00:00
You know, God gave me a couple of paths. Preach, protect, and provide. I was like, I couldn't preach. I could protect, but I couldn't provide. And I was like, I will never in my life experience that feeling again. And that's when it all started. But I'm telling you, everything you see in a grocery store for the most part, 90s.

00:23
I would say 97 to 98% of the things you see in the grocery store are only there because of the price and that's it. Well, and you said that if you think about it from the customer journey, there's only a couple reasons somebody quits buying from you, you know? You piss them off or you quit selling to them. The hottest part of that need is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast.

00:52
If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the rad cast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. Today, we're bringing the heat. We're bringing all the heat. We're bringing all that barbecue heat with my friend Kosmo from Kosmo's Q. What's up Kosmo? What's going on, Ryan man? Thanks for having me, brother. Yeah, man. My pleasure.

01:20
You know, your people hit my people who hit me. I'm like, I'm gonna talk to Kosmo. Kosmo blow it up, got all the YouTube videos going, got everything I love, which is damn steaks, and I'm a meat guy, I'm like Carnivore City over here. I'm like, damn, I gotta get me some Kosmo on the podcast. Speaking of muscle, right? Yes, it is, South Carolina boy, you know? We got that, I don't know, the North Carolina, South Carolina thing,

01:50
I'm a vinegar based barbecue guy. I don't know if that was North Carolina, South Carolina or somewhere in between, but, uh, I guess my mom was from Fayetteville, North Carolina. So maybe that's where I got it from. Yeah. I tell you what, I made that my, in my house, probably 15 years ago, straight vinegar base, I made it test batch and I've never been able to make it in my house again, my wife will not allow that.

02:15
I don't know what it is. You either love it or you hate it, I guess. You know, the tame. I don't know what it is, but man, that stuff sets in the walls and it's hard to get out. But I think it's probably. The smell. Yeah. But see, I like, if you like it, you like that smell. Like it brings, you know, I'm like, my mouth's watering thinking about barbecue. But I think I've probably found somewhere in the middle because now they've got the, it's vinegar based, but it's got.

02:43
you know, like half sauce, half vinegar. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Somebody put tomato paste in there and they say, man, we'll eat it up a little bit. Yeah, but I will say, I'm an equal opportunity barbecue eater. You know, I've rarely met a sauce I didn't like. Have you tried any of ours? No, dude, no. Oh, man. I'm telling you, I'm gonna change your life forever. Oh, well, we'll see. I'm open, I'm ready.

03:11
I'm willing. I won't say this up. I know, I've heard nothing but great things, but, so what's going on in Oklahoma? Man, just the heat right now. Is that? Yeah. We're just out here, you know, flinging rub, selling sauce, you know. Yeah. Trying to do our thing. You got a crazy story. We're talking to Kosmo from kosmosq.com. Talk to me, Kosmo.

03:40
Your story's pretty fascinating. I love the, I don't know, rags to riches. I don't ever like when someone says that necessarily about me, but I came from the lower middle class myself. And I love the, I don't know, maybe the David and Goliath, which is the way you think it was phrased on your website. But let's talk a little bit about your story, man. Well.

04:05
My story started way back in 1971 when I was born. And I'll give you the brief version right now. I was burned as a child at 17 months old. And I spent the majority of my adolescence growing up in the Shriners Burn Institute in Galveston, Texas. So needless to say, I'm not gonna say school wasn't.

04:33
the top of my list, but school wasn't the top of my list. Like, I woke up usually every day in some sort of pain from this, that, a surgery or whatever. So I wasn't that good at school. And as I started getting older and I just realized that, man, I'm different. And I was always told, sit down, shut up, you're wrong.

05:01
do this, follow the rules, why can't you follow the rules, go sit in the corner, you're in detention. I was always finding myself in trouble and I just never could understand why because I would sit there and look at somebody and I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably do this. They sit there and they watch somebody do something and inside the head they go.

05:20
Well, that's dumb. Yeah. No, I've spent my whole life doing that. And I would, but unfortunately, you know, I didn't have the ability to just keep that in my head. It would also exit my mouth, which ended up getting me in a lot of trouble. So I ended up leaving school. I think it was 11th grade. I think I showed up for my 12th grade year and stayed about.

