This month AmmoSquared celebrated its 10 year anniversary. Last month I wrote a lengthy post “The Grit Behind AmmoSquared: What it took to get here.” about the journey over the past 10 years. This month, I wanted to share a “behind the scenes” glimpse of what the AmmoSquared team did to celebrate this momentous occasion. It’s not every day a company turns 10 years old!
Just reflecting on that, I’ve seen business statistics that only about 10% or fewer new companies actually make it to their tenth anniversary and only about half a percent make it to $10 million in revenue. We’ve now done both. I would further add that to do that with a unique service in the gun industry is even more rare, so AmmoSquared is really bucking the odds here!
Needless to say there was a lot to celebrate on our 10 year anniversary.
Travel Logistics
Our company uses a hybrid location strategy with some folks full time on location (warehouse), some that are hybrid and work in the office 2-3 days per week, and finally some employees located in different parts of the country who work from home 100% of the time. For this event, and the first time ever, we wanted to have all of our team members together in one place.
That meant a lot of travel logistics. After the dust settled, we had a total of eight employees fly in from around the country. The furthest flight award was a toss up between Pennsylvania and North Carolina. We also had folks travel from Texas (our other warehouse location), South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Nevada, and even Northern Idaho.
We have 30 employees with 22 of them located in the Treasure Valley. Here is a chart I showed during the team event that shows the number of employees we’ve added over the past few years. It was almost exactly a year ago that we started our employee growth spurt going from nine in April 2024 to thirty today!
With that many new people, we have completely outgrown our office space in Nampa and have had to add additional temporary space at Kiln – a coworking office building in Meridian, Idaho. This is also where we hosted the event because it could support 30 people in a conference like setting.
Day 1 – “Know Your People”
The focus on the first day was everyone getting to know each other. With so many people working remotely, or in different locations, it wasn’t surprising that many employees had never met before.
Each day started out the same with the first half of the day everyone working on their regular duties. This was a chance for people who are normally remote to work side-by-side with their local counterparts. This also gave the warehouse team a chance to get out the day’s orders and not fall too far behind.
After the co-working time, everyone gathered at Kiln where we had lunch. During the first day’s lunch Danielle and myself did a warm welcome and Bob, our Head of Marketing, laid out the plan for the next three days.
After lunch we did an icebreaker – each table had assigned seating so the teams could be mixed. In fact, right across from me was our youngest warehouse employee and one or our newest hires – a full stack engineer based in Ohio. So it was quite a mix! During the icebreaker we asked and answered questions related to personal likes / dislikes. It was a good warmup!
Next, each of our four main departments got up and did a mini presentation about who they are, what a typical day looks like, and how they support the mission of AmmoSquared. This was a chance for everyone in the company to become familiar with everyone else, their role, and how they fit in. Departments included: Technology, Product, Marketing, Operations (Customer Engagement, Warehouse Operations, and Purchasing). Everyone was also given a chance for Q&A. There were quite a few good questions from folks that showed real curiosity in what the rest of the company is up to.
After the department discussions and Q&A, we had a fun hands on activity. The team got to choose either a “bug out bag” or a “battle belt” to build and take home. We gathered the supplies ahead of time and each person selected one or the other to build. I brought in my own range / war belt for show and tell along with my bug out bag. Danielle and Bob each brought their battle belts as well. It was a lively session and reminded me of homeschool arts and crafts hour. We have a lot of folks new to shooting, so it was great to see them get their first range belt together and understand how everything works. We included a quality first aid kit in both setups along with a tourniquet from North American Rescue.
To close out the day the team journeyed over to Top Golf in Meridian for food and fun hitting golf balls. I pointed out that for an ammunition company we have been to the driving range more times than we have been to the shooting range! Though that was something that we planned to change, starting on Day 3 of the event.
Day 2 – “Fuel the Mission”
I jokingly referred to Day 2 as the “Dan Show” because Danielle and I were running the bulk of the day’s discussions and presentations. After the usual working morning, we had lunch and Danielle and I ran a valuable brainstorming session I would recommend to any business owner. We brought out whiteboards and asked the entire team thee questions: “What should AmmoSquared continue doing?”, “What should we stop doing?” and “What should we start doing?”. There were no limits so it could be anything from employee benefits to marketing ideas. It was great to see the entire team engaged and brainstorming ideas for how we can improve the company, inside and out.
