The Truth About Pool Furniture with Mike Collins of Tenjam - Wednesdays

In this episode of the Talking Pools Podcast, host Natalie Hood sits down with Mike Collins, President of Tenjam, to uncover the often-overlooked realities of in-pool furniture. While most homeowners shop based on appearance and price, Mike explains why comfort, engineering, maintenance requirements, water depth compatibility, and long-term performance matter far more once the furniture is actually sitting in the pool. 

From ergonomics and furniture design to pool covers, vinyl liners, fiberglass pools, and maintenance concerns, this episode challenges many of the assumptions surrounding today's popular tanning ledges and sun shelves. 

Topics Covered in This Episode

Why Two Pool Loungers That Look Identical Can Perform Completely Differently

Mike explains how ergonomics, contouring, lumbar support, water management systems, and manufacturing quality dramatically impact comfort and usability. What looks great in a photo may become uncomfortable or frustrating after only a few uses. 

The Hidden Problem with Water-Filled Furniture

Many in-pool furniture designs rely on trapped water for weight and stability. Mike discusses how some loungers can weigh more than 160 to 260 pounds when filled, creating challenges for homeowners, pool service professionals, and anyone using automatic pool covers. 

Pool Covers and Furniture: Friend or Foe?

The conversation explores why many service professionals dislike heavy in-pool furniture and how furniture design can determine whether opening and closing an automatic cover becomes a simple task or a major inconvenience. 

Does Heavy Furniture Really Mean Better Furniture?

One of the industry's biggest misconceptions is that heavier furniture automatically equals greater stability. Mike explains the science of buoyancy, water displacement, and how thoughtful engineering can create stable furniture without excessive weight. 

Comfort Matters More Than Most People Realize

Not all in-pool furniture is designed with actual human comfort in mind. The discussion examines common design flaws and how proper ergonomics can dramatically improve the user experience for adults, children, and multi-generational families. 

The Maintenance Nobody Talks About

Furniture left in pools year-round faces constant exposure to UV light, calcium scaling, scum lines, algae growth, and other environmental challenges. Mike explains what homeowners should know before purchasing furniture and why drainage design matters. 

Vinyl Liner and Fiberglass Pool Considerations

Many pool owners have heard that luxury in-pool furniture isn't compatible with vinyl liner or fiberglass pools. Mike separates fact from fiction and discusses how furniture weight, movement, and construction can affect pool surfaces over time. 

Why Water Depth Should Be Part of Every Furniture Conversation

One of the most overlooked aspects of pool design is matching furniture to tanning ledge depth. The episode explores how different water depths create completely different user experiences and why builders should discuss furniture plans with homeowners before construction begins. 

Pool Furniture Is More Than Decoration

Today's in-pool furniture is no longer simply a visual accessory. The right furniture can influence how homeowners use their pools, interact with guests, enjoy tanning ledges, and maximize their outdoor living spaces. 

Key Takeaways

•  Comfort should be evaluated, not assumed. 
•  Furniture weight does not automatically equal quality. 
•  Pool covers and furniture compatibility matter. 
•  Maintenance requirements vary significantly between brands. 
•  Vinyl liner and fiberglass pools require careful furniture selection. 
•  Water depth should influence furniture decisions before a pool is built. 
•  Proper engineering often matters more than appearance alone. 
•  The cheapest option may become the most expensive over time. 

Memorable Quote

"What looks similar online can perform very differently once it's in the water, and understanding the engineering behind the product can make all the difference in long-term satisfaction." 

Connect with the Guest

Learn more about Mike Collins and TenJam's innovative approach to in-pool furniture design, ergonomics, and outdoor living solutions by visiting their website and social media channels. 

Revdup Apparel
a custom apparel company built for the pool industry. Founded by pool professionals

The Grit Game
The Grit Game, is not just playing the game, we’re changing it. 500+ years industry experience,

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:00

All right. Welcome back to the Talking Pools Podcast, your go-to source for everything wet, wild, and wonderfully misunderstood in the pool world. I'm Natalie Hood, Director of Education and Events for the Grit Game. And today we're diving into a topic that's becoming increasingly important as more homeowners add sun shelves, tanning ledges, and resort style features to their pools. When people shop for pool for in-pool furniture, they often focus on appearance and price. But what happens after the furniture is in the water? How does it perform? How easy is it to live with? And what should builders, service companies, and homeowners know before making a purchase? Joining me today is Mike Collins, president of 10 Jam, a company known for bringing engineering, innovation, and practical design in the pool furniture category. Mike, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Hey, thanks for having me. I love the intro because a lot of people don't think about any of those things when they're selecting pool furniture. It's usually just a pretty picture and they click, they click order and there they go.