05:47
45 minutes and I was like, no, I'm out of here. So I ended up just working, you know, working the factories and, you know, partying and hanging out and having a good time. And then, and then started raising a family. And then I was like, well, all this has got to end.

06:07
I was like, what do old people do? I was probably 32 at the time. Now I'm old people. I'm officially old people now. So I was like, what do old people do? I was like, well, shit. I'm, you know, we can wake up, you know, you put some meat on the smoker and you mow the yard and you weed eat and you, you know, trim trees and stuff. So that's what I did. And I remember I bought my very first smoker and I went down to Walmart and bought it.

06:35
and bought a chicken and I bought a beef chuck for some reason. I don't even know what I think. Beef chuck, some eckard sausage and I put all those stuff in there and I mowed the yogurt. I just bought this thing all day long and we sat down to have dinner. My wife and I are three kids and it was absolute.

07:00
garbage. It was unedible. Ryan, I'm telling you right now. The only thing I could equate it to was if you drug a piece of tree bark food dog manure and then put it in, it was bad. But that's, I'll never forget that. But what really stuck with me is I had to

07:26
And I'll never forget the look in my wife's eyes. Like this is, I say, this is funny, but I like this rocked my soul as she lifted the dumpster open and I was throwing it away. And I just, I just felt like I can't even, like I can't provide for my family. Right. Like, you know, God gave me a couple of paths, preach, protect and provide.

07:52
I was, I couldn't preach. I could protect, but I couldn't provide. And I was like, I will never in my life experience that feeling again. And that's when it all started. I love it, man. And, uh, provide you, you could buy it, but you got to learn to cook it. You know, like it reminded me of my mom trying to cook a burger or something, you know, like just doesn't work.

08:22
the yet as a infancy

08:53
And so there's no place to go and look. There was no place to find this information. So I was watching something and I saw a competition on TV. I thought, well, shit, I can do that. So I loaded up the minivan, went down there with. And I'll tell you, two trailer loads in my minivan, two trips full of everything from garden hoses to chimineos. That's funny story. I'll tell you that sometime. And ended up winning ribs. Couldn't believe it.

09:22
Couldn't believe it one ribs and I was hooked and I started competing from there on out. And yeah. How did you, um, I read, you know, watching my videos and like all that. I was reading up like at the time in your first competitions, you were mixing, maybe blending others things together. Is that right? Even in your first win, was it kind of like a Frankenstein, you know, like

09:52
you know, in your laboratory, mixing things up from other people. Yep. So in, in my head, it's, it started to come, like I would go to the store and I would buy, you know, like two barbecue sauces and I would say, what, what, what happens if you mix these? Um, and I would try that and then I would, I would try to mix in some honey with it or some molasses with it or, you know, something to sweeten it up. Yep.

10:17
And that's when it, that's when it hit me, man, you really don't have that many options in a, in a grocery store. I mean, you think you do, but I'm telling you everything you see in a grocery store for the most part, 90, I would say 97 to 98% of the things you see in the grocery store are only there because of the price. And that's it. It has nothing to do with the taste or the quality of it. Purely because they could buy it at a low enough rate to resell it.

10:47
Bingo. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And that's when I thought, man, I'll stop making some mom. So I made some rubs and did this, that and everything. And then that's what I really found out that like, man, I like, this is the craziest thing. And I remember the first time I told somebody this out loud.

11:07
Um, I thought, man, they're going to think, they're going to think I'm absolute a psychopath, but I can, in my head, I can, I can taste the flavor in my head before I ever have it on my tongue. When you're making it. I don't even have to be making it. We may, we currently, we have a cherry habanero barbecue sauce.

11:32
And I don't know if anybody's ever tried to make a barbecue sauce with sweet fruit. It's hard. It's really, really hard. Try to mix a tomato and a cherry and make it taste good. It's difficult. Like I told him, I said, man, my buddy, he's a food scientist. And I told him, I said, dude, I have this flavor stuck in my head and I want you to close your eyes and I want you to taste a barbecue sauce, but it tastes like.

