What happens when you combine science, entertainment and dessert? You get The Inventing Room—Denver’s one-of-a-kind sugar science experience created by chef Ian Kleinman.
Inspired by Willy Wonka and raised in a family of chefs, Ian turned his childhood curiosity into a business where liquid nitrogen, culinary creativity and education come together. But building such an unconventional concept hasn’t been easy.
Ian shares how a disastrous event in Aspen nearly wiped out the business. He also explains how The Inventing Room adapted during COVID, the importance of constantly experimenting and what it takes to impress one of the toughest audiences in business: kids.
In this episode, we discuss:
• Turning a childhood idea into a real business
• Using science to create unforgettable food experiences
• Learning from expensive business failures
• Balancing creativity with profitability
• Adapting the business during COVID
• Managing food costs, safety and customer expectations
• Inspiring children to become interested in science
• Why believing in your concept matters
This is a story about curiosity, resilience and taking a chance on an idea others might dismiss.
Learn more about Ian Kleinman and The Inventing Room in Denver, Colorado.
Purchase tickets for The Inventing Room
Follow The Inventing Room on Instagram @inventingroom
Check out more episodes for this podcast at The Personal Side of Business
00:00 --> 00:03 Welcome to The Personal Side of Business, where you hear
00:03 --> 00:06 real stories from real entrepreneurs.
00:14 --> 00:18 Hi, and welcome to The Personal Side
00:18 --> 00:21 of Business, where every business has a story. I'm your host, Jet Von der Wall.
00:21 --> 00:24 Today, my guest is blending science,
00:25 --> 00:28 entertainment, and desserts all in one unique setting here
00:28 --> 00:32 in The Inventing Room in Denver, Colorado. We're going to learn how he's building business
00:32 --> 00:35 that's also educational and also tasteful.
00:35 --> 00:39 Welcome to the podcast, Ian Climate. Thank you. Yeah. So tell us,
00:39 --> 00:42 how did we get here? Well, The Inventing Room
00:43 --> 00:46 started when I was a kid watching Willy Wonka all the time.
00:46 --> 00:50 I had this feeling of wanting to work in the factory when I got older.
00:50 --> 00:53 My dad and grandfather were both chefs.
00:54 --> 00:57 So I was kind of born into the industry, working in restaurants since
00:58 --> 01:02 I was a kid. And I went through culinary school,
01:02 --> 01:05 worked for some nice hotel brands and stuff like that, and then got
01:05 --> 01:09 let go and wanted to take a chance on
01:10 --> 01:15 The Inventing Room. So yeah, it's a kind
01:16 --> 01:20 of metamorphosizing company all of the time. You know,
01:20 --> 01:23 we like to have a little bit going everywhere.
01:24 --> 01:27 So we make sure that, you know, not only are we running a
01:27 --> 01:31 fun business, but it's also a profitable business,
01:31 --> 01:34 which is very important. So, but yeah,
01:34 --> 01:38 it's the trip has been incredible and
01:39 --> 01:43 we're very lucky to do what we love every day. Okay, so let's
01:43 --> 01:46 start back. You were telling me it was starting right around COVID.
01:47 --> 01:51 This was basically more scientific base and
01:51 --> 01:53 for fun, and then it transformed into this business,
01:54 --> 01:56 right? Yep. When you started all of that,
01:57 --> 02:00 did you see that in the future at all, that you were going to have
02:00 --> 02:04 something along the lines of an actual storefront for people to come
02:04 --> 02:08 in? I didn't. It was a television
02:08 --> 02:13 appearance that we did on a show called Restaurant Startup where
02:13 --> 02:16 we were able to build the restaurant in 48
02:17 --> 02:20 hours and then have customers come in and experience it. And as
02:20 --> 02:23 they came in and told me how great it was, we then,
02:24 --> 02:28 you know, came up with the guts to do our brick-and-mortar store and to have
02:28 --> 02:32 an actual business. But COVID was definitely the catalyst for how
02:33 --> 02:36 we run the shop now. Before, you were— it
02:36 --> 02:40 was a walk-in shop. You'd walk in, we'd give you some liquid nitrogen popcorn
02:41 --> 02:44 as you're taking a look at the menu. You would order, and then a chef
02:44 --> 02:47 would make the dishes to order right in front of you.
