What makes us different?
To that end, here’s another email from us at Day Six Gear! Ha!
In all seriousness, I wanted to reach out to our customers at the end of our 6th year in business and just say thank you. Without you, none of this would be possible and I hope we’ve not only met your expectations but helped to increase your success as a bowhunter. At the end of the day that’s our primary goal.
For those who have yet to engage our services, I wanted to attempt to shed light on who we are as a company, as hunters, and most of all as a family.
The marketing trend I see most influential in recent years is telling the story through a strong position of science, engineering, data, and “extensive testing”. I’ve learned that it takes “over two years of development and testing” to produce a product for the modern archery industry. No more, no less, that’s the timeline! I don’t know about you, but after the last four years the last thing I trust anymore is “the science”.
For us, we are hunters first and foremost and our products reflect what we’ve learned over the years. For those who still hang their hat on the science, data, and engineering, fear not as we all have engineering and structural backgrounds here which is a deadly combination when it comes to designing tools for bowhunters. However, the reality is this; no amount of theory, or lab studies will substitute for
putting arrows through animals in high volume. I read a comment the other day that stated, “no dealer or manufacturer has taken over 1000 big game animals like ………., so I trust this guy.” My response to that would be this….. well, ALMOST no dealer or manufacturer.
I killed my first archery deer in 1986 and I’ve never slowed down. In 1990 I missed the first week of my senior year to go bear hunting in Canada and in the fall of 1992, I killed my first archery elk in New Mexico on public land before the internet was around to tell me how to do it, or how not to! Bowhunting has been my life and still is today, but my priorities have shifted substantially as now I get more enjoyment out of other’s success than my own. Which again, is why Day Six was founded.
Over the last 38 years I’ve tried just about every fad that’s come along; the high FOC craze, both the heavy and light arrow fads, the single bevel scam, (none of this is new by the way) on and on, but one thing I’ve never tried is a mechanical head. For me, it just never seemed like a good choice as I never wanted to use anything that has even the slightest chance of failure. With that said, I do feel like there is
a place for mechanical heads for some hunters that have certain limitations whether it be time, knowledge or skill level with regards to tuning and accuracy, but that’s for another conversation.
For me it’s about sample size. By that I’m referring to the empirical evidence I’ve observed from over 1000 big game animals in almost four decades. It’s information you just can’t obtain in a lab as the variables are endless and it damn sure will take more than “over two years of extensive testing.”
While most of our products are simply what I want for my own use and we just make more for others, I must be honest and say that I might be a little stubborn at times and stuck in my ways. Enter Daykota Kime…..
Daykota was our first hire outside of my immediate family and is a design engineer, machinists, but most importantly a hunter. Almost twenty years my junior, Daykota has devoted his life to archery, both hunting and competition. What Daykota brings to the table is a fresh perspective on all things archery and a more open-minded approach to what will be the best solution for hunters navigating today’s archery industry. Make no mistake, Daykota is a killer when it comes bowhunting and anyone that has hunted with him knows that rarely does anything get out of his sights.
Daykota grew up much like me, being immersed in all types of hunting from a very early age. From small game to whitetails, from coon hunting to elk, hunting has been the single most important pursuit in his life. He hunts before and after work almost every day and we encourage him to do so as we are a hunting company, not a marketing company that sells hunting products.
Additionally, everyone here at Day Six hunts passionately as I feel that’s important. I’ve seen so many manufacturing companies whose employees have no idea as to the end use of their products. I don’t see that as a recipe for success in my opinion.
This is a family run business, both my wife Jackie and son Bridger help run the business. In all honesty, Jackie is the glue that keeps it all together and running smoothly. Her organization and attention to detail is what keeps our order fulfillment accuracy above 99% so when you get everything you order correctly, she is to thank. Jackie and I have been together for 36 years and just last year she killed her first animal, an incredible antelope buck. This year she was lucky enough to kill her first mule deer buck and her first bull elk, both of which were old warriors. She is becoming a great hunter and I am so thankful to get to share this with her after all these years.
Bridger is our youngest son and is on the spectrum. He has been such a blessing in our lives and especially mine as he’s helped me develop much needed patience and humility. Bridger does the many small tasks that add up quickly in our business. He operates our laser printer that marks all of our collars, pre-assembles and stages all of the packaging, and his new favorite thing is operating our new parts tumble as he says its like a game at the fair picking out all the parts as they cycle through. It’s the little things. And of course, he helps everyone else with their development of patience…..
Daykota’s wife, Linsay, is a special education teacher and a track and field coach here in Casper. During the summers she is here helping us fulfill orders as its our busiest time of the year. In our first few years she would fletch arrows at home after work to help keep us caught up, as did we all. In the beginning we all had full-time jobs, and we would build out orders in our respective homes on nights and
weekends until it became too much to handle.
We are committed to making sure we cover for each other as life delivers its various blows and are all willing to work extra so others can go hunting during the season. What’s the point of having a hunting company if you can’t hunt?
Every Wednesday night Jackie cooks a family dinner for everyone here and their children. We don’t discuss work at all, we just enjoy everyone’s company. If there are any of our friends around, they are always invited as we love sharing our kitchen with those we care about. We say grace at every meal as we are so very thankful for all we have and what we get to do each day. WE are truly blessed.
I am terrible at marketing and promotion and if I did a better job people would know more about us and what makes us different. It just seems like bragging to me, and I find it difficult to talk about so I hope this little insight into our lives helps portray who we are as a company and that our mission is always to help others, not just pad the bottom line.
Merry Christmas and we all hope the upcoming year brings many blessings to you all!
-BB