12:00
the best cherry pie you've ever had in your life. And he was like, he didn't understand it. But then after, it took us 18 months to make that barbecue sauce. 18 months in three different forms of cherries. Because cherries aren't all the same. There's sweet cherries, there's sour cherries, and there's cherry concentrate, there's cherry sweetener. You know, it's just.

12:28
But after we did that, I was like, okay, like I, when I tasted the final version and it matched what I had inside my head, I was like, okay, this is a gift. This is a gift from God. And I'm going to try to use it to the best of my ability, which was very little at the time. What is it? So as most, you know, educate myself and the listeners, if I'm tasting sweet,

12:58
Sauces. I mean, I know ketchup plays a big role. Is it mainly sugar? It's just made it sweet. I mean, is it, or, you know, like when you say fruits hard to get, you think of fruit being sweet when you eat it, but translating that into a sweet sauce, you know, is, is most of what we taste that's sweet in most sauces, just sugar.

13:20
Yes, yeah, most of them are sugar and I know sugar is, you know, sugar in moderation isn't bad. Eating a bottle of sugar, let me come on. Like, you know, that's what, you know, you got to tell people like, and it's crazy, you know, people say, well, you know.

13:35
Some of your sauces are pretty sweet. I'm like, yeah, but if you're sitting down having four to six mountain dudes a day, believe you me, I'm the least of your worries. Yeah. You know, but you can sweeten it with sugar. That's what we use. We use all natural sugar. Yep. The fruit also sweetens it. And then there's also other sweeteners out there. High fructose corn syrup. There's which.

14:05
We don't use that. Uh, and then there's all the, all the chemical versions that, you know, are supposed to be good for, uh, diabetics. Um, stevia, you got all the natural, like supposedly natural, but I don't know that it's not any of it's naturally, but, uh, no artificial sweeteners, I guess. All that stuff. The, uh, so we transitioned from, uh,

14:33
from using others to, to make in our own. Talk to me about how Cosmos queue the, you know, that once we started transition and when did we, uh, start making our own. So I started making my own as I started competing a little bit more. I started toying around with rubs because I just, I realized that the rub, it makes the meat, the sauce is like the, the, the whipped cream on top.

15:01
but the roads i was getting in the store were just they didn't work good and i would have been like uh... if i wanted to raise the taste a little bit sweet i wanted to add some brown sugar tomorrow i could get that in the store it was it was salt and you know that was pretty much all that was a result uh... but but then there's you know i wanted like a smoke paprika with a with a cumin or something like that i want to you know

15:30
And I started competing and I would win here and there. And people would ask me, hey man, your brisket really tastes good. What was that rub? I was like, oh, it's this rub I made. You mind if I get some? I said, well, yeah, I'll sell you a pound or two pounds or five pounds. So I...

15:55
I would just sell them rub and ship it out on PayPal or just have them pay me through PayPal. The day the company started though is back in the day there was two injection companies that pretty much owned the market on beef injection for competition. I was using one of them and this person happened to be at a competition I was at.

16:25
And I just couldn't give it the taste right. It just didn't taste right to me. Like, to me, it just didn't taste right.

16:32
So I walked over to him and I should preface this story. He's actually a friend of mine now and I don't know, I've never, you know, I may have heard this story through somebody else, but he's a really good guy. I just probably caught him at a bad time in his day, but nevertheless, this is, you know, this is a story and this is what happened. And I walked up to him and I said, hey man, I'm using your injection here.

16:57
And I mean, I'm just it's just not coming out the way I'm trying to thin it down It seems a little strong or this that neither. I said you got any advice for me He said yeah, and he was standing inside of his trailer at the barbecue competition with the door open with his arm And he said yeah read the directions and he should shut the door for me and dude. I'm telling you right now that went up a I was

17:25
humiliated and embarrassed. You know, B, I'm a customer like, you know, I bought this from you, you know, and this is, and that's what really started the company. I said, okay, well, if he won't help me fix this injection, I'll make my own. And that's what I did. I tracked down a company that could help me.