02:48 --> 02:52 And then when COVID hit, we could only have a few amount of people in
02:52 --> 02:55 the shop. And, uh, I do science demonstrations
02:55 --> 02:57 for my kids and kind of combine the two.
02:59 --> 03:02 And now it's a sugar science program where
03:03 --> 03:06 we concentrate on the science of certain subjects
03:07 --> 03:10 and implement different kinds of food in there as well. So,
03:11 --> 03:14 and I don't know if people know this, right? Like, so you're one of
03:15 --> 03:18 the few that I was able to research online,
03:18 --> 03:21 few molecular gastronomist on there.
03:22 --> 03:25 How did you get into that field? I was
03:26 --> 03:29 working at a hotel and just became very
03:29 --> 03:33 stagnant. I started when I was 8 years old
03:33 --> 03:37 in the business doing dishes and working my way up and
03:37 --> 03:42 really needed a spark, something that I could hold
03:42 --> 03:46 on to and, and do something fun with. So I
03:46 --> 03:50 hate the term molecular gastronomy. You don't want to sit down and have a
03:50 --> 03:53 full head of molecular gastronomy, right? But it's essentially, it's using science
03:54 --> 03:57 to help us cook. So before I would ask questions,
03:58 --> 04:02 you know, why does sugar do this? Why does this
04:03 --> 04:06 react a certain way? And I never had the answers. But now that we have
04:06 --> 04:09 these different scientific principles, we can actually come up
04:10 --> 04:13 with the answers as a chef. And that's what's exciting to me.
04:13 --> 04:16 And, you know, when I first started cooking, there was 12 things I could do:
04:16 --> 04:20 grill, freeze, Now there's 120 things I can
04:20 --> 04:24 do. And it's all about that bag of tricks for a chef, the being
04:24 --> 04:27 able to reach in there and, you know, come out with something new and fun.
04:27 --> 04:30 Were you dismissed when you would ask those questions? Were they like,
04:31 --> 04:34 just go ahead and do whatever you need to do, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:34 --> 04:37 I mean, I, I've always worked in real high-volume restaurants where,
04:37 --> 04:40 um, you know, the owners were more focused on, uh,
04:41 --> 04:44 the bottom line than, uh, you know, development.
04:44 --> 04:47 Which now that I'm an owner, I can appreciate that.
04:47 --> 04:51 But you never really get new
04:51 --> 04:55 things, experience new things unless you try them out,
04:55 --> 04:57 unless you have, you know, something you can work for.
04:58 --> 05:01 How often are you experimenting to go to
05:02 --> 05:05 the next level, whatever it is in the shop?
05:05 --> 05:09 Every day. Yeah. Yeah. I keep a notebook
05:09 --> 05:11 that I have with me. I've done that since I was like 12 years old.
05:12 --> 05:16 That just kind of highlights some things in
05:16 --> 05:19 my head that I want to try.
05:20 --> 05:24 And there's about a 30% success
05:24 --> 05:28 rate with it. It's definitely not 100%.
05:28 --> 05:30 Sometimes it involves trips to the emergency room.
05:32 --> 05:35 But yeah, we always get from A to
05:35 --> 05:39 B now, which is, you know, something really fun. Yeah. What What
05:39 --> 05:45 is, what is the ongoing goal? I think that
05:45 --> 05:49 the in-between line of what you're trying to do to go
05:49 --> 05:53 outside the box and experiments, but then also run a business, because I'm
05:54 --> 05:56 sure it kind of has to be somewhere in the middle, right? You, you can't
05:57 --> 06:00 go too far outside and go, well, if I keep doing this, I'm forgetting
06:00 --> 06:03 that I have to run a business and get people in every day, be able
06:04 --> 06:06 to sell tickets, you know, things like that. Well, What is, what is going on
06:07 --> 06:11 in your mind as you're running this consistently? It's failure.
06:11 --> 06:14 It's the threat of not, not making it.
06:15 --> 06:19 I did an event the first year of our business up in
06:19 --> 06:22 the mountains, and I went up there and they said,
06:22 --> 06:25 you know, you're going to do a couple hundred people a day and this is
06:25 --> 06:28 going to be a huge event. So we invested all of the money
06:28 --> 06:31 in our bank account to get liquid nitrogen and product. We had to rent a
06:32 --> 06:35 refrigeration truck. To drive from here all the way up to Aspen.
