Adaptive Innovation: How Douglas Katz Revolutionized Knives With Nulu

Today, I sit down with Douglas Katz — a West Point graduate, Army veteran, entrepreneur, and inventor of the Nulu Knife, a revolutionary adaptive tool designed to make cooking easier and more efficient for everyone. Mr. Katz shares how his time in the U.S. Army, followed by a long career in corporate America and lending, inspired him to return to hands-on innovation and create a knife that literally adapts to the user. 

We get into the origins of the Nulu Knife — how his shoulder injuries, arthritis, and love of cooking sparked a question: “Why can’t I use a knife comfortably anymore?” What began as a personal challenge evolved into a patented adaptive technology modeled after the traditional Alaskan Ulu, combining thousands of years of design with modern ergonomics. Mr. Katz explains how this invention solves the kinetic chain problem in traditional knives by aligning the user’s force naturally with the blade, making it perfect not only for people with disabilities but also for professional chefs, homesteaders, and anyone who values smart design. 

Throughout our conversation, Mr. Katz also shares deep lessons on entrepreneurship, humility, and innovation. Drawing from his military background, he breaks down how veterans can translate their leadership and problem-solving skills into business success. He offers practical advice on protecting intellectual property, leveraging AI and modern tools, finding the right mentors, and building collaborative partnerships without ego. His story embodies the mission of creating purpose-driven work that blends simplicity, service, and sustainability. 

We close by exploring how adaptive technology doesn’t just serve a niche market — it improves life for everyone. The Nulu Knife isn’t just a better knife; it’s a movement toward universal design and veteran innovation.

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Ka nus. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I always love to support entrepreneurs, creators, especially ones who are veterans, and see a need that needs to be met. And then they go and, make that product or service or whatever it is that meets that need.

And so today we are here with Douglas Katz to talk about his adaptive tech, the new Lu knife, the knife that adapts to you. And we're gonna get into it, but first we're gonna hear about his story as a veteran in West Point grad. So Mr. Katz, so great to have you here. And could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure. As you said, I attended the military academy went into the army after that, served five years in Fort Carson, Colorado as an artillery officer. And then got out in 98 and did sort of the typical thing at that time spent a lot of time in corporate America, moved into lending where I was for about 25 years.

And the knife thing is. I won't even call it side hustle, I'll call it hobby. That led to inspiration that led to viable business and a realization of what I should be doing. And it was, the very typical, not looking necessarily, I've started businesses, they worked at various levels, but not necessarily going out to.

How knives are looked at, but I had my own issues. I was I'm a disabled vet. I have some upper extremity and lower extremity issues, and right before I got my shoulder rebuilt I was especially bad. That was terrible. But I also have arthritis. The, the whole list of things you get when you pass that 50 year mark or the things that manifest that way.

So, and I like to cook, so I make knives. I like to cook. And I couldn't do either. So I was out in my, in my shop and started playing with some different ideas and how can I solve the problem? Like, why can't I use a knife right now when I'm dealing with either carpal tunnel or, or arthritis or any of those things?

And I was fortunate. I had a great mentor in this business. Or at least in knife making for him. It was a business. He's retired now. But really taught me well on how to kinda look at these things in a way to have some inspiration.

Yeah. And so what was it that was preventing you from using the knife? It was like the way your shoulder moved, or the way it's put a strain on your wrist. It's a great question and really it is a great lead into why it's different, right? So if you look, and this is a, a knife I use when I'm on podcasts and stuff 'cause it's very primitive, right?

And the first knives were one of the most primitive tools. And this one is kind of a tribal one actually made by the guy who taught me this was a gift that I got from my wife that he had made. But you, you would've needed to stab and cut, right? This has an edge and a tip and it's really only aligned with your body.

When you're stabbing, which makes sense when this was conceived, you may have to kill your meal and dress it. You may have to defend yourself. This is the ultimate multitasker. That's why it doesn't look a whole lot different today than when it did thousands of years ago, but. If you don't need that primary component.

And the cutting is the primary part. This is a very, very inefficient geometry. I'm aligned if I'm stabbing, but to cut as you were asking, I'm gonna stand up a minute. It, it makes your shoulder go up and Right. You have to grip the knife really tightly, which breaks something called your kinetic chain.