17:54
and they told me absolutely they'd be willing to help me and they would sell me, I think it was a hundred pounds at the time and I didn't have no money. I think at the time I was working a I was working a route job just you know driving a hazardous waste truck around you know. So they asked me they said okay you know what's the name of your company and I didn't have a name of the company. I had no name like I had Kosmo was my

18:24
Nickname and on the barbecue circuit you would say that Kosmo's Q, you know, for Cosmos barbecue. Some people, the big pizza heads call it za, just Z-A for pizza. You know, they just call it za. So I said, it's Kosmo's Q. I didn't have no company. I was praying that God didn't ask me for anything else because I have nothing.

18:48
The next thing he asked me was how am I going to pay? And I was, man, I was just put on the spot and I said, I'm putting it on my credit card. And my wife did not know this at the time. So I put it, I put the $500 order on my credit card and the product came in and she goes, what are you doing? I said, well, we're in the injection company, we're in the injection business now. And she said, how'd you get this? I said, I put it on the credit card. I said, don't worry. I said, I'm going to sell it.

19:18
I'm going to sell it and it'll whatever I sell will pay for this. And not only will it pay for this, it will buy the next batch and then the next batch. And then, and then we'll just keep going from there. And that is the one and only time I ever took a loan from this company. And I took it from a credit card. That's fascinating, man. That not many people could say that. And.

19:41
the fact that it just took one, you know, and then it went from there, you did what you said you were gonna do. I like more, there was a lot to unpack there. I like more, nothing starts a better business than a scorned customer. Well, and you said that if you think about it from the customer journey, there's only a couple reasons somebody quits buying from you, you know?

20:09
You piss them off or you quit selling job. Yeah. That's right. You know, man, it was a for you. And, uh, then you went ahead and started your own the, uh, but it just goes to show you, man, I mean, life's short. Like I, I didn't have little patience for anybody that just can't give somebody the time of day or help somebody, especially when they're there. I mean, you know, you're there in front of them and he can't give you two minutes to tell you what, how to.

20:37
You know, cut something down or do something a little different. You know, it sounds like he's, uh, maybe had a bad day or learn from his ways, but at the same time, there's a lesson to be learned there. You know, people will, will there's a saying people will forget what you say, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. Yep. And you're exactly right. You are exactly right. And, um,

21:00
You know, I'm sure if he had a take back that day, you know, he would take it back. But you know, what, would we have started the company? I don't know. I know I wasn't, I wasn't, I was never thinking, you know, 50 million in sales. I was never thinking that. Yeah. Is that where we're at? I was just pissed off and aggravated. Is that where we're at now these days? Um, we made it cross 50 million. Yeah.

21:29
Yeah, I think we have. What was the official start date of the company? Uh, it was, uh, it was, uh, 2009. I don't know the exact date. Uh, when they always ask me that on the, uh, you know, on any kind of form, like when you incorporate, I always put January 1st, you know, like, I don't know.

21:53
So yeah, it was in 2009 is when we incorporated and that's when I started my website building service that lasted for the next probably six, seven, eight years. And we actually built an e-commerce site, you know, before e-commerce was even a thing. There was no e-commerce site. And I had a WordPress, I think it was a, not a WordPress, it was just a blog.

22:21
And then I would just put pictures up there with a little, you know, little description. And then I figured out how to put a PayPal button on that. And then I just put that little PayPal button on there and that's how I shipped orders and we shipped them out of my hallway closet. It was just a little, you know, you got the three drawers and then the, the cabinets on the top. That's where my whole shipping operation was for, you know, probably two years.

22:49
Right out of the house. That's, I mean, that's a lot of these stories though. That's the game, man. You know, and you start slow, low, and you know, you grow from there once you build the customer base. I mean, what's been the marketing and business growth practices? I mean, you know, like, I imagine going, it's a very, I don't wanna say niche audience, but you know, going to the shows and winning the awards, imagine that amplifies.

23:19
You know, within that, that core audience, and then it kind of the word of mouth goes from there, I would think. The crazy thing was, is I did it for years, years and years, uh, ended up winning the world championship in and up, uh, between myself and the teams we sponsor. We have eight world eight or nine world champions. So, I mean, I've been at the Jack Daniels, uh, American rule, uh, Memphis and may Houston, San Antonio, like we've been everywhere.

