Sam Rogers on Growing a Custom Sauna Company From Four People to Forty

Carl Holden:0:01
Welcome to What's Made in the USA, the podcast that celebrates the people, companies, and ideas behind American manufacturing. I'm your host, Carl Holden, and on each episode we meet entrepreneurs, engineers, and skilled professionals who are building real products right here in the United States. Today I'm pleased to have Sam Rogers of Symmetry Sauna, headquartered in Idaho, Court d'Alane. I had to look that up to make sure I didn't say it. Now the French say it a little bit different.

Sam Rogers:0:27
Yeah.

Carl Holden:0:30
But it's close enough. It's closer than some of the ones we've changed. So anyways, welcome Nolan to the podcast. Not Nolan. Uh-huh. S welcome Sam to the podcast.

Sam Rogers:0:38
Yeah, thank Sam. That's all right.

Yeah, thanks Carl. I'm I'm excited to be here with you guys this morning.

Carl Holden:0:47
Yeah, we no Nolan was the person I just interviewed. We've had several people on the podcast recently, so we're just really excited to have you today here, Sam. I'll go ahead and jump right in. Sam. we'd like to know a little bit about symmetry and obviously with the name, sauna, we we get what you make, but we'd love to know what kind of saunas you make and maybe other products as well.

Sam Rogers:1:02
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:1:15
Yeah, good question. We we are one of the only companies that we manufacture. We always tell people, if you can dream it, we can design it and build it. The question is, can you afford it? Yeah. And so you know, there there are a lot of companies, especially overseas Asian manufacturing, who, you know, we call them a thing in a box. So lots of saunas coming. You might see them at Costco or other places that

Carl Holden:1:29
Ha ha ha.

Carl Holden:1:38
Sure.

Sam Rogers:1:44
You know, they're a little infrared kit that mom and dad can throw together in an hour, and you've got your sauna standing in the corner of your room. so that's an infrared, but what we manufacture, we manufacture custom infrared saunas. So any size, any shape that you want, we can do that. We also manufacture mostly traditional sauna. So traditional sauna is what you would find in Finland. The the heat the heater with the stones in it, you can

Carl Holden:2:10
Sure.

Sam Rogers:2:13
Loily or pour some water over the rocks. And that's really the authentic sauna experience. And then now there's this new idea of a hybrid sauna. So it's got the infrared heating panels in the walls and the traditional stone heater. So we also manufacture some of those if that's if that's what a client really, really wants and they want to pay for it. We do that too. So we kind of cover the full, the full scheme of anything custom sauna.

Carl Holden:2:25
Mm.

Carl Holden:2:41
But you also do, I'm looking at your site, plunge tubs, because that's kind of the trend. I I listen to certain podcasters and stuff like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, who I heard you did Theo Vaughn's sauna, is that correct? Very cool.

Sam Rogers:2:54
Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. We provided the O Vaughn with a sauna. Yeah. Yep.

Carl Holden:2:59
So you do plunge tubs too, which is kind of a you get real warm, you get real cold, that that kind of combo, right?

Sam Rogers:3:07
Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's, you know, like sauna and cold plunge have almost become synonymous. It's most people who have one also want the other. So you can do your contrast. They call it contrast therapy, right? Get your body heated way up and then you shock it in the other direction and cool it down. And it's it's an amazing experience.

Carl Holden:3:21
Mm.

Carl Holden:3:30
I can't even take a cold shower, so I have not done the plunge yet. I have heard that it's it's good for you, but I have chickened out thus far. I had one opportunity and I don't even drink with ice in my water, so

Sam Rogers:3:41
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:3:48
Yeah, well, man, we gotta we've gotta get you up here to Idaho. We own and operate it's called Symmetry Sauna Studio. So we've got like a sixty five hundred square feet of like a spa, but it's all high-end sauna and coal plunge related. So lots of members, lots of tourism and visitors come and see us. And, you know, people will people who are considering contracting with us for a custom sauna.

Carl Holden:3:52
Yeah

Carl Holden:4:00
Sure, sure.

Sam Rogers:4:14
You know, i if it's a forty, fifty, sixty thousand dollar project, I go, it might be worth it for you to fly up here for a day, see what we do, check our manufacturing facility, and then we'll go down and sauna and coal plunge together. And so it's been a a really good resource for a multitude of reasons. But yeah, we could get you up here and I'll I'll make you go in that coal plunge. It'll be great. Yeah. Yeah.

Carl Holden:4:22
Yeah.

Carl Holden:4:37
Yeah, I've got to do it eventually, right? And I I I hear there's a lot of health benefits and I in my head I'm still twenty, but I just turned 38, and so I need to start taking care of myself a little bit more. so what what is your role at Symmetry and what led you to your journey at this company?

Sam Rogers:4:46
Nice.

