What-if
Domestic mask production capabilities cost $5 million to build, Armbrust says
“I'm pretty sure for like five million dollars, you could make the capability of making that many masks.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chinese manufacturers sell surgical masks below production cost, Armbrust says
“I mean, they sell it for less than the cost of actually making the mask at this point.”
Insight
Raising venture capital forces startup founders into emotionally wrecking company sales
“Like startups, the thing they don't really tell you is when you raise VC, it's like, you have to sell it. So you're building this thing. You put your blood, sweat and tears into it. And your job is to, if you're successful is you sell it. I mean, it's like, yo…”
Opinion
US lacks the manufacturing supply chain infrastructure of China and Taiwan
“They have that infrastructure in place in, in places like China and Taiwan that we just don't have here anymore. And so it is so hard for us to be actually successful because we do not have the infrastructure to actually make stuff anymore.”
Opinion
US lacks specialized industrial talent like sonic welding technicians, Armbrust says
“I had to become an expert in sonic welding because there just aren't any experts in sonic welding where you could go in China or you could go in Taiwan. And like, there would be just like, there's people that, you know, are experts in plumbing. They're experts…”
Assertion Contradicted
Pre-pandemic surgical masks were mostly made by hand globally
“And I found that mostly masks were being made manually one at a time by hand at the time.”
Assertion Supported
Pandemic meltblown fabric prices in China surged to $120,000 per ton
“It was selling for a 120,000 dollars a ton in China. Wow. And it was going up every day”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Medical supply chains remain entrenched with 3M and overseas providers
“We really tried to get traction with hospitals and governments, but those existing supply chains, like, they already exist. The relationships are with three M or with overseas providers. That's kind of, it's very entrenched. It was, we still haven't broken int…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Armbrust generated $320,000 in direct-to-consumer Shopify sales on day one
“I signed up for Shopify at seven a.m. And we did 320,000 dollars in sales that day.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Many US-assembled air filters rely on overseas-manufactured fabric
“A lot of filters are actually surprisingly they're formed here in the United States, but the fabric is made overseas.”
Disclosure
Armbrust relies on Japanese robotics and pneumatics despite domestic manufacturing goals
“Even though we are sort of like supply chain proof, and that's something we talk about a lot, we're not really because of some of our parts, like our robotics, like our pneumatics are all Japanese. So what happens if we can't get our Japanese parts? Like they …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Armbrust American built a fully operational mask production line in six weeks
“Yeah, we did get it up In, in six weeks.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Armbrust's Austin facility eventually scaled to produce one million masks daily
“We actually eventually were able to produce a million masks a day in that facility.”
Assertion Partly supported
FDA rapidly granted Armbrust American an Emergency Use Authorization for masks
“The FDA actually did this thing called the emergency use authorization for. For masks, and they let us in that right away. And then we Actually, like I said, we did a lot of things, and we got lucky, and the batch of masks that we had created lined up, and we …”
Assertion Contradicted
Pre-pandemic meltblown fabric cost $10,000 per ton in China
“And at the time before the pandemic, you would pay probably about, I would say, 10,000 dollars a ton in China for that Melbourne layer, you would pay about 17,000 dollars in the United States for that Melbourne layer.”
Disclosure
Armbrust paid $100,000 for American-made meltblown fabric during early pandemic
“And so we paid a 100,000 dollars for this actually made in America milk loan.”
Disclosure
Armbrust raised $3 million in one weekend using a seven-minute deck
“And so we raised, I actually raised three million dollars in a weekend. I did the worst PowerPoint presentation of my life. I recorded a voiceover, seven minutes long. I sent it to all these people, and yeah, we closed about three million dollars based on that…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Armbrust recruited its initial factory staff almost entirely from Texas nail salons
“And so our entire staff was almost wholly coming from this the local nail salon industry.”
Assertion Supported
Armbrust kept mask prices flat despite surges and higher domestic costs
“And we haven't changed our price since. In fact, during Delta and Omicron Amazon went really high on their prices. People were complaining, but we have stayed exactly the same, but it is expensive because it costs more money to make it here.”
Disclosure
Armbrust American laid off approximately 70 workers before the Delta wave
“I mean, the last, before the last Delta wave, we had to lay off like 70 people.”
Disclosure
Armbrust American pivoted to home HVAC air filters using mask technology
“And so that's one of the reasons why we, we're taking our actual same technology and we're launching an air filter business for home HVAC unit, because that's something that everybody needs.”
Disclosure
Armbrust American manufactures its own mask fabric to cut costs
“We were actually vertically integrated. So we make some of the fabric ourselves, which shaves off some of the cost.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Armbrust's first automated mask manufacturing machine cost $140,000
“And by the way, it was like, I want to say that the base cost of the machine was a 140,000 dollars.”
