Brick by Brick: How This Couple Saved The Family Business

You know, when they're submitting an order that's 950 bricks, it's like, good job. Like, you guys crushed it.

Being risk averse, they did. It's like, nah, we just put all the chips in the basket. It was less about the business and more about the opportunity to create. What was the final conversation, the final domino that had to fall into place? All right, we're doing this. From South Bin to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.

I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Before we get into the show, I need to remind you that today's episode is brought to you by my friends at NCW. You might remember when I had Dan Natalie on the show, talking about how they built a national staffing and recruiting company over the past 25 years, specializing in skilled trades. They are looking for new members to join their team. If you're looking for work in recruiting, sales, or general business operations, you need to check out teamnc. com.

Not only have they been voted a top workplace by Indie Star, listed on the IBJ Fast 25, and featured on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest private growing companies in America, but I also have a personal laundry list of friends that work at NCW and absolutely love it. To learn more and check out their open roles, check out teamncw. com and tell them you heard about it on Get Inur. Today I'm joined by Zach and Shaina Light, third generation co-owners of Ceramica and Fundraising Brick, which are engraved masonry and stone supply companies based right here in Indianapolis. Together, they're carrying on the family legacy while bringing a fresh vision to the future of craftsmanship across the Hoosier State and beyond.

Today, we're going to be talking about what it's like to take over a legacy brand. uh how they're bringing their own twist and their their uh innovation to all things brick and ceramics and uh just the moving from New York City, spending time in a suburb of Chicago, all the things that Indianapolis brings. This is going to be a fun episode. Uh Zach and Shane, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you very much.

I am I'm excited. We just kind of spent, I don't know, 10 minutes or so chitchatting about the journey that brought you guys here to Indianapolis, acquiring a company from Missouri, bringing that to Indianapolis, uh, and taking over a third generation family business. Like, there's a lot to unpack here. And the story does start at a tailgate in Bloomington or West. Where was the game at?

Bloomington.

Bloomington.

Bloom. Game was in Bloomington.

Why would I go to West Lafayette?

Ah, there we go.

It was my first trip to Bloomington, too.

And that's where you guys met. That's right. And quickly thereafter then it took you to New York where uh you Shane worked in fashion for 12 years.

Now that's right.

Incredible. From a journey from fashion to now ceramics is a heck of a full circle there.

Yeah. I didn't see myself in stone and masonry that's for sure.

It's the it's the hottest new thing. Gucci bags to stone and masonry. Let's go. The story though for Ceramica starts back in 1988 with your grandpa Dick Light.

That's right. um he set out and started to build this company. Give us the backstory there.

Dick first started a company that's still around. It's called Architectural Brick and Tile. It's up towards Fisers. He's been involved in stone supply, but never engraving prior to that. His entire career when he was supplying a I think it was a hospital back in the 80s with brick, they wanted to have these bricks engraved. And back then to have bricks engraved, you had to do it from the manufacturer where the engraving was actually stamped into each brick.

Very inefficient, very expensive, very hard to do. But he knew that that's not how memorials were engraved, for example, granite memorials. He knew that there was a better, faster way to do it, which was sand blasting. So he started for this customer, he started applying the sand blasting technique to engraved name brick and uh from that point forward decided that it was the the business that they should go into cuz it was so much better, so much faster, so much better quality, and more efficient. He sold architectural brick and tile to a family that still runs it today. They're they're great.

I'd recommend you guys uh check it out for all your architectural brick and tile needs. So many so many of those.

But then I decided to start ceramica. And you're referring to ceramics earlier and it's because ceramica is probably the worst name possible for our company. We don't do ceramics. Like we can engrave some tile. He intended to start someday a handmade tile business. So he got the name Ceramica Incorporated like whatever it is, trademarked, patented, whatever. And then when he started a sand blasting company, he decided to keep the name ceramica. So we have people, especially Spanish speakers, coming into our office quite frequently looking for tile to purchase, and we have to tell them, uh, no,

there's a couple boxes of scraps here and there, but

not really our Well, that's good to know. Um, so he then built this over the course of like how many years? been around since 88, but the where they really started to take off and their biggest project that I think immediately got their machinery loans, etc. paid for was the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame,

which is a a really we still supply them with not huge amount Newcastle.

It is. Yes. Okay.

So, there's a a huge brick mural of the state of Indiana

in a basketball.

Yeah. In a basketball and there's uh names engraved inside of it. So that was really the project that that got the the company kicked off.

Is it the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame? That's right.

Yep. Or it sold $150,000 worth of engraved brick.

Something like that.

That's crazy. Back in 1989,

it wasn't nothing.

And so each of those in the state of Indiana in the basketball have a name on them.

That's right.

I I I guess there's some blanks mixed in there, but you throughout the years they they continue to place orders with us for

Yeah. I think anytime they have a capital campaign, there's a resurgence of orders, but you know, people don't run those every year. Sometimes they last like five years, 10 years. So,

and I think it maybe they're not even all donations, but also honoring people recognition contributed to

So, so growing up, you knew, so Zach, you're from Indianapolis.

That's right.

U Shada, you're from Neapville, Illinois. We won't hold that against you. It's fine. Thank you.

Um, but growing up in Indianapolis, grandpa is working in this

brick business. Like, what was your opinion? You know, as you grow up, you go to college, you're like, "Yeah, I want to come home and join the family brick business."

Uh, I worked there in in the workshop after high school in the summers and then for a couple of college semesters. So, it was

What grandchild didn't?

Yeah. I think

I think every nearly every light had spent some time at Ceramica.

Maybe my dad's about the only the only one that has not worked at Ceramica cuz

Dick, we never called him Grandpa. Just Dick.

Just Dick. Fair. Dick started it with my aunt Maryanne is who I bought the business with and then two of my uncles uh Doug and and Keith. So my dad was from a family of seven and most of them worked at Ceramica at at some point or another

or their spouses or their children. Yeah,

exactly.

Many years going on like how did the business do? What was it kind of like hey this is steady? Is it growing? Like we had this first huge project a year into it and you're like oh it's off to the races. Uh what was kind of like the trajectory for ceramica

business was booming up until about 2008 which is when of course the housing market collapsed. A lot of construction started. Um a lot of ceramica's partnerships are in the construction space particularly with limestone signage. We produce a lot of limestone address markers that would for example go in the side of a brick house. So just four numbers in the side. I don't have great financial records. I don't think that that was a a strong suit of my uh of my forebears, but um

a lot of our customers still submit their orders via fax.

It's there there's an article that the Indie Star wrote about us talking about the the business and what what sales we were doing annually. And that was in 2000. And they were doing, according to that article, they were selling about two times as much as we were in 2002 when I acquired the business.

22.

22. Yeah. 2022 when I acquired the business.

So, it's like a it's a tumultuous.

Yeah. So with

not all the yellow brick rather

with the housing market and then it also coincided with the declining health of Dick and um he did a lot of the sales and marketing and then also my uncle Dave who uh he's he married my dad's sister Beth who did a lot of the sales unfortunately they

passed away around the same time and the sales and marketing went out of the business and more or less this kind of coasted on the customers that did not exit when the housing market collapsed. those partnerships that were still there. So, they lost a lot of relationship with homebuilders and more so were kind of relying on the masonry supplies

and is a lot of the work you guys are doing uh residential or commercial?

It's both.

It's both. Okay. So, I give the listeners like uh let them visualize like okay so we know home address like 6402 like it would just be you know that engraved 642 but there's some other interesting work that you guys have done over the years. I mean obviously the bricks at the basketball hall of fame. Where else? Like what other kind of projects?