06:36 --> 06:39 And we did the event and we did like a couple hundred dollars in sales.
06:40 --> 06:44 They placed us in a spot that was away from all the food.
06:44 --> 06:47 So little details like that, just that little placement
06:48 --> 06:51 absolutely ruined it for us. They thought maybe just the sheer
06:51 --> 06:54 novelty of it was just gonna get people right over there, but you really need
06:55 --> 06:59 to get people to see you. Yeah. And that's a
06:59 --> 07:02 great lesson too, is location, location, location. That's a,
07:03 --> 07:06 Something I learned in culinary school.
07:07 --> 07:11 But if you have a product that people will
07:11 --> 07:15 seek out, that will go and find, it's not
07:15 --> 07:18 that important anymore. But walk-in business, it's really good
07:19 --> 07:22 to be around different entities and stuff like that. But yeah,
07:22 --> 07:26 when I was at the end of the event, I was at the dump
07:26 --> 07:30 up in Aspen throwing all of my ice cream. Out into the dump and
07:30 --> 07:34 just the sinking feeling of, is this gonna work? So number
07:35 --> 07:38 one I got out of that is guarantee. So we only do events that
07:39 --> 07:42 are guaranteed, which means we get paid no matter how many people come
07:42 --> 07:45 up and stuff like that. So just little lessons,
07:46 --> 07:49 little hard lessons that I'm sure if I went to business school,
07:50 --> 07:54 uh, maybe would have picked that up. But, you know, going on the fly and,
07:54 --> 07:57 and doing— it's the excitement. I mean, like in the beginning, especially if you're a
07:57 --> 08:00 business that's a novelty type of business, you,
08:00 --> 08:04 you're trying to get out there and like just asking to get
08:04 --> 08:08 eyes on you alone. But then now the business side of it comes in.
08:08 --> 08:12 And for you, I'm guessing it's not just like quote unquote
08:12 --> 08:15 food costs, right? You're, you were talking about nitrogen, like liquid
08:16 --> 08:20 nitrogen to be able to get the things that you need that are probably
08:20 --> 08:24 shifting in costs that are different than in the average restaurant.
08:25 --> 08:29 So From a business standpoint,
08:29 --> 08:33 what have you learned in terms of numbers, looking at
08:33 --> 08:37 margins that maybe you weren't looking at when you were working in
08:37 --> 08:41 the kitchen? Right. Well, we kind of have a really good business
08:41 --> 08:45 to be able to forecast and to understand our costs on
08:45 --> 08:48 a daily basis because I'm the only one that shops.
08:48 --> 08:51 I do all of the prep pretty much by myself.
08:52 --> 08:56 So I can understand those fluctuations where other
08:56 --> 09:00 restaurants, it might have a bigger impact, but we're also not
09:00 --> 09:03 using lobster or New York strips.
09:04 --> 09:07 What really killed us was eggs, you know, this last year when they went
09:08 --> 09:11 up. So just kind of understanding costs from there.
09:12 --> 09:15 Just like my events, I have a guarantee here at the shop.
09:15 --> 09:19 We sell 16 tickets per hour. So again, I know exactly
09:20 --> 09:23 how many people are going to come into my shop, so I know how much
09:23 --> 09:27 to prep. Nothing gets thrown away. It's a very, very efficient
09:27 --> 09:31 business. We're dealing with candy, which has
09:31 --> 09:33 a longer shelf life than other stuff. So,
09:34 --> 09:38 you know, all those aspects that I learned cooking in
09:38 --> 09:42 the first part of my career, I'm now applying to
09:42 --> 09:45 keep the business costs low and make sure that it's
09:45 --> 09:49 a valuable restaurant to the community is
09:49 --> 09:53 a huge thing for me. And this business is
09:53 --> 09:57 now for the kids. Yeah. When I was in fine dining,
09:57 --> 10:01 I was like, I got to impress the adults. Now it's, I got
10:01 --> 10:05 to impress the kids. Have you had to up your showmanship? Yeah.
10:05 --> 10:09 You know, we let people taste and you hand them something
10:10 --> 10:13 and it's not like the kitchen where you're behind a door and you don't see
10:13 --> 10:17 their reaction. I get to see the kids' reaction right away and they have
10:18 --> 10:21 no muffler. So they're just like, this sucks, or this is great.