SPEAKER_09 1:04

Exactly. Then so I thought, who better to kind of bust some myths about common pool furniture? But before we get into our myths, for you know, for our listeners who may not be familiar with 10 Jam, tell us a little about the company and how you got involved in designing a product specialty for pools.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Sure. So in 2013, started 10 Jam and got into rotational molding. That's the way we form these in-pool products. But at 10 Jam, our background is actually outdoor education furniture. So if you have schools, you put stuff all over the outside of schools, but a lot of stuff inside of schools as well. Uh in that market, work with a lot of architects and interior designers. And these people are very critical about ergonomics and how things fit and feel and function. So as we so as we went, built a brand new factory in 2020, and two years after we opened the doors, COVID hits and every school in the world shuts down. A sales manager of ours suggested, and he has a pool in his backyard, suggested try making some in-pool furniture. And we went all in on in-pool furniture. But as we developed our furniture, we were very focused on ergonomics and how things feel and how they function. And so at the time, there's another big brand out there. And at that time, there's only a couple brands really in the market, but went and did a lot of research on the biggest brand and just learned a lot from them and tried to figure out like what did dealers like and what did homeowners like and what didn't they like. And so that helped us really just kind of dial in and learn how to develop products that were comfortable, easy to use, and low maintenance. And so that's that's kind of our background. So really since 2020, we've been making in-pool furniture, still leader and outdoor education furniture at the same time. So we build furniture for probably the two toughest places to build furniture for schools and pools. And that's our background. But based in Minnesota, that's where our manufacturing is, and we control all our own manufacturing.

SPEAKER_09 3:02

That is very cool. Yeah. Education and furniture, two things I absolutely love, which my husband can attest to that.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

There you go.

SPEAKER_09 3:10

Yeah, that is awesome. Well, and so I I guess when you were looking at the marketplace, what made you think that you know you could do things that were differently that weren't being done before?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Well, one thing was ergonomics. So how how do things feel? And hard plastic products, you don't have cushions that comfort people. So when you make hard plastic products, it's hard to make a hard plastic product that fits a wide range of people. Right. I think at 10 Jam we we do a really good job of that. So we can put short people, tall people, standing people, wide people, all these people in all these shapes have to feel somewhat comfortable on hard plastic. They can't hide anything. So our contour and the way we contour our products and kind of bucket the seats and add lumbar and things like that really have to fit a wide range. And as we went to different different people just talking to them about their in-pool products at the time, and even dealers of these in-pool products, we'd go into showrooms and we'd have dealers say, Well, I don't even want to sit on that product, it's so uncomfortable. But uh people come in and they just buy them, they look great, you know. So we get a lot of that. And then we also, so first of all, a couple brands that are out there at the time just didn't have comfortable products, so we need to kidnail that. The brands at the time also had plugs, screw plugs, different plugs where you'd fill the products with water, put them in them, and make them just crazy heavy. So the idea is things came to the market originally was well, these hollow plastic products are going to float. So what's the answer? We need to trap water inside these giant hollow forms. And we were looking at competitors' loungers that weighed anywhere from 160 pounds to 260 pounds when they were full of water. And so just very challenging. And people would be like, Right, they didn't want to move them, they were tough to move if they had pool covers, just a lot of things there. So that became ease of use. So comfort number one, use was number two. And maintenance was the third thing we were trying to solve, which was with the big heavy products that had the screw plugs, every month you'd have to change the pool water out of the core, or it would start to grow algae inside of it. Yeah. And so these homeowners would then have to physically, at least once a month, take the products out of the pool, go drop somewhere, and then go back and refill them. And it was just, yeah, a big hassle. And so we addressed comfort, easy use, low maintenance. And then I suppose the very last thing we addressed was on the loungers that we developed, we developed these snap-in risers. These we we patented snap-in risers. So the bottom of a lounger can universally accept these different height risers that we can snap into it, and that allows us to hit pool, all these different pool water depths. Because another thing we may talk about today is that builders all over the country as they're building sun shelves. We'll call it a sun shelf, tanning ledge, Baja Shelf, whatever you call it. It's that shallow end of the pool. But they're all different, they're all different depths. And sometimes that comes down to the, you know, we'll meet builders at trade shows and things and they say, Oh, we always build them at seven inches. Another one always builds them at 12, some 18, and they're just all over the board. And so we knew we wanted to make sure our products could universally fit a wide range of pool water depths.