23:48
Um, but for me, I was, I remember sitting there at a competition and this is before faith, this is really before marketing as we know it was marketing as we know it. Like Facebook said, we're going to let you run ads. And I w it was like, they told us that week and then I was sitting at a competition that weekend.

24:13
And it's, it's back then it was about a thousand dollars a weekend to go to a competition.

24:21
after you buy your main fuel all the things about thousand dollars and i was sitting and i was just i don't know why i think angry shit changes in my life that's when this is usually for the worst but this one for the good uh... i said that i was like i'm i'm sitting here by myself my family's not even with me so i'm not happy and i'm paying a thousand dollars to be unhappy what would happen if i took that money

24:51
To my website, just promoting my website. And back then it was like, it was, it was, you know, I'm sure you remember it, right? It's back there. It's like, Hey, look at me go here. There was no, there was no funnel. No, you didn't need a funnel because it was right, right for the taking. You had organic reach on Facebook. You ran ads and like a bonfire.

25:16
So that's what I did. I started the next week running ads with absolutely like, I don't think anybody knew what they were doing when they were running Facebook ads in the early day. We were just, you know, it was just when, when Facebook said, Hey, we'll show you to a million people. They wouldn't kid. You know? And then, and then I was like, Holy crap, man, this, this actually works. So I kept that. I kept that shit secret. I didn't tell nobody. You weren't sharing that secret.

25:45
No, you kept that off the off the barbecue circuit I'll give you that brown sugar, but I'm keeping them Facebook ads That's too funny It it didn't quite as easy anymore, you know Now there's a hundred different platforms and you know, it's all about content which I know you've done you've

26:14
You've been in the YouTube game, you know, for a while, got over 300,000 followers on YouTube and doing your, you know, I see you, I see you on the, on the video, doing the video thing, which we, we encourage clients to do. We have to pull teeth to get clients to, uh, you know, engage with that stuff. It looks like you've been pretty successful.

26:37
Yeah, I think back in the day, and once again, I'm not sitting here trying to say, I do something. I didn't know anything. All I know is I'm going that way, and if something stops me, I'll go under, over, around, through, I don't care, I'm going. But I was sitting there and I was like, why? Putting myself in the customer's shoes, if I could ask the guy that rejected

27:07
You know me when I was asking for advice. What would what would that person? What would I say to him? Yeah, and and all I was looking for Was just I wasn't looking for secrets. I was just looking for the next step like can you can you help me? To barbeque better Hit me

27:29
I was like, I don't need to push my product on you, because I'm not a pushy guy. I hate car salesmen when they're, you know, oh, is this your first time visiting? You know, I hate that, man. I'm like, hey, let's have a conversation. Get people to know, like, and trust you. And I'm sure every marketer's heard that for years now, but that was inside my head, you know, years ago. And I was like, why don't we just have a conversation?

27:58
This is how I do barbecue. So I went and bought a camera and I was helping. And if you've ever watched any of my old videos, oh my gosh, they are bad, bad, bad. But it started the conversation.

28:18
You know, and I just wanted to show, I just wanted to, what I have, I want to give it to you freely. Take it, don't take it, but just know that if you want to know how to cook a steak that won me $10,000, here's the recipe. Yeah. You learned early what a lot of people struggle to learn, which is it's not about pushing the product. It's about helping people and educate or entertain.

28:47
And the business comes with it, you know, like it follows behind. It may not be as immediate as the cash register ringing, but it, it builds that relationship with thousands, if not millions of people that you have never met. They get to know you though, like, and trust you before they meet you. And so many people struggle with that. You know, they just, you know, they have, it's the card of their mentality, you know, offer product product.

29:17
price. And yeah, that's the easy thing. Yeah. That's easy to do. Yeah. The hardest thing to do is to take on the probably the worst person in your life. And that's your inner self telling you that you can't do it. You shouldn't do it. Why would anybody listen to you? You don't know what you're doing. And just so everybody knows, we all feel that way. I don't, I'm the CEO of this company.