Some projects that we're really proud of are the Indiana War Memorial downtown. So all the bricks, not all the bricks around the circle. We recently picked up that job, but we're producing more and more for them. A lot of the neater stuff that we do are the large scale limestone signage pieces. So if you think about a big 6 foot by 4 foot tall limestone slab heading into a gated neighborhood or outside of a corporate complex, those are what we would consider to be the the neater projects that we get to participate in. Uh, I can't imagine like how do you lift one of those

forklift?

Yeah.

So, and like explain the process. So, okay, I'm building a neighborhood and it's called Spangle Estates. Okay, so Spangle Estates. Yeah, it's going to be great one day, right? It's very You have Indiana people. Come on. Um, but I want one of those big limestone markers out front like where you're entering that says Spangle Estates. So, I buy a massive piece of limestone.

No, we already have that for you.

You have the limestone? Yeah, we work with the quaries directly to bring in slabs and we have slabs of various thicknesses and we have a giant Jaguar saw that

Jaguar saw.

That's what they're called.

It's a it's a wet saw.

That sounds

I didn't even know what I I knew it was there because I had worked there previously, but I didn't really know about the machine itself, the magnitude of it, and the uh the computer on it broke. And I found out it was going to cost $18,000 to fix the computer. So, forget this. That's a 20-year-old saw. Let's just get a whole new saw. found out it was a $250,000 saw all in with installation. So, needless to say, I

just fixed the computer.

Needless to say, I got the computer fixed. Oh, wow. So, these are This is I mean, obviously, you know, you're talking in rock, like massive slabs of rock, you're going to need something big there. But I Yeah. To the magnitude of a quarter of a million dollars to cut rock is wild.

It's cool. And the, as she said, the limestone that we get, it comes right up from Bedford.

Is it from Bedford or is it from Litic?

Bedford. Bedford. Yeah. So, we had, do you guys know Clayton Anderson? He's the country singer. He is from Bedford area and he's like, well, a lot of the limestone actually comes from just outside of Bedford in the tiny tiny town of Oolitic.

Yeah. And I think there were quaries also throughout southern Indiana that are now closed because, you know, we they've been overused. Um, so yeah, I think the quarry we work with is in Bedford.

In in Bedford. Okay. So, they bring that up to you guys. So, order comes in Spangle Estates, you guys work with the Corey. you bring up my 6 foot by 8 foot slab or whatever it is and

yeah and likely your developer or your um supplier is going to be the one placing the order with us and getting us the specs but yeah we design the stone for you. We go through kind of like what sort of interesting art you might want on that or I don't know if you know you want the get in logo on it. Spangle Estates obviously you need something branded. We go through the paint options. We cut the limestone to the size of the the sign you'd like it to be. We sand blast engrave that after the proof approval process and put it on a pallet, ship it to you and get it installed with your mason.

That's awesome. Okay. And that's a that's a is that majority of the what you guys are creating today?

Now about about 45% of the businesses in limestone today and that includes custom cuts that we work with a lot of like landscape developers on so or landscape hardscape uh designers on where they're needing sills or caps for their you know retention walls or projects. pools, that kind of thing. So, some of that is just cutting the stone to order, beveling the edges, that kind of thing. Um, but most of it is in address stones and that we're working directly with, as Zach mentioned, masonry uh distribution supply companies. So, they're like the Lee Brick and Block or the Stone Centers.

So, this isn't something, and you can correct me, too, but like I wouldn't just come directly to you guys and say, "Hey, I need an address block." You could distribute it to

you could and people do but most of the time we're getting five, six, seven orders at a time for a full development that's going in that is all either brick or stone and they're all cut to the same size. They're all in the same font and so we get multiple orders of that a day across the country from supply companies

because everyone has to be uniform and spangleistic. Actually I actually I would say the opposite. We want everyone's to be different like use some different fonts and let them be unique. give each that's why I'm not like Clint from Estridge Homes, right? Like they're very like no we want a uniform and I would be like a developer's worst nightmare.

Well, and Zach was talking about the housing crisis change, but I also think in general like stone and brick homes today aren't as popular as they were in the '9s or as they were in the early 2000s. You know, I think about the McMansions that were going in in Neighborville when I was growing up. They all had address stones because they were all stoneface facade buildings.

Even our house is got the little aluminum numbers numbers on it shamefully. We got to do something about that one day. We got to fix that.

So yeah, the I think the industry has just diversified as far as like home development and the the trend has changed. So

it's funny we talk about limestone. But part of this journey uh from Bedford to New York is also like the limestone to make the Empire State Building came from Bedford.

100% it did. The limestone that was in Grand Central Terminal did the limestone in the Pentagon is most of the memorials in DC are

Yeah. And it's full circle that you guys went and spent over a decade in New York City. Yeah. Where and then Limestone brings you back.

Meanwhile, the bones of those buildings that we were marveling at on, you know, tours we were giving friends were all just from Indiana.

Yeah. Exactly. One of Ceramica's bigger projects in recent memory was actually for uh the insurance company New York Life, who has the New York Life building in New York that's all made out of Indiana limestone. So they wanted to give individual Indiana limestone awards to their top salespeople. Uh so I was not part of ceramica back then. I was still consulting in New York and she was still working in fashion. But they executed this huge project to produce

hundreds of limestone cut uh plaques that had the New York Life building envelope engraved in it.

Yeah, it's it's spot on with what you're saying.

Well, talk to me about how you guys ended up taking this company over. Right. You're living in New York. You're working in fashion. You're doing consulting. Like that's kind of uh I don't know if you think of like IU Purdue. You know, you're kind of living a dream there. You know, you moved to the big city and you're doing it. What convinces you to move back to Indianapolis to take this over?

I think it's multiffactor.

Yeah. A lot of that had to do with me. I got very unhappy in my career when Shane and I met and we

were you working at like a big like a big four consultant or like what kind of like

Accenture?

Oh yeah, maybe you've heard of that.

Yeah. Well, uh prior to that I or I worked for Accenture and then when we were moving I was working for a company a smaller company called called 55 that did a lot of data analytics marketing and this is a great company. There's nothing wrong with the company, nothing wrong with the people that worked there. Just anybody that knew or or knows me find out that I'm working in data analytics, merging siloed data sets, what that's what that's what Zach's doing.

I didn't think that, and this is no offense to brick and masonry, like that's like a pretty like data silo, whatever. That sounds even like way.

I had to tell Zach multiple times like, "Zack, I think you're depressed. like I think we need to change something because he just seems so sad about his job and meanwhile I'm loving my job.

It just didn't like turn his lights on, you know? And meanwhile in his free time he was making videos about business. He was making PowerPoint presentations to me about ideas he had for businesses.

But you're making PowerPoint presentations.

I was a consult. That's what you do. You make power.

It's like those like, "Oh, where should we go on vacation?" And it's like click. He's watching episode after episode of Shark Tank. It's like he just had this interest in entrepreneurship and business ownership. And a lot of the ideas, they were fun, they were exciting, they were they were good, but they were risky, you know, and we were living in a two-bedroom condo with two young babies, and we were like, "Is this what we're going to is this what is this the next step, or is there something else?" And then

Zach's aunt called, or maybe it was your dad that called. Unfortunately, Ceramica went up for sale because my uncle Doug passed away. He he had been running it.

Did Dick pass away?

Yeah, Dick passed away in about 2010 and then uh Doug was still the president of the company even when when I worked there uh throughout high school and college. But

he passed away from esophageal cancer in 2020. And then my aunt Maryanne who had founded the company with she her her dad and two brothers had kept it going for the next couple of years. But the the company was coming up for sale and they offered it to some family members that had worked there longer and may had more stake in the business and they didn't want it and then

why pushed me.

Why do you think that like not you're like oh it's not risky like or like entrepreneurship is risky. We're not necessarily the most like you know jump in. It's like the people that work there were like no we don't want that. Like maybe the New York people will want it.