10:21 --> 10:25 And yeah, it really makes you be on top of your game,
10:25 --> 10:28 probably a lot more than, you know, being in the back of the house.
10:28 --> 10:32 Yeah. You know, I was curious, I was doing research on the venting room in
10:32 --> 10:36 terms of risk. How have you managed
10:37 --> 10:40 that? If something goes wrong, something could go— it could really
10:40 --> 10:43 change like the, you know, the inside of a building.
10:44 --> 10:47 How do you Do you experiment, do all the experiments outside
10:48 --> 10:50 of here first and then come in here and go make sure it's safe here?
10:50 --> 10:53 How does that all work for you? No, safety, you know,
10:54 --> 10:57 we work with like our local fire departments.
10:57 --> 11:01 I actually work with hotels. They'll bring me in and I'll teach the chefs how
11:01 --> 11:05 to use nitrogen. Talk about liquid nitrogen. So I'm going to put some
11:05 --> 11:06 in my cup here.
11:10 --> 11:14 So nitrogen is not the coldest liquid. It's liquid helium at -450.
11:15 --> 11:17 But this is -321, so super cold.
11:18 --> 11:22 Used in a lot of different industries. I used to cook for a scientist who
11:22 --> 11:25 would put satellite parts in nitrogen to see if it could withstand the same temperatures
11:25 --> 11:28 as space. And if you've ever had a wart burned off, this is the
11:29 --> 11:33 crazy stuff they use for that. So we're going to demonstrate sublimation
11:34 --> 11:37 by pouring it on the floor.
11:41 --> 11:42 Oh, that's cool.
11:44 --> 11:48 Cool. So what is it doing right now when it hits
11:48 --> 11:51 the floor? So it's a liquid when it comes out of that cup. It quickly
11:51 --> 11:55 turns into a solid, into those little balls, and then into a
11:55 --> 11:58 gas. So when we go from a solid to a gas, that's called sublimation.
11:59 --> 11:59 That's crazy.
12:13 --> 12:17 One of my favorite things to demonstrate is
12:17 --> 12:20 how nitrogen expands, and it's really rapid.
12:20 --> 12:24 It's like 800 times its volume per second. So we
12:25 --> 12:25 can put some in our beaker here.
12:33 --> 12:35 And then put this guy under pressure real quick.
12:42 --> 12:43 It's great,
12:47 --> 12:51 but that's one where, uh, I do it and everybody—
12:51 --> 12:54 it's totally silent in here. Yeah, because they think
12:55 --> 13:00 something went wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's just demonstrating
13:00 --> 13:04 some different properties we're gonna do. So we're gonna put some nitrogen in
13:04 --> 13:08 our bowl. So when we look for textures to serve, it's important
13:09 --> 13:12 they have a lot of air in them. So Cheetos has the most
13:12 --> 13:16 air. It's made mostly of air. So what's gonna happen
13:16 --> 13:19 is the nitrogen gas is gonna get trapped inside and
13:19 --> 13:23 be a super fun texture. So this is one we
13:23 --> 13:27 have to give people a little bit
13:28 --> 13:31 of knowing on how to eat it. So the whole Cheeto,
13:31 --> 13:34 you can't put it in your mouth, but you can take
13:34 --> 13:36 really, really small bites of it.
13:39 --> 13:42 So you just grab it? Yeah, grab it and set it in your cup.
13:42 --> 13:44 It's cold. Freezing.
13:47 --> 13:50 And I'll do one with you. Okay, so it is super small.
13:58 --> 14:01 Well, like a bowl. So what would happen if you
14:01 --> 14:04 ate the whole thing? It'd be uncomfortable.
14:05 --> 14:06 Very uncomfortable.
14:09 --> 14:13 But yeah, the running joke is, uh, hopefully it's the first time you've seen
14:13 --> 14:17 your kids smoke. Yeah, because the kids just absolutely
14:17 --> 14:21 love this texture. It's super fun. One of my favorite
14:21 --> 14:25 things is
14:26 --> 14:27 the Apollo 11 program.
14:30 --> 14:33 They had Tang
14:33 --> 14:37 on board. So Tang's been on every single NASA mission.
14:37 --> 14:41 They recycle the water and it develops a metallic flavor to it.