The meat of the day was my presentation about the history and vision for the company. I titled it “Built on Brass: The AmmoSquared Story: From vacuum sealing ammo in the garage to building America’s Ammo Reserve”. It was my chance to show the team the hard work over the years it took to get us here. I shared some of my early entrepreneurial adventures and what the early days were like. I called on Danielle, Chris, and some of our earliest employees to talk about their perspective and what it took to build AmmoSquared over the past 10 years. I brought the team up to today and then into the future with my vision for the company over the next 1, 3,and 10 years. My goal was to share the emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows that it took to get here as well as build excitement for our future together as an organization.
The third part of the day was another brainstorming session. This time the teams were organized by department. We called it our “Mission Alignment Workshop”. Each department had questions they answered as a team then presented to the entire group. We had questions like, “If we had no constraints, what would we try to build or achieve?” or “Where do we need to be more bold or take more risks?”. This session lead to some great conversations and more ideas to implement for the the future.
We finished out the day by heading to Boise for dinner at The Cottonwood Grill. After dinner many of the team members had a night out on the town line dancing and seeing the local hot spots. I, on the other hand, was in bed by 10pm.
Day 3 – “Live the Culture”
The third and final day of our company celebration started off in the Nampa warehouse with everyone doing a little bit of work. Our engineers who are normally keyboard warriors, got the chance to get their hands dirty running ethernet cables and making improvements to our shipping stations. Our Winchester rep heard about our event and sent us a bunch of swag to distribute to the team including hats, shirts, and jackets. Unfortunately most of the good stuff was taken by the time I got around to it, and since I’m not a 2XL or a Medium, there wasn’t much in my size left. Oh well.
For the first time ever, with everyone in the warehouse, we finally got a team photo:
After the photo the team presented Danielle and I with a very nice Smoker BBQ as a gift – it was unexpected but much appreciated…
A smoker is something Danielle has been dropping hints for me that the team picked up on that I didn’t. Not surprising as I generally ignore gift hints unless they are gun or car related. As a nice touch the entire team signed the back of the smoker with silver sharpie so we can memorialize this moment in time.
After everyone signed the smoker it was time to head to Independence Shooting Range in Meridian where the rest of the day was planned. Independence is unique for our area because they have a 100 yard indoor rifle range. We booked out a 25 yard pistol range, the 100 yard range, and an event room. Many of our employees brought their own firearms to shoot at the range. Danielle and I loaded up the back of our SUV to the point where someone on the street would think we were running guns to the cartel. It was chock-full – all part of our mission for living the culture with our team.
Lunch was served in the event room. Then we did our version of the “Gundie Awards” giving out an award to each employee. Titles like “The Full Auto Award” for someone that goes full out 100% of the time. They were fun and a little bit silly. Today I still wonder if the girl from the warehouse that got the “Silent but Deadly” award framed it or threw it in the trash when she got home.
After the Gundie Awards we spent about an hour on team trivia with Danielle and myself leading the questions. Many were questions about our early days, like: “In the early days, how did AmmoSquared brand their shipping boxes? (yellow spray paint on black boxes)”, or “What was the company’s original tagline” (Automatic Ammunition). The hypothetical and “what if” type questions were my favorite: What song best fits AmmoSquared’s vibe? (Don’t Tread on Me by Metallica). Or “If AmmoSquared had its own reality TV show in 2030, what would it be called?” (Freedom Unboxed). Just a lot of fun and goofy stuff. We created a little contest so the four tables could compete with each other.
After some cake it was off to the range!
Wrap up and Range Time
I was imagining total chaos with 30 people trying to get lanes and try out different firearms, but it actually turned out better than I expected. I brought a variety of firearms include an HK SP5, a Springfield 1911 in 10mm, a suppressed FN 545, a Genesis 12ga shotgun, a 44Mag Marlin lever action, a Zastava AK, my PWS AR15 and a few other range toys. As I mentioned, many of our team members also brought guns to shoot and let others try. Of course AmmoSquared provided the ammunition – most of which was ammo that was usable but not retail ready due to broken or damaged retail boxes.
The range session was the pinnacle of the event. It brought together the corporate side of the company with the culture. We have a mix of gun noobs and shooting veterans in our crew. It was nice to see the experienced shooters stepping up to help the beginners – exactly what we like to see in the 2A community. It was also putting into practice what we preach: Readiness.
At AmmoSquared’s core, we are creating an ammunition safety net for America. So that America’s gun owners will always be able to protect themselves, their families and their communities, regardless of the political winds or market conditions.
We’re also building a community of readiness-focused gun owners who are willing and able to defend themselves from tyranny… in whatever form it takes. And that starts at home with our company and our team. This event was the first of its kind for AmmoSquared. I’m proud of how far we’ve come and the team we’ve built.
Onward and upward!
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