They didn't work there anymore. or they had moved on to other careers, but there had been points in their lives where they're running the workshop and quite frankly, I think that maybe that's why they didn't want it because they had they had been through some stuff there and uh were were happy with where they're at. Whereas I'm is risk averse when you're you're not very scared of worse. Okay, I'm the opposite of that.

You're you're a risky cat.

I'm riskaverse and Zach is like I'm the opposite of that.

Just do it and figure it out.

Amen.

Big on figure outable.

Big on seeing what happens. So I I was ready for a change. This came up. I had already worked there. I was really excited about the opportunity to create something to produce something. For my whole career, I had only s sold services consulting. This is how you should improve your business. This is how you should change your business. And why not see if I'm any good at it? Why not with my own business?

So you get a call from a family member that says, "Hey, we've offered a few other people. They've said no. like do you want to buy ceramica?

Yeah. I said no.

Fair. Okay.

Yeah. I said no. I I was making good money doing what I doing doing what I was doing. Um I had already gotten the approval from my company which 55 which again was great company, great people, great at what they do, just not for me. I already gotten approval from them to to work remote from wherever we would move back to the Midwest.

So you knew you were coming back to the Midwest. We were like living in, you know, the pandemic in a two-bedroom condo with kids and we were like to level up in New York, a major change would have had to happen in one of our careers. And while maybe it would have um we were on the right trajectory, you know,

it just says not much. It

it felt like there was probably another opportunity to get closer to family and

family was a big part of it.

Yeah. Get closer to our parents who are who aren't getting any younger and our kids' cousins and our siblings.

Um

and I can't imagine I don't know. I mean, obviously it happens tons of times, but like being a kid growing up in a two-bedroom condo in New York City, like I'm sure there's a ton of really cool stuff, but it's not like riding your bike to the park or like

it. They do ride their bike to the park. I mean, we when we moved there and we first had kids, we thought that that was the plan. We're like, we could do this, but the pandemic changes everything. You're just all the things you love about your city. All of a sudden, you're just holed up.

You're not going into the office. You're not seeing your co-workers anymore. like it was hard and all of our friends were moving away. All of our friends were taking that next step to move to homes in the suburbs or out to Los Angeles or back to their homes countries. Um, so it just it was it was a tough time, you know, and then meanwhile Zach's not passionate about his career. We were just like, maybe we just need to change the location.

Maybe that's it. So we we always knew we were going to move back or not always knew the the Midwest was certainly a target even before Ceramica, but it was are we going to move to Indianapolis or are we going to move to Chicago or are we going to move Columbus to Minnesota? Yeah. Like there's other industry here for retail for me. So it was more like if Zach's approved to work remotely. Where can I get a job that's closer to home?

And so it became more about like me finding a job. So I started looking for retail opportunities back in the Midwest generally.

So you say no. Yeah,

you but you know you're going to move at this point. You've like nailed on that. How do you end up getting convinced to take over ceramica?

I said no to the ceramica that that I knew and existed. I I it took me a while to think about all of the more interesting and exciting things that I could do with the company. So when I said no, it was only like do I want to spend my life stamping out name brick and address stones? Um, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just kind of using this as a parachute to get out of something that's making me certainly unhappy. But the more and more I I I thought about it and the more I thought about what I enjoy at working for the companies I have enjoyed working with was less about the product and what we're making, which I have come to love and appreciate more since I've done it, but more about the community of the people working there.

I got really excited about being able to curate this company with employees and turn it into a not everybody's going to like coming to work every day. I I certainly don't. But the the thought of building this business with people and making it a place that can enrich not only our lives but the people that work there, that's what really got me excited about it. And it had a lot to do with the advertising agencies I had worked for or with in Indianapolis. That's a pretty fun community to work in. A lot of creative people, beer taps in the in the kitchen.

And it's just like why why can't a manufacturer like Ceramica be more like that? So that's what really got me excited about it. It was less about the business and more about the the opportunity to create. And I think there's this whole wave of legacy business owners that like they think they call it the silver tsunami of this mass exodus of baby boomers that started these companies and like did all right like had a very good living for them but they weren't like multi-bajillion dollar companies but now they're getting older and they want to retire and they want to step away and a lot of these business are just they either sell to like PE and get rolled up into whatever or they go belly up and no one wants to take them over. What would you say to people out there that are maybe considering buying more of a legacy business, whether it's within their family or not?

I feel very lucky that I've had the opportunity to do it. Fell into my lap under unfortunate circumstances, but feeling like I do compared to previously my career, waking up and being excited to go into work and see what happens today to create something and be excited to create the next thing rather than just finish a consulting project and know that another one I'm gonna hate is coming down the pipeline. I would have to say if go go go for it. Of course, there's there's risk.

I would say it's probably you have a base like you have a base customer list where people pay you guys money, you know, when you take this over, which is nicer than just like going out and say, "Hey, we're going to start the next Netflix, right?" So, you have like a little bit of less risk there.

Yeah. As the risk avers averse person in the relationship, that's one thing I said to Zach. I'm like, "Why? This is a great idea. It's already established. It's it's making money. You have customers. Like if you're going to go and build something, build off of what what already started.

Was it hard? Uh you talk about bringing this new culture of like a marketing agency. They're creative and they're fun and we get some drinks and it's like, hey, these people have been doing this since 1988. You're going to come in. Mr. Hot Shot, the Hot Shots from New York are coming in and like switching everything up. Was that hard?

Yeah, it certainly was. Shaina was not part of the company until what, two years in?

It's been about a year and a half since year and a half in. So it was uh it was just me and not everybody liked me. One of the employees threw trash at me actually. So

like a whole box of it.

So well because I mean and if you've been How long had that employee been working there?

Uh long enough to feel comfortable throwing trash at me.

I mean that's fair. Bold.

Yeah.

You're looking for bowl. You got bold. But it's I mean and I see both sides like one you want to grow and you want to evolve and you took over this company and you're putting sticking your neck out there. But on the other side, it's like, hey, we've been doing this for so long. And I always like I mean, I talked to a bunch of people, whether it's consulting or, you know, taking over a business, acquisitions, whatever it is. If you come in, the first thing you say is like, h, this is all wrong. You're so And it's like, well, they've been doing it for a long time.

Yeah. And I I mean, I mentioned earlier a lot of the partners that we have still submit orders via fax, which we receive via email. we don't have a fax machine, you know, but that's all changed because Zach or one of his cousins who still works at the company has made changes to modernize. And it's not just the employees who had to change. It's the customers too. You know, Zach hasn't just gotten push back from people who worked there for a long time. Customers have to evolve too and understand that like yes, it's new ownership, but it's also it's 2025. Like some things should change for efficiency. some things should change so that we can present you with a product faster or or more improved. You know, it's not just because we think it's the right thing to do. It's because it's going to make it more profitable and a better end product for you, too.

What was the final conversation, the final domino that had to fall into place to be like, "All right, we're doing this."

Her landing a job in Indianapolis.

Yeah. Okay. I I started just talking to companies that would consider remote work for merchants or I was in licensing, product licensing for Michael Kors. So, I ran like their global watch business, their global jewelry business. I launched their children's um clothing and footwear. So,

that's so cool.

Yeah, it was cool. But, um I I I was trying to find opportunities that could either allow me to work remotely or work here in Indiana to support, you know, Zach's move into business ownership with Ceramica. And you know, we were of the mindset like never should the two paths cross with our careers, you know, like why why would I work with my husband? We're we're husband and wife. Like we're not we don't need to be business partners, too. And so I just even though he asked me, he was like, "Do you want to come work with me at Ceramica?" And I was like, "No,

no, I don't want to do that."