Yeah that's

Sam Rogers:4:58
Yeah, great. It's a good question. I my role, I'm an owner and founder. I have three other partners in all things symmetry. but what led me here was, you know, honestly, I started hearing about the health benefits of sauna about 10 years ago now. And so I found a gym. I was living in San Diego at the time. I found a gym with a sauna and I started using it after my workouts. And started f really noticing how mu how great I felt and how it helped with recovery. And also just it really felt like a mental de stressor. You know, I was running a business down there and it was stressful as all businesses are. And I was like, man, this puts me in a really interesting state of mind where it's kind of like nothing bothers me anymore. Like I'm good. And so I really enjoyed that. And so in twenty nineteen I coerced and twisted my wife's arm and the kids. I was like, we're moving. I gotta get out of, I gotta get out of big city, SoCal. I need a change. And I I was raised in Montana. So, you know, I was I was used to the Northwest and the mountains and outdoors and all of that. So we ended up coming to Cordelaine, Idaho

Carl Holden:6:08
Mm.

Sam Rogers:6:18
And right about that time I met one of our founding partners. His name is Joe Cruz, and then one one of my best friends, Steve Seymour, one of the other founding partners, he came up to visit from San Diego. And right at the same time the COVID lockdown happened, and he just said, Well, I'm not going back until it all stops. He's like, I'm not going back into that nonsense. Because Idaho was very free during that time. We could

Carl Holden:6:25
Okay.

Carl Holden:6:42
Hmm.

Carl Holden:6:46
yeah, I remember.

Sam Rogers:6:47
We just were like, we'll just do whatever we want. And COVID wasn't a huge effect up here, not like it was everywhere else. So Steve said, you know, by the time that happened, I was like, Are you going back? He was like, nah, I live here now. And so it was at that time that Sam, Joe, and Steve got together and we launched actually we first launched, built out our sauna studio.

And but we we already had the plan on on the heels of that. We will develop a website and a an a sauna manufacturing company where we'll design and build custom saunas. And you know, Carl, we kind of thought it was just gonna be in the northwest United States that we would do projects. but as soon as we launched just our initial splash page for custom sauna.

Carl Holden:7:32
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:7:38
I mean, immediately that day leads came in from Arizona, San Diego, Texas, Florida, you know, and one of those guys was a businessman. And we we had called that company Northwest Custom Sauna from day one. And a businessman called from Arizona, I I can't remember his name, but I remember speaking to him, and he was like, Well, if you're gonna offer services wider than the Northwest, he was like, You should rebrand.

Carl Holden:7:52
Mm.

Sam Rogers:8:05
into a national name. You know, that and this was just right off the bat. And I was like, you know what's funny is we've already been talking about that on day two. And I think that's what we're gonna do. So we quickly we made a quick pivot, Symmetry sauna. And and my son, who was 10 years old at the time, we brainstormed some name ideas at the kitchen table. And he had mentioned symmetry. And it was a few months later that the team, we hired a branding guy and everything and he was like

Carl Holden:8:07
Right, yeah.

Sam Rogers:8:35
I think it's Symmetry Sauna. So my son was like, I picked that name. And he showed me his list, right? And he's like, Dad, you owe me 250 bucks for the name. And I was like, You're a shrewd negotiator, son. I love it. Here's your money. And so yeah. So we just kept moving with Symmetry, which is you know, it it's we knew we would grow and scale. We honestly didn't know it would be this fast and at this furious of a pace. It's been a wild, wild ride.

Carl Holden:8:48
That's awesome.

Sam Rogers:9:04
Catching a tiger by the tail. Yeah, yeah, it's been exciting.

Carl Holden:9:05
That's awesome. That's awesome. Are you in Asana right now? You look like you're in Asana. Okay. Okay, I wasn't sure. I was like, he's really devoted. He like has his office in Asana.

Sam Rogers:9:10
I'm I'm actually not. This is just a a background wall I've got. Yeah. But yeah.

Well, yeah, that is funny because a year ago, you know, we had about eight salespeople in a smaller office. And you know how salespeople are, they talk and they're so loud that we would often have to take sales calls inside a sauna just for the noise because we were looking for better office spacing. So I made a lot of sales calls inside saunas. Obviously they weren't turned on and hot at the time, but just for sound barrier.

Carl Holden:9:28
Right.

Carl Holden:9:37
That's hilarious.

Carl Holden:9:47
So funny. When I was living with some friends, they had a sauna back when I was younger. And I loved going in the sauna. The sauna is warm. I I didn't mind that. it was the getting cold part I didn't like. so you sp you mentioned salespeople. how many people in in this podcast what we recognize is important and not only the things that you make, but the people that you employ and how you engage them, how many people work for symmetry and what do you do to keep that team like engaged and employed and

Sam Rogers:9:55
Yeah. Right, right.

Sam Rogers:10:01
huh.

Carl Holden:10:16
activated in in this vision you have.