29:46
And I have no clue what I'm doing. All I know is, is that, you know, what got me here, I just need to keep, just keep pushing forward and I'm going to make mistakes and that's okay. Yeah. You know, it's 100% okay. Our ego is getting away. You know, everybody's got ego, you know, like that's the biggest hurdles. Like, I mean, it's cliche, but they say, you know, the biggest hurdle is the mirror, you know, and.

30:15
We're all like self-conscious or you think this, you think that and you know. But then today people wanna, people wanna know people. You know, they like your product, they're gonna use your rub, they're gonna use you know, whatever you're doing but you know, they like, it didn't have to be perfect. Well, you're right. But yeah man, so you started YouTube and telling people how to cook good steaks and you know, I'm sure that.

30:43
just like it looks like, the crowd came along. Yeah, yeah, the crowd came along and man, it was, I never thought that, you know, I would own a company and I remember driving home one day and I was, I hated my job. The people were nice, but I physically hated my job. On Sunday, the...

31:09
Sunday night I would like physically get sick to my stomach because I didn't want to go back. I had a friend of mine tell me one time he's a Navy SEAL he said you know what happens when you die? I was like no no how the hell would I know that? like you know he says most people think that their life flashes before their eyes but what really flashes before your eyes is all of your regrets

31:37
I was driving home and I thought if I laid my head down and had five minutes only with my thoughts, what would I think? I just imagined, I could see it, I visualized myself laying there taking my last breath with my family around me. When I passed, I do not want the thought to be in my head.

32:07
Why didn't you even try? Yeah, man. It's powerful. And you start like thinking about it and you think about how fast time moves and like, you got one shot at this. Yeah. One shot and you're going to mess up a lot, you know, and that's okay. But I.

32:30
So that's when I quit my job. I'll never forget, I asked my wife, I said, hey, I'm thinking about quitting my job. She's like, it's about time. That surprised you that she said that? Yes, it did. It did. But once again, we go back. I had a prejudged thought in my head that it wasn't factual, it wasn't reality. It wasn't true. Yeah.

33:00
That was me telling me a story I wanted to hear so I could stay in my comfort zone and not seek discomfort. And then she said that I was like, shit, you know, now I got to go. Now you gotta do it. You gotta take that first step. So we, uh, where do we go after the injection stuff? We got rubs. We got, I mean, you know, Cosmos cues, uh, at quite the lineup now.

33:29
Yeah, after the rubs and the sauces, I was sitting around one day, we used to go eat wings quite a bit, and I was like, man, these guys dump, like absolutely dump way too much sauce on these wings. And it's just everywhere, you know? Yeah. And I thought, oh my gosh, I wish it would be nice if you had a wing dust.

33:54
that was flavored that you could just season your wings with. So if I wanted Nashville hot, I could get Nashville hot. If you wanted salt and vinegar or garlic parmesan, so that was my next thing. We came up with wing dust. And I think now we have...

34:13
12 flavors, 12 or 13 or 14 flavors. And yeah, it's the, it's my new favorite way to eat wings. Um, especially when I'm out, like, you know, at a tailgate or something, because I don't got to go hit the shower, you know, to get all the sauce off of me. I need a bib for my, you know, they gave me the alcohol wipes. I'm like, can I get the alcohol beach towel?

34:41
Yeah, yeah. Sauce everywhere. Yeah. So, yeah, we transitioned over into selling wingdust. We also got years later, we did release a line of we do have a line of wing sauces that I think accompany the wing sauce or the wingdust well.

35:10
We have a line of clean eating rubs. I believe there's six of them, five or six of them, that are sugar-free. There's no sugar in them. So if you're keto, paleo, you know, or you're just wanting to cut sugar out of your diet, we have those. Our latest thing is we've been launching our own accessories. Grill brushes, gloves.

35:37
sprayers, grill mats, chicken stands. And that has really been successful. And based inside of the Cosmo Q product family, it just all really goes nice. Yeah. How's, all right, I got a good zinger for you. How you feel about classical, like wood fire,

36:06
smoke and doing all that stuff versus like the Tragers. Yeah. Uh, I feel that. That's a great question. And just so you know, I think I have probably the best answer that pisses somebody off or pisses nobody off. All right. Um, because I'm, I'm one of those guys. I have the best stick burner you could buy in the world. Actually I got two of them.