If I can interject, her her parents actually ran a business together and uh she saw how hard that would be sometimes. But it was an oncology hematology practice. You know how people say we're not we're not exactly curing cancer over here.

They were very much helping people when they were very sick.

Yeah. So stakes

it was hard. Stakes were high.

Stakes were high emotionally like that's and like you talk about bringing work home like

Oh, it never left. It never left the home. So I just I felt very worried about even considering that. Um and so when I got a job with an indie retailer, it made a lot of sense for me to me to just stay in my lane and him to him to start something new. I I'd be the stable one with a corporate career and he'd be the one taking a risk and making the investment for our family. And um the company I was working for was had a subsidiary.

It was owned by private equity. It had a subsidiary that was dealing with like college bookstores and they ended up merging it with the parent retailer. And when that happened, I got laid off as the VP of buying for this smaller business, the subsidiary. And so it's the first time in my career that I was unemployed here in Indiana a year into our move. And Zach offered me the opportunity to come work at Ceramica again. And I said no again.

And at that point I was like, I'm just going to figure this out for myself. And so I thought I was going to open my own store here in Indiana, but I I felt like I really needed to understand the market to do it. And so I was like, I'm just going to go work in a retail store for a minute. I'm going to go manage a retail store and see if it's something I want to be doing because I hadn't worked in retail like in a store since high school. So went and did that. And while I was managing there, this woman named Monica who was a customer for the store I worked at stopped me.

She's an entrepreneur and she's like, "You're good at this. You're you're good at sales. You're good with people. You're good with numbers. You you clearly have a point of view. Why are you here?

Go contribute to your family. go. If your husband's offering you the chance to work with him, alongside him, like with equal equity, why why wouldn't you go and put that effort to build something? It just took somebody else saying it to me for me to hear all the things Zach had been saying.

Uh I don't know. I'm not married. Um but there is like this piece of relationships where like in similar with like kids where it's like if your parent tells you to do something, you're like, "Hell no." Like you find on your own, you're like, "Oh, I have this Great idea. No, it really like Monica's an entrepreneur. She works with her husband. They they own a catering business that does all of the state fairgrounds. They own all of like the Speedway catering,

you know. I don't think that's the name of it. Jugs.

I feel like they do a lot of that stuff, but I don't know. There's probably a bunch of them.

Well, anyway, so she it might be that. Um, she she recommended it and that that's what that's what we're doing.

Do you have advice? Like there are a lot of spouses and it works sometimes and other time like it's high stakes. Like if it doesn't work,

yeah,

that's hard. Do you have advice for couples that might be going into business with each other?

I mean, my advice is just to be on each other's team. Like, and I feel that way in relationship and I feel that way in business. Like, if you are on each other's team and you go into every conversation with that mentality or every hardship with that mentality, you're going to try to figure out a way to support each other and find a way to push each other up rather than pull each other down. Um, and so yeah,

and for me, I I just trust Shaya's abilities and and capabilities. Even when we have different ideas about something, it's often not that hard for me to fold mine and trusting that maybe mine's not a bad idea, but hers probably isn't either. So, there there not been really anything that we've come at at odds with. And again, it might have a lot to do with us running a a pretty simple business. It's engraving names, engraving numbers, engraving signs in in stone. There's not too many different too many things to Yeah. figure out there.

You moved back to Indianapolis. You both started working together and then you decided to acquire another company.

Like talk about being risk averse and it's like, nah, we just put all the chips in the basket.

It's a company called Fundraising Brick LLC that was located in Herman, Missouri, which is a really cool like German looks like a Disney town. like a a town that would be in a Disney movie,

Disney TV movie. Yeah. Like really cool. Ceramica's brick business was getting its lunch eaten by these laser engraving brick companies, which is what fundraising brick is. We purely do sand blast engraving. And sand blasting is a more expensive process. It's more labor intensive. The materials are are more expensive. And one of the big detractors from sand blast engraving that the laser engravers leverage is that sand blast engraving includes paint. We do a sand blasting produces a deeper more true craftsmanlike engraving, but the brick's not colored. You have to go in there with monument grade black lithocchrome paint and paint will fade eventually. We cannot guarantee that these bricks will last forever. Anybody that tells you that paint won't fade is a liar.

Yeah. Whereas these laser engraved bricks, the laser melts the the brick and turns it into kind of like a black volcanic glass. So while the engraving is not as as deep and craftsmanlike, there's nothing to fade. You've changed the actual material composition of the brick. So laser engraving is something that I wanted to do even before this opportunity fell into my lap, which it did. There is a brick manufacturer, a huge brick manufacturer in Ohio called Beldin that we get a lot of our brick from and I had recently cleaned them out of this particular stock of brick.

I got a call from a random phone number which I rarely pick up because they're always spam. But I picked this one up and it was Jenny, the owner of Fundraising Brick, who had been referred to me by Beldin because she was in desperate need of this brick that I had cleaned them out of. She had she was asking if she could buy stock from me. Uh, so I played nice with her. I, you know, helped her out. We're not really competitors.

She's so much bigger than me. And fundraising brick is just an opportunity for me to make a few hundred dollars. But at the end of the call, I joked that instead of money, I would like to change her I would like to trade her for her URL, which is www. fundraisingbbrick. com, just as a joke. She laughed and said that she's going to sell the business sometime and she'd uh call me back in a couple of years.

and I had just bought ceramic of it and I I I laughed too and we hung up. But I got a call like two and a half years later asking if I wanted to buy the business.

What's so wild is like just

you wrote that in a little file cab like got to make sure I call Zach. Yeah. So we we got the call from Jenny and um we we we started the negotiations would go back and forth from Herman and it it worked out really well. Jenny's Jenny's the best.

Oh, she's awesome.

I hope she watches this podcast. Jenny, we we love Jenny. As Hoosiers, we also like Missouri. Like they have a similar similar vibe, you know?

They eat tenderloins down there.

I I was saying though, like it's pretty ironic, too, that the call came when it did because I had just entered the business uh in April of 24. One of the first things we did was we went to a trade show. I got us involved in a trade show. I was like, "We got to get out and meet our customers. We got to meet new customers. We got to diversify our portfolio."

Memorials. It was a funeral trade show down in Tampa.

Yeah. and so lively bunch

and Zach and I I don't know if you know anything about trade shows, but they're incredibly expensive. So to participate in one to especially when what you sell is stone, it's heavy. So to create that and ship it to Tampa and then create your booth and set up your booth and get the marketing materials in line, all of that is money. And so Zach was like, "This I don't know if this is the right thing." I'm like, "No, it's the right thing. We're doing it." So he and I instead of hiring somebody to ship all that, we drove. We filled up my car and we drove to Tampa. And on our way there, what are we doing? We're listening to business podcasts. And one of them was one about acquisitions

is acquiring minds is a great podcast.

Yeah. And and we we listen to one about like a plumber who was kind of buying up similar plumbing businesses. And Zach's like, you know, that's like kind of interesting. And then two weeks later, Jenny calls about us buying her business. And it was like

it's like fate, right? Well, can you take us through people that aren't ingrained and don't listen to Acquiring Minds or listen to any of those like the idea of okay this business is a $10 million business like I don't have $10 million I can't just fork up like and they just like oh that can't be for me. Would can you take us through the process like generally of acquiring a business and how that works and and just like some of the mechanics behind it? we had family investment. So that's that's how how we were able we took a loan out from my from my dad actually. So yeah, we had an easier path and with than somebody that would be going out and acquiring an SBA, but it's all pretty simple math when you plug in you see the you see the numbers of what the business is producing. Um it wasn't a gift from my dad. It's a it's a loan. Um you you see

and his loan rate matched what the banks was. arguably worse because like

you know if you default on a loan from the SBA you don't have to see the president at Christmas and Thanksgiving you know

and I think some people will hear that and they'll be like oh must be nice or whatever but it's like it's way higher stakes

as far as relationships. Absolutely.