What we did with this, and this was the inspiration, is if this is linear, and I'm gonna have to ask your listeners to think of some geometry here. This is circular. So instead of the cutting area and the control area, the handle in the blade being offset forcing you to transfer force by gripping and changing your body.

Now, I will say one thing, you talk to a chef, they solve the problem by holding a knife like this. The handle becomes balance. That doesn't make sense to me. If you're using the handle to hold the blade to create more direct force transfer, that's when we figured out. If it's a circle and you can see I'm kind of, I, I would be standing over a counter, but you can see I can line up the blade.

Wherever would be comfortable for me. Right. And where our patent is, is an this is patterned after the ulu knife. And any knife geeks out there know what an ulu is. It's, it's an Alaskan Northwest. Inuit knife that was called the everything knife. Women typically had an ulu. Men would have more of a hunting knife, but the ulu did everything skinned, cut hair prepared meals.

You could do anything with it. So, but an ulu is only half of this. What we did was we took this and extended it to make 162 degrees of cutting surface. And, and a better control from both angles. This is our primary grip. This is what we call our axe grip, because now you're using different parts of the knife.

So to kind of go to your question on why this, why, why this solved the problem is people using the wrong tool. It's very applicable to people who have disabilities. They look at this right away and they're like, oh yeah. Also, the people who look at this and get it right away are hunters. Homesteaders people who do a lot of cutting.

We have a homesteading affiliate who does a lot of canning. He, he was like, this is gonna be great during canning season because I can work and not get tired. What it means is adaptive design is universal, design is better design. And when we realized that this was a great tool for certain things and a not great tool for others.

Then it changes. The challenge becomes, this has been a two and a half, two and a half to three year odyssey for us. Someone looks at this right away and says, well, why do I need a different knife unless they have a disability? Right. Right. It's that how do you, tailor to that market of people who Yep.

If it ain't broken, using your regular knife. Yep. Yeah, and so that was interesting. I guess a little pivot is you mentioned you like to cook and obviously now you're back in the kitchen with that knife. What kind of stuff do you like to prepare? It's very interesting. I'm not a baker. And for me it's more just I don't use recipes.

It's kind of what's in season, what I'm in the mood for. So I think it's just understanding flavor profiles. I like savory stuff. I've started eating a lot less meat as I've gotten older. It's just. That's how I've kept weight down and things like that. So I do cut a lot of vegetables. I do a lot of salads.

But I do kind of a wide variety of of different cutting, which is nice. Which is why, when I pick up a regular knife now it feels weird. With this I can kind of do everything and I kind of speeds up what I do as well. I used to be a big barbecue guy, kind of go into that world every once in a while when.

When it's good meat and the person making it, if it's me, that's great too. Is good at the barbecue. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious 'cause you mentioned you were, were cooking and, no. You know what I, I will tell you, I tell my sons this, right? I tell them, learn how to cook, learn to understand the flavor profiles because.

My daughters already gets it. But for them I'm saying, know how to fix things, know how to cook, be funny. And you'll probably be pretty successful in finding a wife. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's it's, it's a good skill to have and it's just good in general for yourself too, to play Well, you know what's interesting with your, probably more your generation, what has driven two of my kids to really get into cooking and it, it.

It's sort of around the horn is why I did is more control over your nut, nutri nutrition, your diet. Both of them are all three of my kids are athletes. One's a little younger so he's not there yet, but the other two are in the macros. They're into making sure that they get sort of the right nutrient profile and really the only way to do that without spending a ton of money is cooking.

So really my middle one was the one I would think would be least into it, and he's really gotten into it now. Because if you're cooking for yourself all the time, you get kind of bored. You stay by the old standbys, and then those different, sometimes ethnic flavor profiles you find you might like, Southwestern or Mexican or, or Asian, you can kind of do all that and sometimes bring some fusion to it as well.

Yeah, for sure. The, the health consciousness is a huge factor in it. I, I get that. And then the, the boredom for sure. I was. Meal prepping, and it was, everything was just pasta and grilled chicken at some point. I've been through, through that, and it's like, yep, yep, yep. And to, to the degree of what you said, you can still have that.