36:35
And I also have a trigger on my back porch, on my patio. So here's what, let me, short answer. I don't care. Like whatever, whatever you're going to use to get you out there cooking for your family and enjoying your friends and spend a quality time with the people you love. I don't care. Can you make it taste just as good either way?

36:59
I have won in competitions on a pellet cooker and I have won on a steak burner. And I know guys in competition that can beat the brakes off of you with a pellet cooker. And I know guys in competition that can beat the brakes off you with a steak burner. Are they different flavors? 100%. 100% they are. But it goes back to what you like. And here's the way I see it. Are you one of those people that, you know...

37:26
You don't know that much, so the learning curve is far lower on a pellet cooker. I wish I had one when I got started. I had to learn fire management at first, and most people don't know fire management.

37:41
And then you have those, you know, the people that say, if you're not using a stick burner, that's a microwave. And most of those people don't even know fire management for their stick burner because I bake some of their food too. And it's, you know, it's trash. So if you don't know fire management or you don't want to learn fire management, I would say get you, get you a pellet cooker, whatever you want. There's a bunch of them out there. And that's your, if that's your entry point, use it, learn it. And then if you.

38:11
Because once you move to a stick burner, it's more hands-on. Now you have to run it, and now you have to understand the difference between lump charcoal, the difference between barbeque briquettes, the difference in wood. And most people say, well, my buddy Timmy chopped down a tree. No. You've got to know what wood you can use, what wood you can't use. And even if your buddy Timmy chopped down a tree and you've got all the free pecan you want.

38:40
There's another question that 99.999% of all stick burners out there have no clue about. What's the moisture content of the wood? Yeah. You know, I like to use it between, I really don't like to go below 11, but 11 to 14.

38:59
If I can hang around 12 to 13, that's, that's, you know, but that's what I like to use. Yeah. Um, burn too fast. Doesn't burn too slow. That's better too fast. That'll burn too slow. So in my mind, uh, which is better, I would say whatever you want to do to get your barbecue going. You hear it. You heard it here folks only on the Radcast cook it how you want it.

39:25
I've got a Traeger at the lake, so I use it, but it's because of the lake. I got to, it's gotta be quick and efficient, you know, but I grew up around both the, uh, wood fired way and the Traeger way, but they, it was pretty damn convenient on the Traeger. I gotta admit. Well, and, and, and here's what they don't get credit for. They have almost single-handedly exploded the barbecue industry here in America.

39:56
High tide raises all ships. Yep. What's your process for development? I mean, I've heard it now we've, we we've brought the full arsenal out of rubs and sauces and wings and accessories, but so maybe focus some more on the food side of it, you know, I'm sure you've got it down to a science now, but what's the, what is that journey? And you know, you just have.

40:24
process for developing new ideas. Usually I'm sitting around drinking. What are we drinking? Jack. All right, here we go. I'm a bad guy myself. Oh yeah? You should come out to, I call it Club Cosmo. Oh yeah, when I get to Oklahoma, I'm coming to Cosmo's house. Oh yeah, for sure.

40:48
but you have to have a lot of other people and then i always try to say it to somebody to see how they react if they look at me and go you know there you know but they look at me and go how the hell do you think of that then i go okay i'm on the top because most people don't realize it's so true in life humans are nothing but a

41:13
animal that you can stop with the shiny thing and that's in barbecue competition That's what you want. You want them to take one bite and stop for a second. Go. What was that? And the same way in the ad industry you want to stop and go what was that? Yeah, well in the same way when I when I when I ask somebody a question I'm looking for you to stop you and intrigue your money you'll up the heck is that That's usually how I do it

41:42
I will say the majority of the time it's products for me. Like, I don't know if you can see this. I can't see it. Like this is one that is not on the market. But I was sitting around and I was like, man, I sure would like some hot Cheetos wings. So I made some hot Cheetos wing dust.

42:08
What goes in hot Cheetos wing dust besides grumbled, crumbled up Cheetos? There's a lot of cheese, a lot of buttermilk, a couple of spices, a little bit of, little bit of zip, you know? Yeah. Little bit of heat. Okay. But that's how I do it, that's the crazy thing is like, I'll sit around and go, man, I want hot Cheetos wings. So I'll make it and go cook hot Cheetos wings. But I always, I always sit there and I go.