Yeah. Like you can't just like you can't default on like a loan to your that would be horrible. So we certainly skipped some steps when it comes to like finding the finance, interviewing banks, etc. But We we also have like other family members who stepped in and acted as like our financial adviserss to review the books for us and talk about whether the investment was sound and made sense like whether the growth trajectory of the business because right you you get like a fiveyear history or a 10-year history and that all has to get evaluated. You have to do your due diligence as well. And so we we sat in on those meetings.

We talked about where the opportunity was not only for fundraising brick but also for ceramica. Um, and we also talked about what where the investment needed to be. Was it in the full company and the machinery she had or was it in the the book of business, the the domain, the the marketing practices, and that's really where we saw the value. So,

what did you guys end up Yeah. What did you guys end up acquiring? The whole thing or

Yeah, we acquired everything except her equipment. We we took it all except for the equipment. We let her sell that off to the to the compet competitors. Honestly, I wish we would have uh xed that out of the contract. But yeah,

but ultimately what we did was we invested in new laser technology. Uh she has what are called YAG lasers. They basically engraved one paper at a time. We've invested in CO2 lasers that can engrave up to 20 papavers at a time. And so Zach and I are already, you know, evolving the process. He's really been the mastermind of going into the production facility, figuring out what we need to do to prep the brick to get it to get the best result. It's not just turn on the machine and run it and and you get what you get. You have to understand how heat and speed and uh distance and what the composition of clay is and what you need to add to it to get a final result.

It got pretty terrifying at the the first couple of months of acquiring the business because

it was not smooth sailing.

Her her lasers were from the early 90s. These machines were 20 plus years old. She's stockpiling old parts just like you're trying to keep a car alive. She thought she might have five years ahead of her like from the parts she had done. They initially we didn't want the machine because she had three of them that did one brick at a time. So you're just playing whack-a-ole going back and forth, but they did a really good job. We moved towards the CO2 lasers and none of the process or the methods translated at all. just now kind of clawed us out of a two-month backlog where we were not we had not yet figured out how to actually produce laser engraved bricks on these machines. We were turning out bad product. We were

you can't hide it from the customer because Jenny's already sent them a sample on her Yag laser so they know what a quality brick looks like and then they get ours and they're like

we were terrified that we made this huge investment and got rid of the machines and and couldn't produce a product and

we're out of it now. But it was it was dark.

Within acquisitions, there's like a a transition period where like the previous owner comes in and will teach you all the things. When you buy something brand new, you're like, "Well, what do you know? I don't know anything about that. What do you like? Why did you do this?"

And Jenny tried. She She did. She came to Indianapolis. She was with us for 3 days out in the facility with Zach like lasering papers. But frankly, she doesn't know CO2 lasers. She she knew Yag lasers that they're completely different machines. Even the wavelength that they operate on uh reacts with brick and the coloring agent differently.

But what what a doll. She would like send us ideas of things to try and things to buy to apply to the paper or try this, try that. You know, she

Why do you think that is?

This is her baby. I She worked for this company called Laser Light Technology in in Missouri and she

saw an opportunity in this aspect of the business that they weren't really investing in. They were making like medical device devices and like small pieces for machinery.

Yeah. Using lasers for precision manufacturing. And this brick was just brick brick thing was just a a side thing that

Yeah. Somebody asked they would do it but it wasn't like something they were seeking out. And so she went to the bank. She got the SBA loan. She she started it from nothing and she built it to be something really meaningful. the one of the if you search, you know, fundraising brick, that's what's going to come up. It's it's because she she's done that, you know. It's not

Oh, someone's bidding on the keyword.

No.

Polar engraving.

Oh, yeah. Polar engravers.

Yeah.

But our company is the keyword.

Yeah. You literally at the top like it's there you are fundraising brick.

Gotcha.

I think that that is an interesting piece when you haven't gone through an acquisition. A lot of people were like, "Oh, she like get your bag, get your money, get it." But it's like she also built this from nothing and she doesn't want to see it just like fall off the face of the earth.

Definitely not. And she she cared about her employees. She cares like she cares greatly about us, you know? She wants us to succeed and

we're friends.

We're friends.

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and they'll take good care of you. Check them out at rootsrealy. co or meet them in person at one of their upcoming investor master classes. More details on their website, rootsreality. co. Let's get back into it.

Wow. So, acquired this new business, relocated to Indianapolis. How long ago was that?

April 1st

of this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, wow. How So, you just got out of the two-month backlog

when we were doing our our media push with the the PR company, which is how how we got in touch. I was really excited for this podcast and I was disappointed that it was not going to happen until July. But now I am so grateful because I would be sitting here being like, "Oh yeah, you know, can't make any bricks, not fulfilling orders, everything."

Now you have bricks though.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's great.

What's wild, too, is when we when we sent out the acquisition email to her existing customer base and our existing customer base, we received about three months worth of orders in that first month of ownership. And we already had acquired with eightweek lead times from her. So, she already had probably two months of business ready to produce and then we got three months worth of business in that first month.

Everybody panicked and started submitting their orders.

They're like, "Oh, the business is changing. We better get our order in just in case." You know, but meanwhile, it had already moved us. So, like, what do you mean just in case? But it

was that was that hard to get them to believe in you and trust you and

Yeah. Especially when we're picking up the phone and saying, "Hey, I swear we're going to get you your papavers, but we need five more weeks or we need three more weeks." because we hadn't figured out how to produce. It was terrifying. We We just took our first family weekend. Zach just took his first holiday and first weekend since Yeah. No, since ownership. April 1st for the 4th of July. We went to Chicago for the weekend.

Uh since you took over Ceramica. No.

No. April. April 1. Since the acquisition. Ceramica's like running fantastically. Like we have production delays every once in a while because of order influx, but for the most

part it's moving and grooving. It's fundraising that's been hard.

That's that's crazy. And you think about like, you know, physical products taking over this business and it's like you get this thing humming along and running and then having the space to think about innovation and, you know, continuing to stack on like what's coming down the pipeline. obviously getting everything with fundraising brick rolling but I mean are there future innovations and things you guys are thinking about

having laser technology is going to improve our memorial side of the business almost 40% of our business today also are memorials for ceramica

this is like uh headstones

headstones river rock memorials we predominantly produce in the pet space so we work with crematories and veterinarian clinics um humane societies to produce pet memorial stones

and a lot of that is because of how our business is set up. We have a 120 ft sand blasting room where you you bring a big carton of like 30 bricks or 15 memorials or 20 address stones and get them done all at once. Whereas when you see the larger kind of Taj Mahal people memorials and cemeteries, those are primarily done outside with a mobile

sand blasting unit. So, I tell people that the way we're set up, I'd rather hit 30 base hits than one grand slam. And those base hits correspond more so to a smaller pet memorial.

Yeah.

Come on, get on base.

Let's talk about the acquisition game, too. I mean, some of our biggest partners in the crematory business were mom and pop shop crematories that have sold their business to larger corporations that are now like conglomerates of a hundred locations of crematories across the country. So yeah, that we're ceramic is predominantly B2B and that's been hard with the acquisition as well because fundraising brick is all direct to consumer. We are not only working with volunteers predominantly who are trying to raise money money for their nonprofits or their Girl Scout troop or whatever their high school PTA uh you know it's

I just sent out a sample brick that was like support Nate Spangle's Eagle Scout project. Order a brick today and it's just like a kid trying to sell bricks. So

yeah. So, so you're dealing with customers directly who deeply care about their organizations or whatever it is they're raising money for. And so, it's a different level of touch than we have on Ceramica's side where we're working with like a masonry distributor who somebody calls like, "Can you get us engraved brick?" And they're like, "Yes, we can." And they reach out to us to do it. So, we don't even deal with the customer there.