But if you have chicken adobo, teriyaki chicken jerk chicken, at least you're, you're changing it up a bit, and Right. Not copy and create. Well, and you know what, it, it, it almost becomes like a, when you're on Spotify or something and it's like, you may like this. I think that you try a couple of different things whether it's eating or anything, and it sort of opens your mind like, Hey, I, I'm gonna try something a little more spicy, or, I like Asian food.

Maybe I'll try Indian food. Or something like that. And I think that really helps get that, that appreciation to be able to bring all that stuff together. Whi, which is a huge part because again, you, you never know what's in season. Also, from a, from a financial perspective, if you can find the stuff that's less expensive and know how to cook it right, it's a good way to, to stretch whatever money you got.

Oh yeah, for, for sure. Without just thriving off of ramen noodles on repeat, right, right, right, right. I don't know if you've seen it online. There's, there's these different people who post like, my, my diet and my meal prep as a college student, and they, there's just videos of the different ways people will prepare stuff in the dorms and the different creative recipes you make.

When I was in the military, there were and there still are MRE recipes, right? You have the meals ready. They would've ranger pudding. They would have all these different things where you're like, wow, that's, that's pretty, pretty innovative. Yeah. You're not the first veteran on the show to, to mention the ranger pudding.

So that's, that's funny. Ranger pudding and I, and I, I entered the service in the late eighties at, at the academy. So it was like first generation res, like dehydrated. Beef patty and things like that. But you know, you can make a cheeseburger outta that with the crackers and the cheese and, it's, it's interesting and I, I actually credit kind of both my, my traditional educational background, but my time in the military especially.

Military people are so innovative, right? They will figure out how to make do with very, very little, especially, the Army or the Marines where you're out, you don't really, you, you got what you got. And I was always really taken with the simple solutions that they came up with for things.

And that's kind of driven a little bit where I've tried to drive innovation. 'cause complex is expensive, complex is, is is difficult to get to market. Simple's very nice, and I think it was best put, I have a, a classmate from the academy who's got ms. And I think his, his brand has never quit, never stop if anybody's ever interested in donating to his cost.

But he talked one day about the small impact or the, the large impact of small improvements and how simple things make life a lot easier. And I think that if more people figure that one out, they would be happier. You remind me of, again, I'm not encouraging this, but you, what you talked about remind me of these, these sailors we knew about one of them went to school with us in bootcamp.

Now, this was the COVID era they had made. Alcohol from taking all the hand sanitizers, some other stuff and made hand sanitizer would be, yeah, that would be rough. But it was, it was cool. They call it like toilet bowl punch or whatever. That was, there's a lot of different versions of that.

But yeah, you can ferment like I used to brew beer. And you can pretty much ferment anything but that, that's, that's interesting. Like you, I guess you could get away with it on a ship as big as some of these ships are. Yeah. Well, so this was during bootcamp. So this was big trouble. So what happened is they extracted all the alcohol out of hand sanitizer making, doing some chemistry in the, in the bathroom.

And we were mustered at the toe line. Well, not we, I wasn't there. This is, this student got to nuke school after me because they had been put on hold because they got caught. So them and a few other people who had made this alcohol, I guess it was super, super potent as you can imagine, from hand sanitizer.

Yeah, that would be rough. One, they were a mustered at the toe line and one or more of them were definitely visibly out of it. I think someone threw up. It, it, it was. Not a good time. They did it in a way that they got caught. Again, you shouldn't do it 'cause you're not gonna get caught. You shouldn't.

Oh no. Make alcohol on bootcamp at all. Now if you're at, if now if, if, if it's your free time and you're off duty, by all means, I guess drink hand sanitizer. I'm not saying Oh yeah. I wouldn't be saying hand, hand sanitize. Like, fermenting is like making beer and stuff. You can kind of stay outta trouble.

I had a buddy who used to, distill. And I did that with him a couple of times. And anytime you're moving into that higher alcohol, if you don't figure out if it's methanol or ethanol, it can, you could go blind. Like there's so many bad things that could happen. So, yeah, that's I think it's better to just go to Walmart and buy what you're gonna drink probably.