Sam Rogers:10:19
Yeah, yeah. We right now we're at about forty people in in all the kind of arms of symmetry. So, you know, we went from four years ago, four of us sitting in a seven foot by seven foot office with this idea. And then now we're now we're at about forty and you know, I think I think we actually hired two new people this week. So we're we're scaling and expanding, but now we're we're at that place where

Carl Holden:10:37
Right.

That's awesome.

Sam Rogers:10:50
you know, I call it slow to hire, quick to fire. Like we've gotta be very my gosh, sorry about that. We've gotta be very s slow with who we're hiring and make sure they're the right people. And I always say hire for the soul, train for the role. So it's very you know, we we have a we have a really great positive culture and it's a fun, fun work environment. It's an extremely hardworking work environment.

Carl Holden:10:54
Sure.

Totally fine.

Carl Holden:11:09
Mm.

Sam Rogers:11:20
But it's fun. And so you know, our employees, we've had unbelievable employee retainment, just because people we, you know, people are like, man, this is the best job, best company I've ever worked for. So we're really proud of that, and we're trying to maintain that culture where this is a great job, a a positive work environment. And so how do we how do we do that? You know, we've obviously scaled to where we have heads of department now, you know, we have someone who's in charge of procurement.

Carl Holden:11:47
Mm-hmm.

Sam Rogers:11:50
We've got a COO in place, a chief marketing officer in place, a head of production over at the fabrication facility. And that's, you know, it all everything rises and falls on leadership. So we've got to really spend a lot of time with those people so that they can convey the right work environment and messages down the chain to the people who are working in their departments. But you know what's cool is what is so cool is being located in a small area. I mean, everything's in Quarterline, Idaho. So, you know, every week, every week I'm over at the warehouses, high-fiving the guys and talking to everyone. And as is Joe, our CEO. You know, so we have a lot of face to face with everyone within our company, which is it makes the biggest difference.

Carl Holden:12:21
Sure.

Carl Holden:12:36
Right. Yeah, that is awesome. Well, I I appreciate you mentioning the ordering the Amazon China like that seems to be something that people always do. I'd be afraid that it'd give me like skin cancer. and then just like baking me like a microwave or something. But obviously with the podcast we're really like want to help

Sam Rogers:12:51
Right, right. Yeah.

Carl Holden:12:59
push that effort of seeing things made in the US. I looked at Google and saw yourself and others out there that there are a lot of companies that do the custom build and they seem to cater to different audiences. What would you say is the type of like client you look to do and what does a typical kind of transaction and and what do you build for those people and and kind of also like what it looks like to bring them through that customer journey.

Sam Rogers:13:27
Yeah. So, you know, when we s my partner Steve was in I call it in his previous life, he was a very high-end product photographer. So, you know, one day he walked me through Best Buy, and you know, there's 15 packages on different things from Sony and Toshiba and different companies, and he was like, I did that fo I did that photography, that photography, that photography.

Shot for Adidas and Nixon watches and all sorts of very high-end companies. So when he came in doing branding and marketing, and you know, his idea was we're gonna do all the branding and marketing. It's gonna be beautiful, it's gonna be perfect, and that's going to attract the type of client who can afford something made in the USA. Because, you know, I mean, let's let's be honest. When you manufacture in the USA, we pay a much higher wage.

Carl Holden:13:55
wow.

Carl Holden:14:18
Sure.

Sam Rogers:14:23
Than they do in China, right? So but we also can guarantee that we're providing a far higher quality product, better quality lumber. And like you mentioned, you know, do you get cancer from this thing? And so, you know, we can we can control all of the fabrication and manufacturing so that we know the product we're putting out is not just superior to a China box, like it it's a completely different world of quality.

So so we set out to, you know, crazy business idea I heard from someone was sell really expensive things to really rich people. That's that's a better business model. That's a better business model than trying to sell the cheapest thing in the world for a tiny margin at a super high volume. And, you know, it just it kind of resonated with us and made sense. Like, let's build really high quality things that are really beautiful, and hopefully we attract a clientele who's

Carl Holden:15:03
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:15:21
Willing to pay for better quality. And, you know, at the end of the day, that's exactly what's happened. So, you know, I'll I'll do our shameless name dropping. Just, you know, a few clients we've had in the last six months just closed a huge deal with Bellagio MGM in Las Vegas yesterday. So we're doing some really cool saunas for their spa. the Utah Jazz, owner of the Utah Jazz and his head coach, we just installed beautiful saunas there.

Carl Holden:15:33
Sure, yeah, please.

Carl Holden:15:40
Well.

Sam Rogers:15:51
We did a really cool custom sauna for Lara Trump and Eric Trump and their house in New York. We're doing the doing the Trump Winery Hotels very soon. Let's see, a lot of professional sports athletes. We did the Tennessee Titans. I think we've got Seattle Seahawks coming up. The LA Dodgers, we did a beautiful sauna for the LA Dodgers just a few months before they won the World Series. And so now the whole world knows if you want to win the championship, you just do a symmetry.

