I keep glancing down at my GPS as I pull into the neighborhood where RangerUP headquarters is located; the area is shady as fuck. I send Nick a message that I am here and when I look up from my phone a guy was coming out of the building to have a cigarette. I step boldly out of my Prius and introduce myself. He shook my hand, “I’m Jack, nice to meet you.” As he said that it clicked. I look more closely and in his eyes I had the faint resemblance of a certain character from Range15. “Wait, Jack Mandaville? Like from the movie?” My voice goes up at least an octave, but in my defense, the guy looks nothing like his film persona:

I tell him about the shady neighborhood, and Jack laughs it off. “Yeah man, like the first week we were here some dude was straight up murdered at the gas station…like muuuuuuuuurrrrdered.” He points his hand like a gun and pops off caps into the ground as he hangs on the word murdered, the smoke from his Marlboro red adds a nice touch.

A bright red suburban with “Rgr Up 6” plates pulls into the parking lot and I can recognize the face I’ve seen on many a youtube video in the driver seat. Nick pulls in and starts to do a Chinese fire drill switching out car seats with another car in the parking lot. As a father, I know this drill well and can appreciate the urgency when he walks up and introduces himself. “Hey I’m Nick. Let’s get inside before he sees me,” referencing his little boy that is already missing daddy.

Inside it looks exactly what you would expect the warehouse to look like when you’ve outsourced a large percentage of your work. Mostly bare shelves and a metric fuckload of shipping materials and differently sized priority mail boxes sit on every horizontal surface. Adorning the walls are beautiful liquid metal decorations of flags, punisher skulls, and different army units. These really are gorgeous, and I found my eyes lingering on the 82nd Airborne patch as we make our way to a corner in the warehouse where the offices are.

Nick is already on his phone answering emails and checking twitter while he talks to me about the day ahead. I can’t stop thinking about how nice it would be to come to work in gym shorts and a t-shirt noticing his outfit. On my right is a large white board that covers the wall. Written on it are all kinds of video ideas, some have checkmarks, most have names next to them assigning some sort of responsibility. “I’m sorry we’re really short-handed today,” Nick starts as he drifts off back into his phone then continues without looking up, “I had to send everyone to Georgia to unfuck that mess…gimme a sec.” Something he read caught his attention and he retreats into his office.

I’m left behind with Jack and Thom, their resident editor who I would later learn is a genius when it comes to film. Sitting on the table, shoved under some boxes, is a poster-board with stick figures drawn on it. I pick it up and laugh, “Yeah, I’m not an artist, but it’s funny. That’s a shirt I designed. Want one?” Just like that, Jack Mandaville was offering me for free an original design. I muttered through some words as I’m still awestruck, but really, as a guy that knows the cost of inventory, I’m very sensitive about accepting gifts from small businesses.

“I wanted to be creative. Pursue my passion, do something I loved, and make a difference.”

The conversation moves a bit as Jack tells me he used to be in the oil industry and write for the duffelblog on the side. I ask why he left, “I wanted to be creative. Pursue my passion, do something I loved, and make a difference.” His words were so damn passionate, they hit me like a bat to the teeth. Not only can I identify with that statement, but the way he delivered it makes me want to stand on my desk and call him O Captain My Captain.

I ask a couple follow ups and before I know it, I move chairs and am looking over his shoulder at the computer. He jumps from one shirt to the next, showing me the designs, artwork, and most importantly, the stories behind each and every shirt. “We’re more than a T-Shirt company. Our product descriptions aren’t shit like 50% cotton 50% polyester extra larg-nah, read this shit!” He points to the screen and starts to read a couple sentences from an American Sparta shirt. He is booming with pride and testosterone, then he clicks and we’re staring at war rabbit. I laugh, he chuckles and says, “then there’s this. People eat this shit up man.” By the way readers, I love war rabbit.

Nick comes back out, as he would throughout the day, told us the plan, told us he was ready to film, glanced at his phone, and went back into his office. “Just give me a minute,” his voice carried across the offices as Jack’s phone rang.