Prime customer for fundraising brick is like, "Hey, we're putting in a new playground."

Exactly.

And we need to fundra to get it. So they'll work with you all and you know there's going to be a thousand bricks or whatever it is to and they you have to make a certain donation level and what you get is a brick at this

and fundraising brick will host your campaign on their website. So they're transactionable websites on our site that allow us to hold all the inscriptions for the customer. So we're dealing with

collect their donations.

We're dealing with the donors. We're dealing with the campaign managers. We are dealing with their their finances. will hold their money and apply it to their invoice for the engraving. So, we make it a one-stop shop for you where you don't have to you don't have to do anything.

It's like it's basically like a give butter if you guys know like the foundation. Give butter with bricks.

Yeah. No, you're right.

That's super smart.

And we're handing them all the marketing materials as well. You know, if Get In wanted to host a memorial brick campaign, we'd put all of your logos. We'd we'd change all of the website to be your colors and then all you have to do is send it to your your CRM. Yeah. Exactly.

When it's time to hit go on engraving, we take care of it all for you.

What's the most expensive singular brick?

I'm very proud of this. I just completed the biggest array in fundraising brick history, which is a bunch of bricks together like to make a puzzle. So, kind this was a giant cardinal head. If you think of the Arizona Cardinals, it's for a a high school down in in Texas. I think they're building like a new football stadium. You know, Friday night, clear heart, clear eyes, can't lose kind of deal. So I won't give an exact number there but it was

give us like a ballpark of what what one singular donation

it was a five figure number

for a brick.

Yeah. Well it was a multip it was a it was a combination of what was it? It was like n

190 pavers.

90 engraved pavers but it all I'll show you a picture. It all formed together to make this giant cardinal head. So

well I'm just thinking through like

but for like donors like the Indianapolis Zoo is a good example. They use our our limestone and our our pavers to honor big donations for the zoo and and some of those are double. You know,

we don't Are you asking what does the donor pay or what we charge?

No. Donor,

let's say they did another fundraiser at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to get a brick in the yard of bricks. Has to be like a $100,000 brick, a $10,000 brick. Like what is like you think from a donor perspective the coolest one you guys have seen?

Okay. A cool project that we did for Ceramica. There is a uh nature park in it was was it Sergeant Road Nature Park over on Mud Creek?

Yeah, Mud Creek over on the east side. Worked with an awesome guy named Ben Miller. I hope he watches this. They had bricks engraved for for donors that were probably like $100, $200, what have you. But then inlaid amongst all these bricks was a giant three-piece not only um Sergeant Road or Mud Creek Nature Park with the the logo and everything, but a big dedication to the Simon Foundation that that had donated a fair a fair share a fair share of money to them. So something like that.

These these these larger pieces, it's it's kind of funny cuz they're probably commemorating corporations or individuals that are so wealthy that they don't care as much about the brick as Zack. I always think about that in the not always that's not I shouldn't say always but I do think about that in terms of like you hit a certain level of a gofundme and it's like they'll send you the swag box or you'll send you the this that or like but a memorial brick that's like forever and espe if you're not like a Lily Foundation or Simon Foundation or something like that but you're like a family and there's something that's just so important to you like a little league baseball stadium where like your kids grew up on and it's say the donation level was like a thousand bucks Is a thousand bucks in your family's forever like a piece of this new edition fundraiser? That's really cool. And one day you could take your grandkids or your great grandkids back and see this brick of like we helped bring this thing to life.

Like that's way cooler than a t-shirt. No offense to anyone who gives out t-shirts.

Yeah.

I mean, and it's sometimes it's hard for like me to not want to get involved in some of the campaigns. Like we do the memorial circle, the veterans memorial, and I've already asked if we can do a brick for my grandpa, you know? Like there's something so special about taking what we do and participating in some of these um fundraisers ourselves when when the cause is meaningful. We bought a brick at Hamilton Humane for Charlie, our dog, who comes to work with us every day. Why wouldn't we? You know,

that's really cool. That piece of the business I think will click. It's like not that the other one won't like home bricks and or home stones and stuff like that's definitely a legacy business like you have to work with home builders B2B that kind of thing. But the idea of, oh, we're hosting a fundraiser for whatever the thing you're trying to build, the capital campaign. Yeah. Like we're going to

sell a 100,000 bricks or whatever it is to build this thing. Like that that's like, oh wow, that's really cool. Exactly.

And I like that's a business I didn't even know. Like I knew it had to exist somewhere, but I had no idea like what that looked like.

And I really get so excited for our our customers when I see them have a successful campaign. You know, when they're submitting an order that's 950 bricks, it's like, good job. like you guys crushed it, you know? We're crushing it, too. But like that's amazing. You guys really have a engaged donor base that that cares enough to to leave something lasting at your organization.

And we typically re recommend that people charge their donors at least $100 for a brick.

That's the average for 4x8. We we've seen people get in a tough spot before where they don't consider the installation costs and everything and they they try to p price it for participation and you know maybe break even on just the plaza itself

if you're going to be forever commemorated into something. You got to throw you got to throw Hyundai at that.

Yeah. Right.

Come on. you got and it's like people will do that like and but the other on the other side of it is sometimes I see people like they might think that it's so expensive like oh we could never have a brick at this thing because it's got to be we don't have thousands and thousands of dollars but it's like you know like $100 $500 thing and you could have a brick forever and it be a meaningful piece. I love that. The final thing I want to talk about, coming from New York, this is more of a lifestyle segment, but like coming from New York back to Indianapolis, was that an easy decision to make? Were you like so over the moon, excited about it? Obviously, COVID changes some stuff, but you spent over a decade in the city.

Yeah, I mean, for me, when Zach was like, "We're doing Indianapolis." I can't say that. I was like, "Yay." I was more like, "Oh, no." Oh. Uh, it was just it was scary for me because I felt like we had really built community um in Brooklyn.

We had really built community with our careers and the people we had worked worked with for eight years, 5 years, whatever it was. And then on top of that, there was just so much to do in New York and to take advantage of. I was worried we were going to come here and like just be around, no offense, I love them so much, but like our family all the time. Like just sit around. We are we are with them all the time, but we're always doing fun things. And I I actually think since moving to Indianapolis, we take more advantage of the things to do here in Indie than we ever did in New York.

We are at the hi-fi with our kids at the annex at all ages shows. We are at the Chatterbox like listening to live jazz. We are going to New Fields for ballet events. We are going to the um IRT downtown to see the Christmas Carol. Like, we're constantly doing things. We're at Colts games.

We're going to the baseball game tonight. You know, we're always out and about and we take so much more advantage of the city because it's accessible. The pricing here allows us to not only participate in the community, but to to go and do really fun, cool things all the time. And and we're so grateful for that.

Yeah. anyone who says there's nothing to do and I will say even outside of Indianapolis like across the state that's like a I mean that's been a big guiding light for us is like I still see feedback there's nothing to do in Indiana so I go and do it and it's like every week I'm like somewhere new doing something crazy and it's like okay I'll eat 10 tenderloins in a month so that you'll go up and get one of these like I know incredible tenderloins here or I'll run the entire Mon trail to convince you to go out and walk a 5k and it's like there are so many things to do it's not as easy. So like in uh Colorado, it's easy. You look up, you see a mountain, you're like, "Aha, that's what I do."

Yeah.

You know, you're in Florida, you're wherever, you're at the beach or you, you know, there's a beach there. You're like, "I see a beach, I see ocean. I that's what I need to do." It's like, yes, you can't just like maybe look around and see it, but there are all these guides and these there are all these opportunities to do really cool things. You just have to get off your tail and take advantage of it.