14:42 --> 14:45 So we made a tang syrup and mixed
14:45 --> 14:49 it with heavy cream. That's what we got in this bottle over here. And then
14:49 --> 14:53 this is pineapple sugar. So we're going to start making little piles of
14:53 --> 14:57 the whipped cream in here. So texture is very important,
14:58 --> 15:01 like the Cheeto popcorn works really well too.
15:03 --> 15:06 So we're going to take these and put these in nice.
15:10 --> 15:13 So since it has a lot of air, just like that Cheeto,
15:13 --> 15:15 it's gonna, it's gonna create this amazing texture.
15:19 --> 15:23 This is our number one seller in Dubai. We do
15:23 --> 15:25 a baklava space bun there that's really good.
15:27 --> 15:31 So these come out, same thing. If you just give it
15:32 --> 15:33 like 10 seconds, you can put the whole thing in your mouth.
15:49 --> 15:50 Wow, that's tasty too.
15:53 --> 15:55 And that is the number one comment that I get.
15:57 --> 15:59 I can't believe that it tastes too.
16:00 --> 16:03 And That was the thing that was the
16:04 --> 16:07 worst with molecular gastronomy is people were just doing it so
16:08 --> 16:11 they could say they could do it. Yeah. You have to put out a product
16:12 --> 16:15 that people are gonna enjoy, that they're gonna talk about. And if you're not gonna
16:16 --> 16:19 do that, then, you know, why are you showing up every day? Yeah. Yep.
16:19 --> 16:24 Now, people that were doing that, were they just
16:24 --> 16:28 never getting to that sort of taste factor in
16:28 --> 16:31 it? They were just like, this is all about science, we're just gonna concentrate on
16:31 --> 16:34 this. Or would eventually someone like you go in there and go, hey,
16:34 --> 16:38 we gotta start to pull back into this other section and
16:38 --> 16:41 really make it enjoyable? What, what is the conversation like in
16:42 --> 16:45 the community of, you know, whether you guys are talking about that? Well, it's interesting
16:45 --> 16:49 because all of the big-time molecular chefs,
16:49 --> 16:52 if you go and look at what they're doing right now, they're not doing the
16:53 --> 16:57 fine dining molecular restaurants. Wiley Diffuse from
16:57 --> 17:00 WD-50, probably one of my favorite molecular chefs.
17:00 --> 17:04 He does pizza now. Oh, wow. And another really good chef does
17:04 --> 17:07 donuts. And another guy has a taco bar.
17:07 --> 17:11 So it's not about, you know, building the best
17:12 --> 17:16 thing. Yeah, it's about maybe applying some of these stuff to something that's
17:16 --> 17:20 a little bit different. So I would say that this is the safest shop
17:20 --> 17:24 probably in the country for nitrogen use. But a lot
17:24 --> 17:28 of experimentation's done here. We also have a catering kitchen where
17:28 --> 17:31 we do all of our prep for all of our events. We do a couple
17:31 --> 17:35 hundred events every year. So that really, you know, helps us out as far as
17:35 --> 17:39 the bottom line as well. But yeah, I mean, safety is like,
17:39 --> 17:44 it's huge. When I first started, I had a Honda Civic
17:44 --> 17:48 and I had a Dewar sitting on the driver's side.
17:48 --> 17:51 Went to bed and woke up to the fire department and
17:52 --> 17:55 hazmat. Somebody rear-ended my car. The nitrogen spilled out and
17:55 --> 17:59 blew out the windows because of the pressure. So yeah, that,
17:59 --> 18:02 that's the first list that I've, uh, that I had
18:03 --> 18:04 my name on. Yeah, exactly.
18:06 --> 18:10 When, when you're dealing with now
18:10 --> 18:13 public that's really interactive with you, what,
18:13 --> 18:17 what did you feel like was something you learned quickly that
18:17 --> 18:21 you thought like, I need to do this in order to make this all work?
18:23 --> 18:27 Yeah. Well, first, our hardest customers
18:27 --> 18:31 are kids and drunk people because everybody wants to put their hands
18:31 --> 18:34 in the limousine engine. What's a stand-up comedian like to deal with? You know,
18:34 --> 18:38 like, I feel like you have to be able to take it as you're performing,
18:38 --> 18:42 right? You're doing all this. Yeah. And more than any other
18:42 --> 18:45 restaurant setting I've ever been in. Yeah. You're an entertainer here.