Carl Holden:15:56
Wow.

Carl Holden:16:16
wow.

Carl Holden:16:20
Exactly, right?

Sam Rogers:16:21
And it's yeah. We all we always we joke around with them. We did a c we did a cool Instagram video, but we're like, yeah, we can't say a hundred percent that that's the reason they won the World Series, but there you go. It's a strong correlation anyway. But so you know that's that's a lot of we we get a lot of our clientele and then we're doing a lot of commercial spa and sauna studio builds around the US now because this is a thing, like a lot of businesses are opening.

Carl Holden:16:31
You you literally warmed them up for the game. You did. You did. Yes. Strong correlation.

Carl Holden:16:48
Okay.

Sam Rogers:16:50
That are offering sauna. You know, even even yoga studios and gyms, and we have some other large commercial contracts that are right on the cusp of of popping. But but also I don't want to exclude the normal man and woman who are normal Americans, you know, like not everyone is those names I named. So, you know, what we try to do is is offer American quality in kind of a good, better, best.

Carl Holden:16:53
yeah.

Sam Rogers:17:19
You know, and our best stuff might have crazy LED lighting features and a big Himalayan salt wall and you know, the most expensive lumber you can get. But we also cater to, you know, mom and dad who, you know, are if there is still a middle class in the US, let's say a mi you know, a middle class who still want something very quality built into their home. So we have that's the majority of our customer base are people who it's a big decision.

Carl Holden:17:41
Mm-hmm.

Sam Rogers:17:48
To order a you know $30,000 to $50,000 custom sauna. It's a big decision, and we respect that. so we

Carl Holden:17:56
Well, and you you have to get some of the volume just to keep everybody employed. while you can get these big projects, all projects end and you're not selling a a service, you're selling a product. And so it is smart to not fully kind of kick out like the bread bread and butter of you make high end saunas and there are people who are that middle class that don't want to order the thing online.

Sam Rogers:18:01
Yes, a hundred percent.

Sam Rogers:18:17
Hundred percent.

Carl Holden:18:23
Someone like myself who runs a business, et cetera, who wants, you know, a high-end, high quality, with, you know, some some people might put it on a payment plan, get a loan, those kinds of things, but it's worth it to them because Asana, if you're really intentional about it, is like a daily to multiple time weekly use kind of thing. You want it to last.

Sam Rogers:18:48
Yes. Yes.

Carl Holden:18:48
because what you also don't think about is even if those Chinese things don't give you cancer, there's wear and tear on poor materials of putting those things in where you'll eventually the thing just won't even work. And I'm betting that you have kind of the guarantee of this is gonna probably, you know, be the property of whoever you sell this property to, because you're building it at that quality.

Sam Rogers:19:13
That's that's exactly it, you know, that's exactly it. And what we're seeing is a massive trend now within the US that, you know, we're I don't say partnered, there's no legal partnership, but a lot of the US top architecture firms, you know, they're drawing up new houses that are one million to twenty million dollar homes and they're almost drawing sauna designs into every plan now. I mean, it's it's really wild.

Carl Holden:19:39
That's great for you, right?

Sam Rogers:19:40
Well it's it's great for us and so they they've gotta have someone who can help design it, fabricate it, build it, ship it, and install it. And that's one other thing that's very unique about us is we offer national install. So we have we have teams who travel at all times. We're somewhere in the US installing and building a sauna. there's a lot of other sauna custom sauna companies, but they don't they don't offer to do the installation. So

Carl Holden:19:47
Sure.

Carl Holden:20:05
Yeah.

Mm.

Sam Rogers:20:09
The homeowner's GC is left to figure out how to become a sauna builder overnight. And, you know, there's a lot of horror stories on how that ends up. because as you know, some GCs are amazing, some are not so amazing. So, you know, this is why contractors have the reputation that we have is, you know, we don't call, we don't show up on time, and we're not that skilled. We just act like we are. But so we're we're trying to change that stereotype, at least from the symmetry end.

Carl Holden:20:36
Well and there's a specialty to what you do s around temperature and humidity and the controlling of that. Making sure you don't build something that burns down with the person inside and you end up just making, you know, someone into a turkey. you have to have that specialty, that if you like you said, I I've looked at some of your competitors, I won't mention online, but I think you've very much cornered that like higher end. customized to you look that some of this other stuff, even the custom builders that I see, it looks like this is just a unit you buy that they drop off the truck that they've pre-built or like mass manufactured. And I think a lot of people want to know like this is my sauna. That this was built for me and it like has the features I wanted in it.

Sam Rogers:21:16
Right.

Sam Rogers:21:30
Yeah, that that's correct. And you know, there's there are, and I'm gonna say there's a handful of other high-end custom sauna companies who are building beautiful quality things. But what we found out is most of them are actually manufacturing out of Europe with with large sauna manufacturing companies over there. And the European manufacturing companies, they do build a beautiful sauna. They've been at it longer than we have.