Yeah. Yeah. I also think that bootcamp isn't that long that. You're, and again, these are high schoolers, basically. Yeah, no doubt. 17, 18, 19. The fact that you need to drink so badly in, in, in bootcamp, which was only, a couple of weeks, well, it was a long couple of weeks, but you know, still it's it blows down.

I would wanna have a talk with that recruiter. Yeah, right. Like, like that, you somehow, I would've thought that would come up. But I think sometimes they, the, the numbers get more important than the quality of the candidates for, for sure. And just speaking of the military, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your service.

Your and how long were you in for? Again? I was in, for five years after the academy. They were giving people early outs, but for me, I, when I was at a post that I liked, right, it was unfair for me to judge anybody who might've been. And some were terrible, but I also really felt committed to that five years.

I felt like it was something I had signed on the dotted line to do. It was a debt that I felt I wanted to pay. And my friends who got out early did reserves. But for me it was the five years and I had kind of a unique experience in the artillery. I, I. Scored very highly at Officer Basic and to the yeah, at Officer Basic and the, the, the post that I was going to needed somebody at like Division Artillery counter fire, right.

And I, and all my buddies were going on the gun line. So I spent the first two years in at like a divisional artillery level doing, which I, which I realized was way, way more important. I was very immature. But counter fire is what has won many of the wars that we have, right. In the desert. And I didn't, I wasn't in Desert Storm or, or any of the things.

I was in between, scaring them into not using the artillery creates a mechanism for maneuver to work really well. I was kind of more focused on all my buddies having a great time at the gun line or the, the fire support. So the first, the first year or so, I was in charge of literally charting counter fire, right?

So enemy shoots. Where did it come from? How quickly can we shoot back at them to destroy their artillery and make them terrified to fight? The second half of that piece was when I worked with the radar batteries that go out and literally set up in the field and are set up to to, to catch the trajectory.

After that I moved on to fire support. I was a a a fire support officer with a maneuver company. Mine was an infantry company and I provided all the fire support, planning and execution at their level with the team of enlisted guys. And then the last time, the last. I would say about 13 or maybe a little more months, I was, I got to be an S two, which is intelligence, which I really loved.

Artillery is a unique branch in that they're the only ones, at least back then, I don't know if it's changed. They had their own intelligence officers because artillery was sort of such a niche part that, that knowing how to anticipate enemies. Artillery placement and things like that, it, there's just such a specialization.

They just kept it within the artillery community and I really enjoyed that. I found that that has really helped me in business. 'cause you're always thinking, the competition. Yeah. Is it gonna execute to your plan? So anticipating what they're gonna do, planning that way and pivoting for anything, right?

Like if your intelligence, I think we always focus on the enemy, but combat intelligence could be, you expected it was not gonna rain and it did. How does that change the battlefield? And I think that that is, that's a skill that I really, I enjoyed that role. I think that was one that I really, really did well in.

So I love that. And I, I was lucky we only when I went there. Colorado Springs is interesting, like it's a big triangle, right? There's Fort there's Air Force Academy at the top, there's norad, there's Falcon Air Force Base, I think it was, and then Fort Carson. And so when I first got there, we did not deploy.

It was basically train, go to the National Training Center, come home, get ready for another training cycle. About midway through the time I was there, we deployed, we were in Kuwait for a while, which was, which was interesting, right? Like we, it was a show of force. We never had to shoot or do anything. And then then I got back and, it was a little bit more, they were looking at utilizing every unit a little more.

So it was a little bit more deployable. But that last, the last six months, they're getting ready for you to ETS. I think I had 90 days of terminal leave, right? So the end of my military was really establishing my transition plan. So why did you get out? I mean, you seem to have had a great time in the, that's, you know what I, that, I love that question because I talked to a lot of younger grads.

My daughter's actually dating West Point Guard and now also I love that she's Coast Guard. So, I, I'm kind of in that community and people ask me that and I think it was a couple of things. It was a confluence of a great economy where recruiters could come to you and say. I can double your salary tomorrow and you'll never go to the field.