It’s amazing to see what happens to a man when he’s in love. Jack is a hard and hilarious motherfucker with a USMC tattoo prominently on his forearm. I watch his face transform in real time just by glancing at the caller ID. “Hey baby!” His voice comes out soft and sweet. He is excited and tempered at the same time as he rises from behind his desk and steps outside.

“That’s his girlfriend if you can’t tell,” Nick said as he came back out. I talk to him about the interview that I want to do. As I tell him what questions I want to ask he looks intently at the ground thinking about what he would say. When I was done, he nods, “I’m ready to do this now. Want to do it now?” I tell him I’m ready and we step into a back room where we interrupt Thom working in the dark by flipping the light on. Nick explains what we were doing as he sends another email on his phone and Thom immediately got to work setting everything up. Nick promises he will be right back and shoots out towards his office. I could tell things weren’t going well, but he wanted me to feel welcomed and he was going to find a way to be in more than one place at once.

Nick comes back in, asks if we’re ready and takes a seat in front of the camera. He puts down his phone, shakes his head furiously, smacks his face, and his eyes meet mine and in an instant I see the key to his success. In this moment, at this time, there is nothing else going on in Nick’s life but this interview. There is no doubt he is wholly focused 100% on me, and let’s face it, I’m a fucking nobody. Knowing that he is giving this much attention to something that in the grand scheme of his business isn’t going to make a great bit of difference is evidence of the focus, character, and effort he puts into a market that he revolutionized.

“I had to get better. I didn’t have a choice. I had to be a better businessman, better entrepreneur, a better dad.”

I look down at my phone where I had my notes, ask my first question and immediately I’m sucked into his story. “I learned I was getting another promotion in my corporate role…” He starts to recount the story of when he decided to quit his cushy job and work on RangerUP full time. It cost him his marriage, he had to downgrade his house, ended up with tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and had less than $1500 to his name. “I had to get better. I didn’t have a choice. I had to be a better businessman, better entrepreneur, a better dad.”

There is no question that Nick got better. He filled a market niche that no one else had up until that point and defined the market. He created a business that not only grew in the new market, but has managed to stay on top while the competition increased in number and quality. He even invented a marketing strategy that few have been able to replicate, and although it hasn’t made it into your MBA books yet, believe that it will one day.

Note: The interview is getting its own post with video in a few days, so make sure to like/follow/subscribe whatever, so you don’t miss it

Our interview ends and we bullshit for a few more minutes as Nick goes back to his phone. Thom and I are left behind to discuss video file transfers as Jack comes back in the room. He’s pacing a bit and throwing out ideas for the next movie. “Should I wear a Hitler mustache? Is that too much,” he asks us. We join in tossing out ideas on how to make his character over the top. He stops pacing for a moment, “Actually no, because then i’d have to wear the mustache to dinner and shit.”

He’s hops over to a rack of costumes and starts pulling out items for a video that they are making today. I look up to a large flatscreen in front of me that has Thom’s screen displayed. On it I can read the script and immediately start laughing. I look over at Jack, “Did you write this?” “Yeah,” he answers pulling out a fake beard from the box at his feet. He gets all the costumes ready and disappears.

About 30 minutes later Nick shows back up chomping on a burrito as Jack rounds the corner and tosses a burrito in my direction. We eat quickly then Nick starts getting into his hipster outfit for the video. He stands in front of a green screen facing the camera, Jack is sitting on the ground holding the script and reads the first line to Nick. One take, nailed it, and we all laugh hard. A quick costume change and Nick is ready to go again. “If either of them are elected, you can stay in your own darn country,” Jack reads out and Nick repeats. His Canadian accent is terrible and quickly morphs into Scottish at every turn. I’m laughing so hard tears are rolling down my cheeks, Thom is laughing hard too, but Jack is just sitting there repeating the same line again and again in a perfect Canadian accent for Nick to emulate. Eventually they get a good take (see the video here), I ask for a photo with the two of them and say goodbye.

On my way out we chat briefly about collaborating on a future video, I thank them again, and leave. I get in my car, text my wife to let her know i’m heading home and take one last look at the RangerUP marquee above the door to the building. This will go down as one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, even if it was just Thursday for Nick and Jack.

-LJF