Carl Holden:21:47
Mm.

Sam Rogers:21:58
But the problems that we've heard about that come from that are, you know, no company's perfect. And then even sometimes on the homeowner or the business end, they send you final dimensions for the rough space. And let's say their framing is two inches off. You have this entire thing manufactured in Europe, shipped over the sea. It takes six, eight months to get here.

And then someone goes to install it and something was off. Now benches are too short. Now wallboards aren't quite as long as they need to be. I mean, how long do you think it takes to alleviate that problem when you have to go back to Europe now and refabricate and start over? You know, there we've heard of projects that are delayed a year, a year and a half because of the time back and forth over the sea. Whereas, you know, and in in our short time, we've made a few errors also because we're not a perfect company.

Carl Holden:22:25
Mm.

Carl Holden:22:35
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:22:51
But one thing we'd stand behind is if we make a mistake, we're going to fix it and we're going to fix it quickly. So what we can do is refabricate a bench overnight, overnight ship that to the end product. Our installers are still on site, and we barely slow down the project by two to three days instead of six to eight months. And that I think that's a huge differentiating factor of actually having a manufacturing facility in the US versus offshoring all the manufacturing.

Carl Holden:23:20
Yeah, made in the USA. Exactly what we're talking about. And for your specific product, it really does make sense like offshoring it to other countries. Even if, you know, we're throwing China under the bus and and Europe and other stuff has, you know, the opportunity to do business here too. But for the types of things that you're building, it really does make sense to have the people installing it are the ones that are making it and it, you know, is on the same continent. And and so that's awesome that you guys

Sam Rogers:23:22
There you go. Right.

Carl Holden:23:50
have that ability. and I was looking online too. I was really surprised how much co custom sauna gets searched on the internet like thirty, six hundred times for just the word custom sauna, custom sauna builders near me like five hundred times a month. There's there's a lot of online demand for that. And that being said, do you plan on I saw that you added the plunge what what

Sam Rogers:23:59
my, yeah, right.

Sam Rogers:24:04
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:24:11
Absolutely.

Carl Holden:24:20
Are there other products that symmetry or is have you kind of found your lane? Is this like ch let's just make make these better, or is there some other product that you guys think you might get into and and and and manufacture?

Sam Rogers:24:35
I honestly think with Symmetry, it's we're gonna remain specialists in very high-end sauna. And then, you know, we we manufacture, we do some, we also do some custom cold plunges. So for certain locations, they really need a commercial cold plunge. And some of these places they're like, I I need a cold plunge that 10 people can be in at once. So so that's not any single use product that you're gonna see.

Carl Holden:24:57
Mm.

Sam Rogers:25:04
you know, on our website or anyone else, you've got to find someone who can do that. So we actually have a manufacturing facility here in Quarterline, Idaho, too, with one of the best metal fabricators that we've ever met. The guy was, you know, he worked in Hollywood forever, fabricating for all sorts of movies and doing things. And same thing, he escaped LA and came up here. And so we have the ability to design and fabricate large custom coal plunge vessels.

Carl Holden:25:17
Hm.

Sam Rogers:25:32
And then one of one of our top guys is a commercial plumber who works for us. So he can do all of the water stuff, the filtration systems, the chilling systems, and you know, all that stuff can be piped into an adjacent equipment room somewhere in that building. And so we have the ability to do that too, which there really aren't too many companies who can do custom on the cold plunge side. But there's, you know, there's, I don't know, 1500 cold plunge companies that

Carl Holden:25:33
Mm.

Carl Holden:25:42
Mm.

Sam Rogers:26:01
have kind of a a single use, I call it like a bathtub with a chiller in it type of product. So besides that, I think we're we're gonna stick with what we do and what we know and just remain specialists in this zone. I see you know, they're forecasting that this health, wellness, and longevity I guess economic lane is gonna be an eight trillion dollar market by 2030.

Carl Holden:26:01
Sure.

Carl Holden:26:06
Right.

Sam Rogers:26:29
You know, and so I'm like, well, we only need one percent. Just one percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Carl Holden:26:34
Exactly, right? One percent is several billion dollars, so Yeah, that that's awesome. now, of course, the last couple years we've had stuff with like tariffs and increased costs and those kinds of things. You're possibly a little insulated from that in that people are willing to pay for what it costs to make it. But like what adjustments have you had to make over the last couple of years as we're kind of looking at whatever this new normal is in manufacturing?

Sam Rogers:27:06
Yeah, that's you know, in in the beginning we did partner with a a company out of Europe who they were fabricating some of our what we call prefab saunas, but they're they're very high-end, not cheap. But once the tariffs really hit hard, it it became it priced it right out of the market. It was like, I don't no one's gonna buy a prefab sauna for those kind of prices when we have to tack on the tariffs.

