139: Interview: Doug Rice, owner of Laveo Dry Flush Portable Toilet Company
✅ Laveo Dry Flush Toilet Pricing and Product Details Laveo Dry-Flush Toilet owner Doug Rice interview What we talked about in this episode: Background of Doug Rice in the printing industryDoug's acquisition of the Dry Flush Toilet companyThe creation and manufacture of the Dry Flush ToiletDry Flush Toilet diversity and use in a multitude of scenarios and environments ✅ Be READY: FREE Checklist for Campervan Essentials Packing & Outfitting 👉 Take a Vanlife TEST DRIVE! HOW TO RENT a CAMPERVAN Transcript for Episode #139 of The Campervan Podcast. Interview with Doug Rice of Laveo Dry-Flush Portable Toilets After a successful career as a groundbreaking entrepreneur in the printing industry, Doug Rice bought a portable toilet company called Laveo Dry Flush, where he continues to exercise his generous, creative approach to business growth. Please enjoy this candid discussion and glimpse into the methods and experience of a true industry leader and innovator. James Petersen (author, interviewer): So, Doug Rice! Can we start at the start? You were in the printing business? Doug Rice, owner of the Laveo Dry-Flush Toilet Company: Yes. In 1979, I graduated from college, went to go to work for my father's packaging company, and he did not have an opening for me and he said, why don't you go start your own company. Labels like for cupcakes, labels for soup, labels in the grocery stores, shipping labels... So I basically did that and he thought in one year I'd be broke and I'd come back to him and he'd have an opening. Well, the interesting thing about the label industry, there's about six label companies on every corner in every city. So I did not realize the competition was so fierce. Very early on, I decided to change the model. Back then in 1979, 1980, delivery was three weeks minimum. I decided to be five days or less all the time. And everyone thought it would fail. I couldn't maintain that level of service, but I realized I had no plan B, I just couldn't compete with all these people, and not manufacturing labels for the first five years made even more difficult. So, For 38 years, we ran five days or less, and grew the company exponentially with a plant in Connecticut, plant in North Carolina, shipping cross country. I traveled all over the country picking up accounts because the onset of club stores made the demand for hurry up and make me some brownies for say, Sam's Club. The suppliers had a tough time getting labels in time and we always came through including putting a person on an airplane to send 'em across the country with labels just to get them through on time. We did whatever it took, and it paid off large dividends. James: Wow, interesting. Briefly, can you give, give us an idea of, of how you overcame that? Sounds like a longstanding framework that had been place for a long time. There must have been a reason for that. And so how did you kind of beat that problem? Doug Rice: It's very good analogy, going to the doctor. You're never the only one in the waiting room. Because doctors like to stack up a waiting room because they don't wanna miss any billing minutes. So conversely, on our label printing operations, no one wants their printing presses to go idle. So they stack up jobs three,...