SPEAKER_09 6:27

Yeah, and that's that's something that you really have to do. And, you know, I'll say I I've had the pleasure in sitting in some of your 10 gym products uh at the Western Pool and Spa show. You guys were amazing, and you uh donated a couple chairs for us. And I will tell you, I cannot. Well, there were so many people that walked by and they were like, these are really cool. And Lacey and I were, we were doing a lot of interviews in them. And I, quite frankly, I didn't want to get out of the chair. It was so comfortable. I was telling my husband about them and he was like, Those look really awesome. I'm like, these are so comfortable. So you guys have really done a great job. But that kind of like kind of lies into a lot of myths out there about pool furniture. And one of them, it's you know, it's a really big one, and it's that, you know, two chairs can really look nearly identical online and behave completely different once they're placed in a pool. And it comes down to that all-in-one furniture works the same. And, you know, why do you why do so many people assume that all-in-one furniture works the same?

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SPEAKER_09 9:48

Michael Two chairs can look nearly identical online and behave completely different once they're placed in a pool. And so, you know, and it's all in one pool furniture works the same. So why do so many people assume all in one furniture works the same?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So I I totally agree with you. Like you could look, you can look online, and most people start their search online. They just do, and they'll see photos and pretty photos in pools. Well, one thing, a lot of pools look pretty, and you put you know, you put some furniture in them, and sometimes it's just the setting you're really falling in love with, not just the furniture. But a lot of times the furniture people will say, Well, yeah, it's just uh what's different from your plastic products, and they're polyethylene products, but plastic, what's the difference between yours and somebody else's? And it does come down to come, like the comfort, the ergonomics. So one person's face or seating, you know, the seating front of their chair doesn't feel like the other person's, even though it looks almost identical. Um, there's just so much to contouring that comes into it. Also, the way you have to fill the products with water. So a lot of these products are hollow core polyethylene products. So it's a it's a process called rotational molding, which creates a hollow plastic part similar to like a Yeti cooler or a playground slide and things like that. Hollow parts. And so these hollow parts, you have to allow a way for water to come into the core in order so they don't flow. And in the early products on the market, the solution was originally just a cork. They'd have holes, they'd plug it with a cork and hold the water inside. That evolved the screw plugs to hold the water inside. But with that, a lot of people don't know when they see the pretty picture and they order the product that they're going to end up having to move 160-pound lounger frequently. And it's just things they don't really think through. They think pretty picture. Right. Maybe it works in my pool depth. Done. But you really need to go further than that. You need to understand your pool water depth. How's your pool water depth going to affect this product and keep it from floating? So all these products also have water depth ranges. So you'll see some products where maybe it only goes up to nine inch water depth. And at 10 inch water depth, it begins to float. So the, you know, we'll publish X water depth. After that, it's going to float. It will float at that higher depth. So people will maybe choose something for nine or 10 inches of water, put in their pool, but oops, I guessed at that. And my pool is really a few inches higher than that. That's a problem. So we really need, you know, and we have ways to address that at our company, 10Gam. However, it's just things you have to think through more than a pretty picture. That's what I'm getting at here.

SPEAKER_09 12:31

Right. Yeah. You definitely need to make sure that you're reading the fine print. And, you know, it's it's like trying out a mattress just because it looks nice, you know, you need to try it out. Or like just because the water looks clean doesn't mean it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

For sure. Yeah. You know. And I do encourage people, we have a deal locator on our website. If you, you know, go try product. Go, go sit in ours compared to the competitors. Give it a try.

SPEAKER_09 12:55

You and you guys, you have some fancy products, I will say. Some of it, it looks like it's blown glass.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

We do. That's our new Baja series. It's gorgeous. 3D 3D furniture that goes into a swimming pool, looks amazing. Uh, we're winning design awards with it. It's a that is a different material, and you don't need to fill those with water at all. So they're they're really fancy and super cool.