18:47 --> 18:51 You know, people have this crazy expectation when
18:51 --> 18:55 they come to the Inventing Room, and that expectation just grows
18:55 --> 18:59 every video they see, every review that they read. So you really
18:59 --> 19:02 have to come through and make sure that, you know, that expectation
19:03 --> 19:06 is being met, which is extremely hard to do.
19:06 --> 19:09 Yeah. What have you done, do you think,
19:09 --> 19:13 that has upped your showmanship as
19:13 --> 19:16 time has gone on? Is there anything you were like, I need to improve this?
19:16 --> 19:20 To really make this more fun for someone on the other side of
19:20 --> 19:23 the glass? Yeah, we do the
19:24 --> 19:28 demonstration with nitrogen, so we show them, you know, how it boils
19:28 --> 19:32 and sublimates and stuff like that. So I usually pour it on the floor so
19:32 --> 19:34 you can see it kind of all dig in. Magic shows.
19:35 --> 19:38 So like a year ago I was like, well, let me add some lights to
19:38 --> 19:41 this. So now we've— we have lights that kind
19:42 --> 19:45 of light it all up and, you know, just bring that little bit of wow
19:45 --> 19:48 factor to it. So But every year
19:50 --> 19:53 when we're slow, which is generally in February, March, I pick
19:53 --> 19:57 a project that will enhance us and
19:57 --> 20:00 it'll be a cool something that we can talk about. For example,
20:00 --> 20:04 we 3D printed systems for our drones, so now we can drop
20:04 --> 20:08 candy packages on people. So that was huge with COVID The
20:09 --> 20:12 kids would walk out on the front lawn and I'd go up a couple hundred
20:12 --> 20:15 feet and drop cotton candy and a bunch of different stuff for them. So that's
20:16 --> 20:18 That's pretty cool. But that was one year, you know, I was bored and I
20:18 --> 20:21 was like, I'm gonna take a little bit of money and invest it in,
20:21 --> 20:25 you know, a little bit of a, of a cool project. So you, since you're
20:25 --> 20:28 the owner now, you're doing all this stuff, this is your carte blanche to just
20:29 --> 20:31 be able to do, like, you're like, if I want to do this, I can
20:31 --> 20:36 do this. Yeah, right. Just whatever. Now from a business standpoint,
20:36 --> 20:40 what is it you feel like has improved from
20:41 --> 20:42 the moment you open till now?
20:44 --> 20:48 Something, or something you've learned that was like, hey, I need to really make this
20:48 --> 20:52 like, uh, a staple of my business in order for me to
20:52 --> 20:55 function? Yeah, I would say, uh, just the
20:56 --> 20:59 science aspect of it, on how we're always talking about the
21:00 --> 21:05 science behind what we do. Um, that's what
21:05 --> 21:08 people remember. And again, coming back to the kids, when I have
21:08 --> 21:12 them come back into the store, they went to a demo a couple years ago
21:12 --> 21:14 and they tell me that they're actually interested in science now.
21:15 --> 21:19 That's the hugest compliment that you could ever receive, is, you know,
21:19 --> 21:23 kids paying attention. Yeah, kids actually getting the point and,
21:23 --> 21:26 you know, having fun in our establishment. But,
21:26 --> 21:30 um, just trying to be on my game
21:30 --> 21:34 every single day, um, you know, whether it be
21:34 --> 21:37 at events or, you know, working a shop, just,
21:38 --> 21:41 um, bringing it. Because that's— it's different for you,
21:41 --> 21:46 right? As from a business standpoint, your science has to always
21:46 --> 21:50 work for the audience, because if
21:50 --> 21:53 you're off that day, they're like, oh, now the business— it
21:53 --> 21:56 makes the business seem weak, as such, right? Like, you're like, maybe he doesn't know
21:56 --> 22:00 what he's doing, that maybe this is all like a farce, right? But for you
22:01 --> 22:03 as different from like a, uh,
22:04 --> 22:07 someone who's just, who's really just doing a regular restaurant per
22:08 --> 22:11 se. To have that, they're like, well, if the food doesn't work out that day,
22:11 --> 22:14 the food doesn't work out that day. But for you, like, it has to work
22:14 --> 22:17 out. Yeah. For in order for it, for them to go out and tell the
22:17 --> 22:20 next group of people like, hey, that was awesome, I gotta come back in here,
22:20 --> 22:23 you got to see this, you know. So, um, yeah, it's a different standpoint.