100%. I mean, we very well said. Yeah, we live right we live in Fountain Square, so we live off the cultural trail which connects to the Monanon. So for us, there's no excuse. Like we've got every pathway to doing something cool either downtown or in a connecting area of downtown and so we're we're always taking advantage of it.

I'm bummed that our kids are like this close to outgrowing their bike seats.

Yeah, cuz then we can really haul down.

That's what my You You're going to slow way down. Yeah, that's what one of my favorite things to do is to take them on a bike ride and go down the Monan and hit half liter for barbecue and drive back. It's Yeah,

that's like a good I mean, what is that? 8 miles, 9 miles probably. I'm exhausted for like 5 days after it. So,

yeah, that's a good little ri

Something like that. I don't think they'll be following us there on training wheels.

Yeah, probably not. No, but you that's that's awesome. I grew up on a culde-sac. Nothing against culde-sacs. Uh, but we didn't want to move from New York and land in a culde-sac. We moved to Fountain Square intentionally uh because we value walkability. We value having things within arms reach even if we're not using them. I like the idea that they're that they're there. After coming here, has your perspective shifted at all on that?

Oh, 100%. I think I used to like sit at tables like bars with Zach and his friends would like raz him in New York and be say like Indiana's a flyover state and I would just stay quiet because I didn't really know anything about Indiana. I'd only lived in West Lafayette. I'd been to Indianapolis like three times with like friends for concerts or to hit the Keystone Mall before a fraternity or sorority formal. Um but that was it. That was my experience of Indianapolis. Um now I

He was very defensive.

He was really defensive and I would just stay quiet. But now I would 100% come to his defense. Like if you haven't spent time in the state, you don't know. But it's awesome here.

Obviously a lot of the people that have like bad things to say more than likely haven't spent a significant amount of time there. But it's also just like the way that I haven't spent a significant amount of time in California and I'm like really quick to jump on that. No California. No New York City. Like truthfully, I've only ever like hit a layover in New York.

Listen, I will still say New York is a wonderful place and it will always have a special place in Zach in my heart. I'm sure one day we'll try to, you know, have a little condo there for retiring, like visiting more often, that kind of thing. But for now, like this is home and it's really, it's really a place we're proud to say is home.

Has your perspective on you came from New York to Fountain Square because you're like, "Okay, we don't want to do the culde-sac thing." Has your perspective on suburb life or anything like that changed or you still

We're still going to be city people. I don't know if we'll be in Fountain Square forever. I know Zach wants to be. Um, but we'll definitely be downtown people, I think, for Yeah,

I think that's really cool.

It's It's certainly what we value in life. I've got no ambitions to own a 10acre estate that I have to take care of. We've got our little downtown backyard, which is enough for me to mow, a house that's plenty big for us, and yeah, activities within armed reach. I went and walked down to the dugout and had dinner with my daughters last night because Shaya was out doing something. I can't do that where I grew up at 75th in Allisonville.

Oh, 75th. That's a good little spot though at 75th in Alisonville.

Yeah.

States like out in there. I've been like eyeing some of those. Like there's some spots like over off Dean Road up there that are pretty cool.

Oh, awesome.

Even get a little glimpse of the the the tennis court and you're like,

well, and like so I grew up in like a tiny town in northern Indiana. So, like the idea of like not like I could never do Fountain Square just because the houses are like so close a lot of the times to each other and I don't want to like look out my window and like make eye contact with like Gary the neighbor. Like I'm probably cool on that.

So, I'm in Broadripple and I'm like my house is positioned in a good spot where like I'm

I can't see my neighbors like super well out my windows, which is cool except for the one right across the street. But I keep seeing these spots up around like Dean Road area and like 75th and I'm like this is kind of cool. I

it was funny you were saying that about the neighbors because New York has conditioned us. I I've never not lived for I moved from a frat house to to New York City. So here in Fountain Square, even with us having a uh a carriage house with a renter in our backyard, which we do, people think, don't you think that isn't it weird to have somebody living in your backyard? Still the furthest we've ever lived from anyone. Did you hear yourself say I have a backyard? We didn't we didn't have that in Brooklyn.

That's true. Yeah.

Uh, this is kind of like capping off this little section here. Uh, this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. You can check them out at homejart.com. So, the question is, why do you call Indiana home?

Indianapolis isn't my hometown. I'm not from here. I'm from Neighborville. I went to Purdue. So, it's the place I first lived independently. It's the state I met my husband. and it's our place of homecoming where we're building a legacy for our family and our family's business and yeah, it's our future.

Indianapolis has always been home for for me. Um, but coming back to it, Shane was talking about the different places we considered moving before Ceramica demanded that we move here. And it was primarily Indianapolis, Chicago, or Neighborville. And for me, Indianapolis was more like a metropolitan neighborville than it is a small Chicago. If we moved to Chicago, I guarantee you it would just be a pit stop before we move to a suburb. Living where we do in Indianapolis and Fountain Square, think that we get the the best of both worlds there. It's it's easy to have a family where we are. We have space where we are. We don't need to move. Nothing against Carmel or Westfield or Noblesville. we don't need to to move out there because we're pushed out of Chicago for our lifestyle. And I think it's the the perfect place to incorporate all of the things that we value.

Yeah, this is great perspective because a lot of times we get people in that are like, oh, I was downtown and then I like grew up and then I moved up to the suburbs. And it's good to see like, hey, if you like the fast-paced and like more urban environment, like there's a place for you in Indianapolis.

Yeah. Found Square. It's all relative. It is the suburbs compared to where we're coming from.

So crazy. Okay, we have some rapid fire questions for you as we round out the show. First one, do you guys uh commute together?

No. No,

you guys don't.

A lot of that has to it because the kids, one of us is dropping them off at school.

Okay. Well, that we were going to have who picks the music on the morning commute, so never mind. Take that one out.

The kids pick the music.

There we go. Okay. What is the big Okay. The most amount of bricks that you guys have ever sent out to one customer. four pallets probably most recently.

I mean this potsboro job that I was talking about with the the caramel head it was that or sorry the cardinal head it was that huge array it was and then in addition to that there was at least 500 bricks along with it. So

yeah but we just got an order submission submitted for 950. So yeah

950 engraved bricks. Holy smokes. What's been the weirdest engraving request you've ever gotten?

I take pictures of a lot of them because they're like especially the epitaps on some some pet stones. It'll be like my little wiggle butt or like you know what I mean? They're just silly.

This is back when I was in in uh No, I'm stealing my brother's story, but an epitap for someone's gravestone. It was like not an older person was he never listened. So, we'll see some things like that that are pretty like, hey, more power to them, I suppose. Like, if they get there, they have that feeling for it. He never it has to be like a wife to a husband and he's like

I think they're inside jokes most of the time and like we don't get them but they seem really weird to us. So the stones epitap said our our tongue girl.

Our tongue girl

and it was a pets a pet stone.

That's what you were digging up our tongue girl. But people bring stuff to for us.

Weird. Are you kidding me? Why would that be what you want everyone to read in your garden? Like our our tongue girl. more packed.

We've engraved We've engraved ladles for chili cookoffs. People bring in like we engrave giant boulders for people's yards. We can engrave a lot of cool things. Anything that stone

ladles for chili cookoffs.

Yeah,

you got to honor the champion.

You got to honor the tongue girl. What the world? Uh, okay. As we uh as we wrap up, we have three questions that we ask every guest that comes on the show. First one being, what is something the world needs to know about Indiana?