Now in that same, big Venn diagram, you've got officers who may be right above your, your age who are getting RIFed and they're looking at it or they're not getting promoted as quick. 'cause that was a drawdown period. That's the reason some of my classmates got out early. Mm. So you've got these guys who may be bitter, maybe went through a divorce 'cause they got deployed, all the different things where they look and they say, get out while you can.

It's a terrible life. Yeah. And they're, they're projecting their experience on, on the person that they're, I think sincerely trying to give good advice to. So. For me, I think it was, wow, I can double my salary and these guys are telling me stay, and it sucks. So why would I get paid half as much to have a terrible, a terrible life?

Right? Makes sense. Now the world changed a lot and I got out in 98. From 98 to 2000 you had the.com bust. Right? So I was in the telco industry at that point. Then you had the I was in lending, there was 2008. So I think what happened is the economy fundamentally changed and I was kind of riding that tsunami through these different cycles.

In looking at my, my contemporaries, I think Stan would've been pretty cool. Many of them, did their time like I did their first five years, and they go and they, they command and then go to grad school and then maybe teach at the academy. And I think they all had pretty interesting careers and it cost some of them, right?

There's always a cost and a benefit. But I found the civilian world no less stressful, no less work until doing what I'm doing now. Less, less purposeful work, less impactful work where I get up every day. Excited about what I'm gonna do or what's coming at me or whatever. And frankly, the way that the wage growth for the middle class has stagnated, like there are so many things that now even the playing field, because things like medical, right, if you're in the military, it's taken care of.

So whatever you're getting paid, you're not worried about the next year. Deductibles going up. Now again, I've heard things are potentially changing, but there's a certain taking care of your basic needs, and if you're not crazy in your spending, you can live a pretty good lifestyle. I think the civilian world's a lot different.

It's not what it was before, and I think what's affecting a lot of our, our, our retirees and young service people getting out is that lack of purpose and just being worried about this. The almighty dollar and not the culture, the camaraderie, all these things that you think you don't love when you're in the military and you get out and you're, you're like, God, I would love to be sitting up at two o'clock in the morning again in the field, everybody with a dip in talking about stuff.

'cause the degree that you get to know people and you get connected to people is. You can't replace it. And I think that that's I, I think that's a lot of what's leading to this, this plague of suicides and, and challenges for young, for young service people. For sure. I agree. And I think it's, it's hard, to not be a negativity sponge in the service when everyone around you hates their life or their job, or.

It's, it's such a chain reaction effect. I've definitely seen that for sure. And when I was in, it was like the constructive suck, right? Like it was, you asked how I cook and I, I love my Instant pot. I use my Instant Pot a lot, and it'll slowly let off a little bit of that pressure so that it doesn't become a bomb.

And I always looked at the kind of bitching. Generally that was in the military, was sort of that little valve. It's a, it's a little pressure relief valve. Mm-hmm. And, and as a leader, I think it was always understanding that and being self-deprecating and understanding that everything sucks so bad often.

Right. You're tired, you're cold, you're hungry, you're all these things that, that, that's just a good little check relief. And, and it's not that way. I find in generally in corporate America it is more backbiting. It is more. Unconstructive, it's not just like that pressure release. Right. It's, it's a, a, a much more I hate to say sinister, but it's much more like cynical.

Like, I don't know, I, I don't find it the same kind of thing. Yeah. I get what you're saying and then again, I wanna circle back to the new lu knife and kind of what you're, you're doing with it now. I know you mentioned you're going to different conventions and Yeah. Promoting it and. What would be some advice you have for entrepreneurs who are putting a new product out into the world or a new service and just some of the, I love that.

I guess obstacles and hiccups you've kind of had to deal with along the way. If, if I could, there's, there's a couple of things that, that I've learned that I think have been good is one, get as much help as you can. Think back if you're a military guy or a veteran. Think back to when you were in the military.

You never thought about walking over someone else's motor pool and saying, Hey, I noticed you're done. An hour earlier, every time we get back, what are you doing different? And they teach you how to do it and, and you, you make progress and everybody improves. So get help. Find the people out there who wanna see you succeed.

The people who have succeeded and pick up the phone. I got very lucky in the beginning. I reached out to so many different people about my design everything from one of the CEOs of, of. Big knife company. Actually two CEOs and one who is now part of my company. And guys like one of the forging fire judges who was immensely wow generous, right?

