03–04–25
Juicy insider meeting, new ideas, and broken ground on a first prototype!
Had a fruitful meeting with another employee from DECKED
- How long have you been with DECKED, and what does your role look like day to day?
3 years with decked. Started digital side/marketing. Then shifted to product designer for 1 year. Marketing side optimized digital side, education for customer. Rolled over to physical product side. Problem solving instead of teaching about solution. Research heavy. Competitor products. Market size. Current product feedback. And future plans. What features do we need.
From a design perspective, how did DECKED evolve from an idea to a real product?
Used to be built of plywood. Discovered huge market. Sell over the internet. Ship to door. Hired engineer to build it in US cheap as possible while still being durable. Had to compete with plywood price wise. Originally designed for working man. Store tools, gear, drills etc. 2 years later had a product. Manufactured in Ohio. in 2014 started selling.
What were the biggest challenges in designing and improving the drawer system?
Launched 2.0 in 2023, injection molding 500k tools. Tooling is the most expensive part. 2 million spent in tooling. Once you have that done, the rest is cheap. 2.0 is all new tools. Wanted to make drawers more square and extend further. With improvement. Doens’t make sense to buy new tool for small feature. Prioritizing features.
How has customer feedback influenced product updates?
Biggest one is the drawers need draft angle to remove from the injection mold. But it hinders storage shape. Requested less draft angle on drawers. Increased drawer volume too. Another is people dont want wasted space in drawer system. But in front and behind wheel was loss of space. Now the slots are open and can fit more. Haven’t addressed, getting dirt bikes and atvs from ground to not only on tailgate but all the way onto the decked. Another is versatility. Needs to serve many different functions. Currently is decent but not great. Quick removing.
What are the main reasons people choose NOT to buy DECKED?
Need more bed space. Bad for big bulky items. Bed depth. Lose versatillity
What are some things customers love most about the system?
Getting secure waterproof storage that is outside of the truck cab. Most of the time it’s in the back seat. So decked allows you to stick it in your bed while still being weather proof. Especially tradesmen.
What does a typical customer look like?
A general persona.3 years ago was a handy hunter, hunts and fishes on weekend and is a tradesmen on the weekday. Still big but they’ve expanded into the aspirational outdoor side. Works computer job then fly fishes on the weekends. Aspirational outdoor sports. Consumer survives, hardworking individual, higher earning compared to average american.
How does DECKED test and refine its products?
100k sqft manufacturing facility in Ohio. Products come off the line, first 15-20 are tried to break immediately, really hot, really cold, dropping things at heat and cold, can withstand 4500lbs. Full test procedure list before it’s sent out. Weatherproofing. 200 things they test for before it’s shipped. Because of the warranty
Are there any new innovations or improvements coming in the future?
Drawer system: Fixing Center wall has trouble curling at extreme temps. Retooled that piece. Refining tools. Reduce 1.5-2% warranty rate is goal.
Working on addressing new products related to the drawer system. Want secure permanent storage in. Versatile storage that is not permanent is new goal. Once you have it built it takes 30 minutes to remove by yourself. New system is not a drawer and will take just 30 seconds to remove.
Started a V1 prototype. I’ve bought the materials to make 2 baseplates, a counter, and a good part of a tray system but I still need to iron out my tray slide idea. So far I have the baseplate shapes completed and did some expirimenting with bolting them down. Next step will be testing new install idea (more on that later), purchasing EMT conduit for struts and pegboard design for the drawer track and the struts.
Thought up a new design to install and uninstall the baseplate in seconds. Hard to describe with just words but it features a C shaped bracked where the botton part of the C will have a belt bolt run through it to the bed of the truck, with the open part of the C facing towards the tailgate. Then the baseplate will have a square hole the same size as the upper part of the C so that the baseplate will come over the top of the C then slide back underneath the top part of the C so the C is now ‘biting’ the baseplate. Then you can simply run a pin through the upper part of the C and the baseplate to secure them together.
A new track idea for the drawer system. Utuilizing the standardized pegboard, or R-Lock, I can just install a drawer slide to the baseplate then slap a drawer on top of it! So stinking simple and it took me this long to think it up. Now you can have a universal drawer that can then be fitted to any baseplate. So you can have a standard 6ft drawer 5ft drawer and even skinny ones to fit the extra wheel well space on the sides of the bed.
and prepared my investor pitch presentation.