Carl Holden:27:26
Mm.

Sam Rogers:27:33
So what we did was we just brought that manufacturing in-house over here also. we were like, we'll build them right here in Idaho.

And be able to sell them for what we used to sell them for. And so that was you know, that was one of those things that overnight are just like, if we're gonna offer something like this, we've got to take it under our own control and do it ourselves. Yeah, because the tariff thing, but that's it changes a lot. If you're importing lumber from out of the country, you know, all of a sudden that lumber costs a lot more money to get here. So, you know, we but we're partnered with A couple of really high-end lumber manufacturing companies in the US. And so, you know, it's either shipping from down in Texas or on the East Coast or but it's all it's all in the USA. So we so the tariff part of that doesn't hit us. So yeah, we had to get nimble and we had to get creative on okay, where are we sourcing everything? The only thing you really can't source made in the USA is sauna heaters. Like

Carl Holden:28:40
Mm.

Sam Rogers:28:40
All of the sauna manufacturing companies or sauna heater manufacturing companies are out of Europe. Now, you know, they bring them over here by the container loads, and there are companies who then resell within the United States. But the heaters themselves are manufactured in Europe. But but the quality, the quality of the heaters, you know, it's unbelievable. And some of those companies have been around for 50 to

Carl Holden:29:02
Gotcha. Yeah.

Sam Rogers:29:09
200 years making, you know, sauna heaters. So they they are specialists and experts in what they do with the heaters. And so we just try to try to sell the very, very best ones that we've tested.

Carl Holden:29:23
Well, and I we try not to pitch on this show that every and all things must be made in the USA. I mean, we do live in a global economy and if there's a portion of your product that just is incredibly done somewhere else, the smart decision is if you can't do it better, let them do it. it's the people doing it worse is the ones we want to avoid, 'cause it that hurts your product for sure.

Sam Rogers:29:42
Yeah. Yeah. Right. A hundred percent. Yeah. And that was just, you know, never a goal to become a a heater manufacturing company. Cause it it is like, why why reinvent the wheel? I mean, these guys have it down. It's so nailed down. And it would take us years and years and years of R and D to try to figure out how to do it. And then I do think it would cost a crazy amount of money to manufacture the heaters here.

Carl Holden:30:13
It all comes down to volume, as you know, like you'd have to be making a lot more saunas. You probably would be doing the lower end saunas in order to justify making them yourself. And so it all it all becomes a logistic issue.

But given looking at your beautiful site and how how quickly you've grown your business, it seems like you're making all the right and smart decisions within y'all's ability to like allow this brand to to grow and to be seen and and congratulations on those huge names of people because the word of mouth that comes from that and obviously

Sam Rogers:30:27
There you go.

Sam Rogers:30:49
Yeah.

Carl Holden:30:52
I'm sure your saunas probably stick a logo somewhere in there on them so that people see, look, there's a this is our sauna. that that's something you do as far as branding. Like how do you like bring people into the symmetry family as far as that goes?

Sam Rogers:30:59
Yeah, yeah. And and that was that's funny. Yeah.

Sam Rogers:31:10
Yeah, so we try it, we we try to brand somewhere in that sauna, you know, whether it's on the the front wood plate of a bench or outside on the door, somewhere that it's people can recognize, okay, where'd this sauna come from? but what's funny is, you know, probably the first four hundred saunas that we built, there was no brand on no name. And I was pulling my hair out. I was like, You guys, we're missing a golden opportunity. You're like, we've got to brand these things. People have to know where they came from.

Carl Holden:31:35
geez, yeah.

Sam Rogers:31:38
And so, you know, we we we got that. And you know, when you when you're growing so fast that

Carl Holden:31:43
Were you sneaking people into the property and sticking stickers on like or running off?

Sam Rogers:31:46
Yeah. Put a sticker on it or something. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but when you gr when you grow and scale so quickly, like there's a few things that you miss and then then you start to review processes and all this and you realize, my gosh, we're so dumb, we missed that. But it's okay. you know, you you you f you repair these things, you fix it and just try to get better every day. Yeah.

Carl Holden:31:53
Yeah.

Carl Holden:32:10
Well that's awesome. I've loved thus far learning about symmetry. We're really excited for you to to grow into that trillion dollar market and continue to make things in the USA. And and that's something we're obviously very passionate about sharing. wanna pivot a little bit just to ask a couple personal questions about about you and related to the United States. what is a favorite place in the US that you like to visit?

Sam Rogers:32:20
You go.

Sam Rogers:32:31
Sure.

Sam Rogers:32:40
Yeah, there's there's two places, my favorite places I've ever been. And one is the mountains of Montana. because I'm a I am a bow hunter. I grew up hunting with my father. And so time time in the mountains of the place I grew up, it just it's funny. Even I I love the state of Idaho, but when I go over the pass into Montana.

Carl Holden:32:51
Okay.

