Samuel Fish, founder of Shield Security Doors, discusses bringing European-style residential steel door manufacturing to the United States.
Insight
Fish: Producing goods exactly where they are sold ensures business success
“Whenever possible, Manufacture your product. Produce your product where you sell it. And if you can follow that principle, you will never go wrong.”
Disclosure
Giving a failing overseas supplier blank checks prevented an immediate collapse
“There was an interim period there where it was cheaper for me to take a big financial risk by giving them a blank check, effectively, rather than rolling the dice and them potentially collapsing, and then I don't have A supplier. Until I could bring my own fac…”
What-if
Staying in Eastern Europe would have severely exposed Fish's business to tariffs
“If we were still manufacturing in Eastern Europe, we'd be getting murdered on tariffs right now, and the volatility of tariffs, and how that changes almost on a daily basis.”
Insight
Currency volatility forces margin cushions that erode overseas manufacturing savings
“Because you have to factor in at some level Those currency fluctuate, those exchange rate fluctuations that are going to affect your bottom line. At times they're going to help, at times they're going to hurt, but either way, you've got to build in some cushio…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fish withdrew ATM cash in Eastern Europe to pay factory sub-suppliers
“On, on one trip over there, I had to go around with my engineer, and with another guy, and we went to all the suppliers, and I paid them cash. I was running to an ATM taking out cash to pay these suppliers in Eastern Europe. So that we could bring back the mat…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
A G7 security agency contacted Fish to secure government residences in 2019
“In the midst of this, I had a call from a security agency for a foreign government, and we started a G seven country, and we started talking about projects for government, for their government residences.”