22:24 --> 22:27 And then, you know, you were talking earlier about a little bit about learning,
22:27 --> 22:31 you know, numbers and, and being on top of that. What was,
22:32 --> 22:36 what was your, I guess, education in making
22:36 --> 22:38 sure that you understood the margins and stuff like that? Or did you know that
22:39 --> 22:43 from working at the restaurant already? Uh, I knew a little bit from the restaurants.
22:43 --> 22:46 I'd work in operations where I'd have to cost out dishes and,
22:47 --> 22:50 uh, you know, come to the owners and explain why this would
22:50 --> 22:54 be a good fit for us. But yeah, running your own
22:54 --> 22:57 place, it's just me and my wife.
22:57 --> 23:01 And if we want to change something the next day, we change it. It doesn't
23:01 --> 23:05 go through meetings or the corporate ladder. And that's what makes
23:05 --> 23:08 this place so great is, you know, we can do stuff on the fly,
23:09 --> 23:12 which normally you don't see like in a large corporation and stuff
23:12 --> 23:16 like that. The wheels move a little slower. But, you know, for me, it's,
23:16 --> 23:19 you know, if it doesn't work, you know, we need to figure something out and
23:19 --> 23:23 let's just change it and do it the right way. Yeah. And,
23:23 --> 23:27 you know, kind of wrapping up here, if we were to go back in time
23:27 --> 23:30 to your COVID-era
23:31 --> 23:34 self and be like, hey, this is what's about to happen. But if you can
23:34 --> 23:38 give advice to yourself at that point to maybe expedite
23:39 --> 23:42 this journey and give, give advice that something
23:42 --> 23:44 could be easier for you, what do you think it would be?
23:47 --> 23:50 I would tell my, my COVID
23:50 --> 23:54 self that, you know, everything's going to be okay. You know,
23:54 --> 23:57 there was a lot of panic. There was a lot of,
23:57 --> 24:00 you know, pivoting and trying to understand, you know,
24:01 --> 24:04 how do we run a business in this climate? But if
24:04 --> 24:08 you believe in your concepts, if every day when
24:08 --> 24:11 you open that door, you're smiling and every day when
24:12 --> 24:14 you lock up that door, you still have that smile on your face,
24:15 --> 24:19 Um, it, it truly does not become work
24:19 --> 24:22 anymore. And I feel like, um,
24:24 --> 24:28 the inspiration, um, especially that we hopefully give to kids
24:28 --> 24:32 is that, um, you might have an idea as
24:32 --> 24:35 you're a kid and people kind of dismiss you, but keep that idea
24:36 --> 24:39 in the back of your head because you might have a chance to, you know,
24:39 --> 24:43 uh, take a chance on yourself one day. And try to take that next level.
24:44 --> 24:47 And that's what I did. You know, I always thought that this
24:48 --> 24:52 is gonna be something bigger and, you know, it worked
24:52 --> 24:55 out that way. So, you know, never let anybody tell you you have
24:56 --> 24:59 a bad idea. Only you can take it
25:00 --> 25:03 a little bit further and make sure that it's an amazing
25:04 --> 25:07 thing that can turn into your career. That's awesome.
25:07 --> 25:10 We're ending on that. Thank you so much. Uh,
25:11 --> 25:14 let's tell everyone how they can find the Invention Room—
25:15 --> 25:18 location, where you are, uh, Instagram, all that stuff.
25:18 --> 25:22 Uh, we're at 4433 West 29th Street.
25:22 --> 25:25 Uh, so they call it Slow High, um, here in Denver.
25:25 --> 25:29 Uh, our website is tirdenver.com. Um,
25:29 --> 25:32 tickets are required to come into our shop, so you can get on there and
25:33 --> 25:36 and select days. We're open Thursday through Sunday.
25:37 --> 25:40 We also have the ability to do private demonstrations
25:41 --> 25:45 and other stuff like that. Um, yeah, we're on Instagram,
25:45 --> 25:48 just Inventing Room. We also have a couple shops in Dubai now,
25:49 --> 25:52 so there's a— you can check out kind of some of the stuff that they're
25:53 --> 25:56 doing over there as well. So, um, but yeah, uh,
25:56 --> 25:59 come on, come on down, come on, let's see us. Well, thank you guys.
25:59 --> 26:02 Uh, thank you, Ian, for being on Personal Side Business.