Carl Holden:32:55
Mm.

Carl Holden:33:06
Mm-hmm.

Sam Rogers:33:08
There's a feeling that hits me and it's like, you're home now. And so I the mountains of Montana are a special place because I've spent so much time there in my life. my other favorite place, honestly, is San Diego, California, simply because, you know, I was down there for about 20 years, and I moved down there chasing a dream of playing professional beach volleyball. Weirdest thing in the world from a ball.

Carl Holden:33:12
Mm.

Carl Holden:33:37
Okay, cool.

Sam Rogers:33:38
a bull hunter from Montana. But I I ended up, you know, I call myself like like Will Farrell in the basketball movie Semi Pro. I was a semi pro beach volleyball player. And I did that for many years. But then once I moved to San Diego is where I really became an entrepreneur. But then I also took up surfing. And and surfing is one of those things that it's the hardest sport in the world to learn. But if you just stick with it,

Carl Holden:33:40
Yeah.

Carl Holden:33:48
Okay.

Sam Rogers:34:05
And that's another one that really gets in your soul. And it's like, there's no feeling, there's no feeling like that. And so my wife's mom and dad, they retired actually from Michigan, but retired to San Diego. So it's really convenient for us. We live in my favorite place up here in the Northwest, but we get to fly down to San Diego. We have a house to stay in. Mother-in-law makes beautiful meals and the ocean's right there. So I still have surfboards and wetsuits at her house there. And

Carl Holden:34:08
Yeah.

Carl Holden:34:33
That's funny.

Sam Rogers:34:34
So we go down there a couple of times and and now we just do those trips in the Idaho winter. Cause San Diego, it's seventy degrees and sunny in the middle of winter and it's just perfection. So yeah, those those are my two favorite destinations in the USA for sure.

Carl Holden:34:40
Right.

Yeah.

Carl Holden:34:51
That's awesome. Yeah, my dad did bow hunting when I was a kid. He doesn't really do it much anymore. he never took me I've never killed anything above the size of like a bug. Not that I couldn't. I like meat. It tastes good, but I've never I've never hunted before. and then San Diego is beautiful. I've been there for a couple conferences.

Sam Rogers:34:55
Okay.

Sam Rogers:35:01
Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Rogers:35:09
Right. Yeah.

Carl Holden:35:11
I I brought my wife one time, which is dangerous and she's like, We should live here and I'm like, what have I done? so the San Diego's beautiful and a awesome zoo.

Sam Rogers:35:15
Right. It's like it is a yes. Yeah. I always say for you know yeah, for the for the big cities I've ever been to, San Diego's my favorite one. It's got a very it's got a very chill vibe, you know, the the just the way people are there is a lot more laid back than I mean, drive up the road an hour and a half to LA and it's a completely different monster. And I can't I can't stand that.

Carl Holden:35:28
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carl Holden:35:39
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:35:44
So yeah, that's cool. Yeah. San Diego gets under your skin because it's perfect weather. There's no bugs. It's just amazing.

Carl Holden:35:53
Well, and you may you may have already answered this, but what's a childhood or younger memory of the USA that you hold dear? You mentioned obviously hunting with your dad, but are there other memories specific to the United States that that you hold dear?

Sam Rogers:36:10
Yeah, you know, I mean, again, this is gonna be a little more outdoors related. But, you know, when I was a kid, the I think the largest contiguous wilderness area in the US is called the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. And so you can only go in there on foot or on horse. So, you know, when I was a kid, my dad would he he was a real cowboy. So we would

Carl Holden:36:25
Hm.

Sam Rogers:36:36
get a we would get a pack train of horses and go in there for a week, 10 days at a time. You know, we'd we would ride horses twenty miles in there and find a place on a a beautiful river and just camp and fish in the middle of nowhere. And those those memories really mean a lot to me. And and I see a lot of that in the USA. You know, it's interesting, even with the World Cup happening,

Carl Holden:36:53
Well.

Sam Rogers:37:03
I saw so many videos of Europeans who came over for the World Cup. And then we're talking about, you know, because all the mass media had ever convinced them of is the USA is dangerous. You're probably gonna get mugged and killed. It's a horrible place. People are terrible. And every one of those videos, the people from Europe were it was completely opposite interview. They were like,

Carl Holden:37:07
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:37:26
I don't ever want to leave the US. Life here is amazing. Everyone here has gone out of their way to be helpful and kind. People are buying our meals like this place. And then a lot of people, you know, were able to do some outdoor adventures, whether in Utah or wherever they were they're at. And they said they were just absolutely blown away at the scenic beauty of America and the fact that you can get away and you can be out in the middle of nowhere.

And in the middle of this huge nation with all this population, they were like, we found ourselves in the most beautiful place on planet earth alone. And that's something that they didn't get to experience in Europe very often. So, so those kind of I I think it makes America so unique that you know I could get on my mountain bike today and ride an hour and be in the middle of nowhere all alone in this beautiful place, but then right back in town, back in my desk at work in no time. So

Carl Holden:38:02
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:38:22
Those things are are really special to me.

