasure in wearing something beautiful and knowing where it came from, whose hands helped make it, and the care that went into every step. That's the kind of scale we're interested in. Not telling you who to be, but making something extraordinary that becomes part of who you already are. And wherever you take it, a little piece of Ember's story goes along for the ride.
All of these interactions have created a patchwork of lives, bringing our ideas to life and telling our story to the world, inviting you to join us on the roads, in the mills, and in the shearing sheds.
As we intuitively forge our path with Ember, we are simultaneously following a song sung by the animals far out on the prairies, in the valleys next to the rivers and streams. It is a song of frequency and dirt and smiles and thousands of campfires and journeys. It is a song of scale. If you can hear the song, it sings for us and them, and it is a thank you to all of the people we have met so far.
All the Best,
Pete