42:38
Can I fool you? Can I fool you in the thinking that this is really made with hot Cheetos? Right. You know, and I'm just using that as an example. And that's when I know if I can fool you, then I'm sitting there going, okay, what else can I do with hot Cheetos winged us? Can I put it on barbecue chips? Can I put it on popcorn? You know, can I put it on, you know,

43:09
Oh, in case it be a, you know, that's, that's, that's how my mind thinks. Oh yeah. Multi-purpose. I like it. I want some hot wing Cheetos dust. Come on, man. Un, un, uh, I didn't even hit the market yet. You know, is it going to hit the market? Uh, yeah, at some point I can't not. I mean, obviously I can't call it, you know,

43:36
Hot cheetos. You know, I can't, you know, because, you know, and I don't want to, I'm a firm, like I don't want to, you know, step on anybody's toes. Um, but yeah, a spicy crunchy thing. Yeah. A spicy crunchy thing that looks like a belly club. So from the brain of Cosmo to your table, you know, it's not farm to table friends, it's from Cosmo's brain to your table.

44:04
That's the process. There's a lot of room in my head too. It's about the route in there for a while. What's, um, where you want to take all this man? I mean, you know, you crossed right at crossing over 50 million total in sales, growing new accessories. Like what's the vision? The vision for me is, is, um, I want Cosmos Q to be widely sought after by every barbecue fanatic worldwide.

44:36
and and it's not that i need you to buy the product sure i want it's the knowledge behind it like i want to empower people to make great barbecue because it you know i will say this mostly men it's shocking how many men go oh no i can't do that i'm like what the hell why why can't you but i don't know how to do that well i didn't either you know but if you could watch a couple

45:06
You know, and I could show you, would you do it? Well, yeah, but I don't know if I can still do it. Well, this is, so I need to break down that wall. You can do this. Yeah. Even if it's a hot dog, you know, start there. We're empowering people worldwide to barbecue. That's what I just heard is, uh, what's the accessory.

45:34
Road. I mean, you ever going to develop your own grill?

45:38
Um, I don't, I don't like saying never. Um, I don't have any desire for that. Yeah. Um, just for the, uh, you know, supply chain and yeah, all right. It gets a little hairy. Right. And then just the space they make up and, you know, it would have to be, I'd have to have a strategic partner. Yeah. You know, was using the brand or something. Yeah. Um, I love it, man.

46:08
Is, uh, how you're all in Oklahoma? Yeah. Well, we have some remote positions, um, stretched out around the country. Yep. Is, uh, where can people find all your stuff? So it's cosmos q.com. Um, we are in ACE hardware. We have some products and Amazon shields, Bucky's. I don't know if you've ever been to Bucky's. Oh yeah. Bucky's. Oh man.

46:37
That's buggy is a vibe. And, and you can obviously find us on a kosmosq.com KOSMOSQ.com. Uh, did I say Amazon? Yep. You can find us on Amazon. So Kosmo's Q.

46:59
No fun. And if you want to find somebody close to you on our website up in the top right hand corner, we have a store finder. So it'll tell you the closest outlet to you. Hey man, I've enjoyed this. Well thank you man, me too. I wanna, let's stay in touch and I gotta give me some Cosmos Q now. I'm gonna send you something. I'm gonna give you my email. You shoot me an email and I got you. I'll take care of you.

47:29
Cool, man. We're care about finding you on social media that size. Just search for Kosmo's Q Kosmo's Q. You can find us, uh, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn. Shit. That's that's that's all the ones I got them all covered. That's cool, man.

47:50
I've really enjoyed it. Hey guys, you know where to find us. We're at theradcast.com. You can search for Cosmo, K-O-S-M-O. You'll find all the highlight clips from today, even that Cheetos dust that's hidden behind the desk that nobody knows about. We'll show you some highlights from that. You know where I'm at, at Ryan Alford. I'm verified on the platforms. Go follow me on TikTok, I'm blowing up. We'll see you next time on Radcast.