Carl Holden:38:25
For sure. Well and and part of the patriotism and protecting all of this and and creating the jobs is so that we can enjoy the experience of of the land we have established here. So I appreciate you sharing that. That's a very interesting perspective and not honestly totally surprising from a guy who makes saunas. So

Sam Rogers:38:47
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

Carl Holden:38:50
Awesome. Last question for you. to the younger generation of future US professionals that are coming up, what would you like for them to know? What would you like to instill? If all of them could hear you at once, what would you say?

Sam Rogers:39:05
Yeah, if if all of them could hear me at once. it is interesting because a a lot of now, especially younger guys, will approach myself, business partners, for advice on business, advice on life, these kind of things. And you know, I always I always tell them, it's what my father told me, and it's such a cliche thing, but you know, he was like, son, you can do anything you want to do. He was like, There's only one person who'll ever stop you. That's yourself.

Carl Holden:39:34
Mm.

Sam Rogers:39:35
So find out what it is you're passionate about. And then you know, I'm a big believer in reverse engineering an idea. Cause I am, you know, if I had a title in this company, they call me the delusional visionary because I make I make statements that are so audacious that it's like everyone looks at me like that's it it's impossible what you're talking about.

And then a couple years later, I'll be like, hey, was that so impossible? We're here. We've done this crazy idea. And then so I'm always the guy who's throwing out these bigger and bigger and bigger ideas. But I've always been one who I I've kind of been a dreamer, like dream big. And then, okay, if that if that is possible, how can we reverse engineer the steps to actually execute miniature steps to get where we want to go? And so

Carl Holden:40:08
Right.

Carl Holden:40:21
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:40:31
You know, the there's so many people I know that have gone the traditional route, college, got their good job, and then wake up and they feel very, very trapped. So my advice, even if you're one of those people, you feel trapped, you're not trapped. It's only because you're trapping yourself. There, there are a multitude, unbelievable, unlimited ideas.

Carl Holden:40:43
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:40:57
Of how you could change and redirect your life, but it's up to you to do it. And, you know, and everyone is gonna be plagued with self-doubt. And then, you know, yeah, the I guess the the discouraging part of that that is you have to say you have to be extremely persistent and extremely resilient, and it's going to be very hard. Or right now, life is hard for you, you can stay where you're at. So, you know,

Carl Holden:41:25
Yeah.

Sam Rogers:41:26
I'm a big believer in you kind of write your own book.

Carl Holden:41:30
You sh you sure do. I think there's a book by Seth Godin that basically and he does like marketing and inspirational stuff that says, No one's going to pick you, you've got to pick yourself and people are sitting standing on a line waiting to get picked and there's nobody there to pick them.

Sam Rogers:41:41
They huge.

Carl Holden:41:47
You've got to just like walk out of the line and go do your own thing. And and that's what the United States really relies on is people like Sam Rogers saying, You know what? We're gonna go build saunas. No one's gonna tell me no one's told me that I'm gonna I should build saunas. I'm choosing myself. And and that's really

Sam Rogers:42:03
Right. Yeah.

Carl Holden:42:07
There's all these TikTok people about manifesting and all this stuff. You can dream about anything and it'll never appear. You have to go do do that thing. Even if it's scary, even if you fail the first time. And so that is really awesome that that you chose yourself and that you created not only this for yourself, but for forty other people and providing a job. that that's like what we really need in the US if

Sam Rogers:42:12
Sure.

Carl Holden:42:35
We're gonna make more things is people like yourself creating those opportunities to be at a place that they don't feel stuck, that they enjoy. And and so we really appreciate what you've done as an entrepreneur and and your team as well.

Sam Rogers:42:50
Yeah, thanks, Carl. That that it means a lot. And it is really cool to know that, you know, this company is is giving really good wages to other families. You know, and it's it's we've, you know, it within s podunk, Quarterline, Idaho, you know, this company has grown to the size of it's like, man, this is a a major economic factor, even for our little town right here, which is which is really cool. And to tie in with what you were saying about that book, it's You know, I had a friend tell me a long time ago, he was like, you know, God can move any mountain and he'll put you right at the base of that mountain with a shovel and he'll say, get to work, son. And I'm like, that that is that's exactly how things get done, is you have the idea and then you start at zero and you start moving dirt. And pretty soon, you know, you just chip away at these things and all of a sudden you've done something. So that's my encouragement to to any young person.

Carl Holden:43:38
Awesome.

Sam Rogers:43:45
Who has an idea is like there's no reason it can't become reality. You just gotta figure it out and do the work. Yeah.

Carl Holden:43:53
Thanks for joining us today, Sam.

Sam Rogers:43:55
Yeah, thank you, Carl. This has been awesome. I appreciate it.