Like this guy just, and it's, it's amazing. So get as much help as you can. Doing that. If you've got a product ID or something that needs protection, some of your first help should be, people can help you with IP protection. It's not just patents understand ip, it's, everybody asks me that question. I always laugh 'cause I'm like, no, I've been designing a knife and bringing it to market for three years and I hadn't thought about a patent.

Thanks for bringing that up. Right? 'cause everyone will say, is it patented? And you're like, that would've been my first thought. Yeah. But, but, and, and it's, and I say this in chess, but what's interesting is. I would encourage any young entrepreneurs to look at the PTO, see what the patent system is like today.

It's not what you think. 84% of patents are invalidated when they go to something called the ptab. You can be taken to the PTAB by anybody and you have no choice in the matter. Basically, you go, it's, it's in front of a judge. The judge decides whether your patent was not, whether you should have it. It's whether it was obvious.

84% of those are overturned. So people think they have a patent, they really don't have the protection that they think. Mm. So, and I love that this military background, it's about creating layers of defense, right? If you just put concertina wire out there, someone's driving over that. If you're putting all sorts of defense, that also.

Hug the terrain, then you're in a better position. That said, I would say any veterans out there or anybody, there are accelerators for disadvantaged businesses, female businesses, and especially veteran businesses. Warrior Rising, I-I-V-M-F, the Institute for Veteran and Military Families. If you're a tech person founders Institute has a scholarship for veterans.

Those are the places you'll meet. Get a network created. There's also a great one called Dog Tag Bakery that's out of dc but they have satellites and then people go and run a business. So there are resources and people love veterans in that world. So find the people who really do wanna make you successful and, and get help from them.

That's how I, I would not be, remember I said I had a couple of businesses that part of that was I thought I could do everything. The other thing that's, and I don't know if I just put the cart before the horse or vice versa, but get rid of your ego and any belief that you are superior in any way to anybody who would work with you, help you or anything.

I've, I, I've done Aikido for a long time, and there's a concept in Aikido, and I think it's all martial arts called the beginner's mind. To grab hold of the beginner's mind and allow yourself to be humbled by the people that wanna help you. Is the only way you're gonna succeed because you have to bring people along to your vision Lala like the military.

And it's our mission. It's not my mission. My, my first partner, the guy, the industrial designer who helped me do this. One day asked me, he goes, can I start saying, co-inventor? I said, yeah, you are. Right. Like, it doesn't happen with that without everybody. Yeah. So that's, that's a big one. Allow your ego to die because when you do that, you can pivot faster, you can make decisions quicker.

You can. You can, if you're trying to validate your beliefs instead of understanding what stimulus is coming in and responding to that, you'll never be successful. And if your ego gets in the way, then you'll, you'll end up losing. The third thing would be understand the tools that are out there. And some of the accelerators will help with this, but even if you're starting a plumbing business or doing whatever, AI and, and.

Everybody hears it. Everybody's worried about it, taking their jobs, whatever. But AI has created, and, and some of the other things like AI and 3D printers, AI and other decreased cost means of production. No code platforms to be able to write apps. If you do the work and find out what's out there, you're like a superhero.

One of the accelerators I was in, the guy created a prompt. I can't share the prompt, but you could basically have a viability study done on a business idea, and my dog may bark. I'm gonna apologize. A viability study done on an idea in like 15 minutes. And know whether your idea is a good idea. So there's been a lot written.

The people who are gonna succeed in the next decades or, or maybe sooner are gonna be the ones that are not displaced by ai. 'cause they understand AI and these other tools and. I could give you an example. I, before this call we're, we're on Amazon now and I was trying to figure out what we're trying to figure out how to get it noticed more.

And this is actually such a unique knife that they're having trouble kind of classifying it. So, and we found out that they don't have an adaptive category. So I was like, okay, wow. It'd be great to write an article about, hey, if everybody who values adaptive universal assistive design, whatever. It feels that there aren't enough options, then go to Amazon and search for that.

You don't have to buy anything. Just tell Amazon that. That's something that people are searching for. I wrote an article in five minutes and it's up on every platform. These are the kind of things that and, and the military community should understand. These are combat multipliers. This is putting on the battle suit that is turning everything that you have, right?