SPEAKER_09 13:19

They're gorgeous. The the green color, it it stood out to me. My favorite color is teal, but it stood out to me. And I was showing my again, uh, my husband's like, when I retire, we're gonna get a massive pool in our backyard, and you've got the hookup, right? And I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes. It'll be taken care of. But like we're already like circling things in magazines, and I'm telling you, those chairs, they're gorgeous. So just once more now.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

They look sculptural and amazing. They're gorgeous. They're they're dense, so they actually just sink to the bottom of a pool. Don't have to worry about filling them, don't have to worry about algae growing inside of them. So I'm gonna take them out of the pool. They look just as gorgeous on a patio. So it's really it's kind of revolutionary for in-pool furniture to look great outside of the pool and in the pool. And we do that.

SPEAKER_09 14:07

Those ones are my favorite. I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

No, they're a lot of people's favorite. We just launched them in November of last year, and and we're just trying to keep up with production at this point.

SPEAKER_09 14:15

Yeah, well, you you got you you know which one I'm asking Sarah for. Well, and that kind of goes with pool furniture, you know, and this is something we hear from going back to builders and service professionals all the time. And it's pool covers and in pool furniture don't work together. And you know, what would you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I would say every pool service person we've meet at a pool show despises in pool furniture. They hate it. And why do we so and it's funny? So the st the stat right now is about 70% of all new pools are built with these shallow tanning ledges or sun shelves or both.

SPEAKER_09 14:53

I've noticed that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

So every pool service company out there has customers with these features in their pool. Well, some of the you know, the top brand that we that we have as a competitor, those products are water-filled and ridiculously heavy. They have a deep water lounger that weighs 260 pounds. It doesn't just have handles that you can just easily grab and move stuff. And so and pool and pool service people, they they're not traveling in a pack, they don't go to a backyard with four you know, four people trying to lift pool furniture out. It's usually one person. Right. Now they're in the backyard, and now they're they have to clean the pool. So, what do they have to do? They have to drag these things off the bottom of the pool. A lot of times, these yeah, it's just hard and they they hate moving it. So, and unfortunately, the products are polyethylene generally, and polyethylene, it's a hard plastic product, however, it will get scratched or worn out on the bottom if you're dragging these heavy products off the pool deck. So, if you can imagine 150 to 260 pound furniture, and these guys are dragging it, it's it just wears out the bottom. So, a lot of our competitors' products, you flip them over, they're scratched on the sides, they're scratched on the bottom. They're just a mess. But service people hate them. And so, so where do we go with that? So, our so at our company, and there's other companies out there as well, we have open air holes throughout the bottoms of our products. We we have systems that allow the water to come into the core of the product, but very easily we can fill most of our products in a pool or place them in a pool within just a few seconds. In fact, I have a video of our Lalo lounger where I I take it off a sun or I take it off the pool deck, fill it, and put it on the sun shelf within 17 seconds. And also, if a pool service company was to come by, I have a video with a with a cover, an automated cover. I'm in business clothes, and I just walk over, I can reach out to the side of our lounger, slowly start to lift it. As I do that, all the water's draining out of it. Now that is cool. And with under 30 seconds without even getting into the pool, I'm able to remove one of our products from the pool. And so if you have a pool cover, it's another, you know, another group of people that just despise pool furniture, is people that have pool covers. They want to put their cover on because they have kids or pets, safety reasons. Yep. And so you need to get this product in and out of the pool frequently.

SPEAKER_09 17:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

And and so we just make it so our products are easy to do that. There's there's some other products out there on the market too that make that easier. But the products that aren't are generally ones that have some sort of plug system that traps the water inside.

SPEAKER_09 17:30

Well, I'll tell you, I can I I mean, again, I I love the look of pool furniture. I know I will definitely want some type of furniture when we do get a pool in our backyard. Again, uh, listeners know I have two small little girls. They're in slew lessons, but next house we definitely want a pool. But I'll tell you, I can only imagine the challenges I would have myself and my husband alone uh pulling that type of heavy furniture out. And I know I would like to have uh a mosaic uh tiled pool. And so if I'm having to drag that type of furniture on my mosaic tile, I know it's gonna absolutely destroy that tile.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Or if you what if you're a pool owner or you're a fiberglass pool. Yeah, it's just gonna rip it up. You do not want to drag heavy furniture across the bottom of the pool, which is why some of these people with with uh builders of these different types of pools sometimes even tell their customers, like, hey, we'll put a sunshine in the pool, but we just want you sitting in it and don't want you to put any furniture on it because it will tear the liner or scratch the fiberglass. And we can get into all that too.