Cultural diversity scene here is like great. There's something for everybody. If music is your thing, there's the hi-fi, there's the chatterbox. If you're into, you know, dance, you can go to the ballet at Newfields. Or if you're into uh art, New Fields is a great destination for that. But also, first Fridays are awesome in Fountain Square. You know, there's there's something for everyone, whatever your idea of like a cultural experience is. And it's not hard to do it.

It's easy.

Yeah.

It's easy. It's easy to find and easy to do and accessible in price most of the time. I mean, once you get into like the NFL concert space, you know, that can get a little

When Taylor Swift comes to town, I would say that's like that's an outlier. Did you get a media pass to that one?

I had to stand outside and interview people.

Okay.

I did not get in and you could not hear from the outside. I don't They made sure of it. I think

I think on day one they might have had like something, but I they locked that up. whatever it was, they locked it up and I could not hear anything and it was but it was cool to see all the Swifties out there.

Yeah, for sure.

Zack, do you have anything the world needs to know about Indiana?

Indiana football's had some success. The Pacers obviously had an exciting season. Uh but what I think that the world is sleeping on is that Daniel Jones, mark my words, is going to surprise some people this season.

Robert is a Giants fan. He's going to love that you said that.

I'm I'm planting my flag right here on on Danny Dimes, baby. I love that. I've fallen out of love with Richardson, but I think I think John I think Dimes is going to surprise some people.

Classic Colts fan. You just got to reconvince yourself every year. Come on. All right. This is where you get the chance to shed some light on a part of our state that more people need to know about. We'll start with Zach. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

So, our business is located at 34th in Shadellin. I worked there as long ago as like 16, 20 years ago. And when I was there, there there weren't a lot of places that I was aware of to go out and eat. In that time, there's been a big Hispanic community developing on that side of town, which includes all these Takaras, taco trucks. They're all over the east side, and I've been trying to hit as many of them as I can. My current favorite one, it parks over at 38th in Shadellin, and it's called Los Pablanos. Not only are the the tacos awesome, but they do breakfast. They're they're always out there in the morning um serving breakfast burritos. That's the only truck I'm aware of that's out there that early serving breakfast burritos like that. So, hit them up for the tacos. Hit them up for breakfast. It's called Los Pablanos. It's awesome.

Los Pablanos at 38th in Shadlin Food Truck.

Yeah, that is a true hidden gem right there. That one's That one's going to do some numbers. I can tell. Shaina, what is a hidden gem in Indiana? I had the pleasure of hosting two of my nephews who were teenagers a summer ago for a week and so I was doing a bunch of different stuff with them just to keep them entertained. But the best day trip we did is 40 minutes south southeast of Indianapolis. So quick day trip. It's uh called White Stone Park. It's awesome. It's this old limestone quarry now owned by a family. They filled it with natural spring water. Uh 30 foot deep. They've got cliff jumping. They've got rope swings. They've got zip lines.

This is in Shelby County, right? Like past Shelbyville.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it it's it it surprised me. One, because it's beautiful. Like I I didn't know what to expect. Um I'd only really been to um Bloomington as far as like southern Indiana goes up until then. And it's just this like I wouldn't think that where stone comes from, the surrounding area is so gorgeous, but it's all forested and like green. The water is not murky like a lot of ponds or lakes might be. So, it's just it was such a nice place to do a day trip, do a picnic. They allow camping on the property. I'm not into that, but if you are, go for it. And

what's it called?

Rock Park.

White Rock Park. White Rock Park.

Oh, yeah. Like, it looks like a legacy picture of it, too.

It's amazing. No, that this is basically what it looked like last summer when I was there. It's amazing.

Natural natural stone.

4,000 followers on Facebook.

It's awesome. I mean, I think it's like truly no one has ever mentioned it to me. When I tell people I went there, they're like, "Where?" I I don't know if a lot of people are coming in from Ohio to take advantage of this place, but it it was amazing. We had the best time. I I It's fully safe. They've got lifeguards. Everyone's wearing a life vest that swims there. They've got like a little area that we didn't take advantage of because my kids weren't there, but they've got like a little beach area that kids can wait out into. All these platforms you can swim out to. I mean, it was it was beautiful and it was great. We just hit Jersey Mike's had a picnic and swam all day. It was great.

The way you're describing it, it's like making me think of Barton Springs in in Austin or something like that. That picture.

Yeah, it's great.

That is a good hidden gem. Finally, this is the the last question of the day. This is where we find new guests or people that we just need to know about. Who is a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things.

Leight and John.

LJI. don't know how many people know that there is a wealth management office right next to the the dugout and that is Leighton and his business partners' primary business. I don't know which came first. I don't know if their office was there and that's why they bought the dugout or if they moved their office there after they bought the dugout, but I think it's just the the coolest thing for somebody to do to have uh everybody dreams of having a more maybe interesting career than wealth management. It's a great job, lucrative, whatever. But how many people are in a field like that and dream of one day owning a bar, opening a bar, taking their money and doing something, you know, more they may be more passionate or interested in.

Everybody has that dream. But not only did he go out and do it, he didn't keep it just as like, all right, I've got this little hobby bar now. They expanded it to the new side and they opened up the outdoors and then they have a concert venue. I just

crazy. Not only is he an awesome dude, but just to to have pursued that and successfully pulled it off, I think is just the the coolest thing.

One of my best friends uh is Zach Melo, and he works for LJI, so that's how I know. And we always go down to the dugout. They have another office up here in Broadripple. Okay.

But they do like a mast's event at the dugout. They do a lot of stuff down there. U So that's funny that Leighton was That's a good one. He's crushing.

He He's not really related to me. He's my cousin's uncle. So

now that's Indiana. Yeah. Yeah.

My uh whoer to know is someone that I met through my kids school, Gwen Chastain. She lives in the old north side. And it's funny, I heard about Gwen before we started sending our kids to St. Richard's. She uh was being called the mayor of the old north side. Just everybody knew Gwen because she would always be the one to reach out and kind of like form relationships in the neighborhood, form community. Um but she opened a toy store just before Christmas called Goodies and Giggles. It's on Massav. Um, first of all, to have the balls to open retail, I think is amazing.

From the eggs retail.

Exactly. I think and then to play in a space like toys where you're competing with Amazon, you're competing with Walmart, you're competing with Target, but to also create a space that creates wonderment and curiosity and bring new products that people haven't heard of from brands around the world. She's doing something awesome. And it's a space my kids just like they love it. They just want to be there, you know? They they earn $5. They want to go to spend it at Goodies and Giggles.

Goodies and Giggles. Yeah, Massav.

They have some cool stuff there.

It's in a cool like flat iron building that used to be a bank uh right at the start of the complex um of uh Bottle Works. So, great location for tourism.

Got the safe in there.

Yeah, the safe is in there. They they have it guarded by a a giant giraffe.

Heck yeah.

So, yeah, Gwen Chastain, she's doing great things for the city.

Those are spectacular. This has been such a fun episode learning more about one your guys' time. uh in the big city and coming back to another big city of Indianapolis from New York to Indiana. That's I mean I think it's so cool especially as I see Hoosiers go out and get different perspectives and end up coming back to Indiana and you know bringing some of that influence here and finding your your home and building your business here. I think that's so cool. Uh it's been a pleasure to have you guys on the show. People if they want to connect with you guys or they want to learn more about all the fun stuff you're doing, how can they find you?

Definitely through our websites. We got two. We got ceramic.com and we've got um fundraising fundraising.com. Uh I got rid of all my socials, but Shane is uh Shane,

you can follow us on Instagram for both for both businesses. Connect with us on LinkedIn. Uh yeah, and we we'd love to get to know you.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, appreciate you guys stopping by and we'll talk soon.

Thanks so much, Nate.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all of my gear recommendations at sweepwater.com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok @ Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Who's Your State great. We'll see you next time here on Get