So all you have to do now is come up with an idea and it can help you. Who are you gonna target? Like you can put your bio in there and say, who's my target market for whatever you wanna do. So what I would love to see, and, and I love that you asked it from what advice I would give entrepreneurs, but what I would love to see is.

The, your generation being this wave of entrepreneurs that we saw like after World War ii, because in the same way you had that war economy that could manufacture just about anything and do it well and all that kind of stuff. We had a technological edge. We are there again, if we decide to go that way, it's like fire.

You can burn the house down or you can heat the house, and I think there's such a unique possibility to solve innumerable problems. With all this stuff, and I just, if, if, if someone takes those three things and does that and then, and then has a passion about what they're doing, but I, I would say that with a, I've heard it best put on one of the podcasts I listen to is what you're good at too, right?

Like you could have a passion for something that just is not commercially viable. Mm. Maybe there's something tangential to it that is these tools allow you to look and go, okay, I would love doing this. I can't make a living doing it, but what's close to it? What could I do similar to that? And then keep doing what I like to do on the side.

There's a lot of opportunities out there, but I always make this offer Any listener who wants to go down this entrepreneurial path, i've got a pretty big digital footprint. They can find me. I may not be able to help 'em. I can put 'em in the right direction. But the last piece of advice that I would give to, to anyone listening on that personal side is when you're asking for help if it's a really familiar relationship and you can have that sit down in that discussion, great.

If you're just reaching out to people, be very specific in what you need, right? Like, not like, Hey, I wanna be an entrepreneur. What do I do if it's, Hey, I wanna start this kind of business. How can you help me? Could you point me in the right direction? You mentioned accelerators. What's a good one? Make it easy where it's right.

It's the same way if you're evaluating a new website or app that you're using. The decision that you're making to go pat next, next click, or whatever is how clear it is, how quickly you can get to what you went to that app to accomplish or whatever, make it easier for people who wanna help you. But I think there's a huge opportunity for the people that take it and I think the more people that take this journey.

I'm Liz. I'm sort of down on big business. I think that they are anti-competitive. I think that they are anti-intellectual protection for independent inventors. I think generally the world today is, is not pro small business. But the more people that do it, the more people there are that invested in it, and the more people that are going to vote for people who are gonna support small business and our intellectual property and things.

Things like affordable medical care for somebody who wants to start a business but is afraid their family will go bankrupt if all of a sudden there's a medical emergency. You can't start a business that way. So I just hope that we, we get that renaissance because. And I am gonna go full circle to a lot of the veterans and things and folks that I see who don't see purpose in corporate America.

But if that's the only option, what do you do? So we have to make a fertile ground where this stuff can grow and where these people can, can turn these. These possibilities and these opportunities into things that secure wealth and f financial security for their family, but also solve some of these problems, which I think really people do wanna do now.

Get off my soapbox. No, you're good. I really appreciate all that advice. I think a lot of it. Was extremely relevant to the time period we're in right now. And I, I definitely agree. I especially like that you mentioned like be very specific with your request. It makes it people easy. I always say like when you make life like this is, this is a po I'll give you an example, podcasting side.

I have people reach out every day to be on my show. You know who, who I, I serve first. The people who reached out said exactly what they want a guest about, and right here's my website. Number one way for me to not look at your email, I mean, I look at all the emails eventually, right? But if you don't have a website, if I had to ask you, Hey, you want to be on my show, and you provided nothing of your work or no right media kit or nothing to your website.

I mean, now I gotta go do work, go outta my way to, to look up and research and find you to then see if you're a good fit. Present everything up front so I can make a quick and informed decision. And that's not just for podcasting. When I we had one of the podcasting mini conferences I went to, they had the local news station was there and they said, Hey, if you wanna be on the news channel and feature your product or your book, or whatever.

You gotta be, make it easy for us. And I think same with any, any connection, just be upfront. It's, and this is where now, like the, the prevalence of AI in just your email client or whatever. So there really is, and this is where I think people need to understand how these tools work, right? Like I always throw the.

Tony Stark. Jarvis, right? Like it's not driving you, you're ideating with it, so, mm-hmm. What you should be first telling it is, Hey, I'm reaching out to this podcast host or this person. I go to LinkedIn sometimes, and I'll take someone's profile. If I'm engaging them from a sales perspective, put it in to an AI prompt.

I use chat GPT, but I'm trying to train it to think like me. It's got my bio and everything, and I'm like, okay, how do I engage this person that's not, I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna look like, okay, I don't think this is right in all this. It's like having an assistant. Yeah. But with what you're talking about, with the tools that are out there right now, if someone doesn't do that, they're just lazy.

Instead of saying, Hey, what does this person wanna know for me? And how am I gonna be successful? It'll do it for you. Yeah. And, and the the one thing I would say on ai, the one thing I've learned, and this is con non-sequitur, but it's important is. I use two models. I use chat, GPT. I write in that because I pay for that one and then I'll put it in Claude, which is Anthropics version, and I'll say, be a proofreader.

And it'll be like, okay, well what are you trying to say? And because I don't pay as much for that or 'cause I don't pay for that one, I limited use. But if you're writing something that has references or anything like that, you can use it as a check where it says, okay. Wait a minute. I don't see this study, but I see these ones, so that can even make you better where you're like, when you're talking about research, if you're using AI and it's citing things.

Do you just send it? What do you do? Well, there's multiple AI platforms that all want your business that are all different language models that all do different things. Better or worse, you can use that all to make your life much better. And no, it's a crazy time. Like when I get in a room with, with people who are in that space and they're talking about where we're headed, it'll blow your mind.

It'll really blow your mind. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I've had some conversations with AI engineers and it's definitely, interesting. But I want to focus in on, as we close up here, just again, the new lewd knife. I guess just, I don't wanna say a final sales pitch, but obviously, it's something you made to serve people and, and you're passionate about it.

Absolutely. What I would say is it's for everybody. The reason we've looked at the disabled market and adaptive and assistive is because there's a very logical connection, because of a need, right? It's that white space where for them it's an aspirin, not a vitamin. It's something that solves a problem they have today, but everybody will feel beneficial use from it.

And we're actually very much in now. Talking to commercial kitchens because we help them protect their employees, right? It's workforce protection, especially if you've got a trained workforce that you don't want to be out on, workman's comp or that kind of stuff, you wanna protect them. A regular knife is not good for cutting.

You might as well use something that's gonna protect them, so it's good for everybody. You can find us@newluknives.com. There's a lot of videos there that show the use. It's a visual product, so I understand if people are looking at it and they're like, oh, I don't get it. Even with my great demonstration here.

But there's a lot of videos there. We're also, as I said, now live on Amazon. And it can be purchased on Amazon as well. If anyone wants to know about it, as I said, I have a big digital footprint. If they put in my name in NuLu they could, they'll see my link tree, my LinkedIn, all those where I try and get videos up.

I do even have a TikTok. My daughter talked to me into that one. Mm-hmm. And I have my own YouTube channel. I go by the new Lou Guru now. So, if they're looking for me, they can find me there. We offer a 15% discount on our site on the first order. We always offer a hero discount for first responders, law enforcement, veterans, and active military of 10%.

We have to validate at that point and to any listener out there who would be interested in our affiliate program that could go to our site. We have an affiliate program that is designed around. Really people who, again, we're, we're, we've got a lot of disabled affiliates, but, if there were a individual who wanted to France build a knife business, they could affiliate, affiliate with us and other businesses and really build something good around that.

So if anyone's interested in affiliate relationship, please reach out to me. Yeah, and we're gonna have your link tree and everything in the description below for people to easily access that and check out everything but. And I wanna thank you for your service in the military as well for your time today.

Your Thank you for the platform, man. I, I really appreciate being able to spread the gospel like this. Yeah, of course. So I appreciate you and again, we're gonna have that in the description below for everyone to check out and I. Highly recommend if you didn't look up the knife beforehand or during the video to go look at it now and get an understanding of what it looks like.

It's not your traditional knife, and it is not, it's, it's hard to even describe before. So please go take a look at that and I think it's I highly recommend that. And then Mr. Katz, again, thank you for guesting today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.