SPEAKER_09 18:37

Yeah, and you want to enjoy that sun cell, that, that, that shelf and that that tanning ledge. You want to enjoy it. Absolutely, you know, sit out there with a you know, a fun little drink and some snacks or what have you. And what whatever your thing is, go out there and the diet coke, or you know, maybe have maybe have, I'm sure when my kids get a little bit older, they're gonna have like all their little girlfriends come over and they're gonna have like snack trays and you know, Capri Sons, what have you. But yeah, you wanna definitely be able to do what you want in your own environment, right? It's yours. So, yeah, I agree. Let's talk about weight and stability. Furniture doesn't need to be removed with a forklift. Two big myths are that furniture needs to be heavy to stay in place, and water-filled furniture is the best way to keep it stable. And you know, for years, I think people have assumed heavier automatically means better. But does heavy really equal stable?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Sure. And I think a lot of that comes from the first products that were on the market where the solution was let's just fill these things all the way up with water, you know, put up some plug in to trap that water inside. And that that was the first product on the market. So everyone went that direction. But so no, heavier doesn't mean better. In fact, you know, as you fill a lot a lot of these products are hollow core, and so you do want water to come into the core of the product. In fact, the polyethylene, if we just took a just a color chip of the polyethylene material itself, it's pretty much like just neutrally buoyant in water. It's it doesn't sink, it kind of floats, but you know, it's not doesn't really act as weight, okay, to add things to the bottom. So we thought, well, let's fill it with water. Well, all the water inside the core of that product that is below the water line of the pool, well, that's not acting as an any extra weight. So really those products, the reason they were adding the screw plugs inside of them was to try to trap water maybe in the big leg hump uh of the lounger or the backrest of the lounger. The points inside the lounger that were above the pool water line, that was going to act as additional weight to hold it down. But a lot of that product is submerged. So you're just relying on just little bits of product up above the water line to have some weight in them to hold them down. But what I'm getting at, you don't need the 160 pounds to hold the whole thing down. Really, what you're getting there is maybe uh 15 pounds of that product's up above the water line, and that's just enough weight to keep it in place. The way we address that it at our company is we design the products where actually a little bit more of the product is designed to be up above the water line. We just need water inside the product that's pretty much just like right at the water line. Getting the air bubbles out of the leg rest, for instance. We don't want trapped air. We do a lot in our designs to make sure that our designs, the way we all we we design the external part of the chairs to be comfortable, but we're always thinking about the internal parts as well, and how is water and air gonna move through these products? So our designs, as we come up with them, they're not just aesthetic, they're also very functional. Where are drain holes going to be placed? How is that gonna how are these parts going to let water and air pass through them so the things drain and dry? So we think about that. But where I'm going with that is it's a total myth that you have to have a 160 pound lounger to work in in whatever pool depth. What you do need though is you need to look at every manufacturer is gonna handle this differently. So you gotta look at their depth charts and how their how their stuff handles water depth. Ours is just a lot different. So our 34-pound lounger is gonna feel like a 34-pound lounger when you go move it while it's in the pool or while you move it out of the pool. Right. It's just different. And I know that's I'm not really clarifying, you know, perfectly. Point is as a as a pool furniture shopper, it really would behoove you to go online and watch videos of people putting these products into a pool and taking them out of a pool. So whatever manufacturer you are, you have a product, you think it's beautiful. That's what I want. Just go find a couple videos that show somebody else taking the product off a pool deck, putting it in a pool, and taking it out. Is you know, is that what you're does that look great to you? Well then go. Go for that product. If it's right looks great, do it.

SPEAKER_09 22:56

Well, and you know what's funny is uh Johnny, uh Johnny Davis had told me, he said, uh I had gotten to the show floor at the Western Floons Boss show before he and Lacey's. I think they had a meeting that morning, and I said, Okay, well, I'm gonna set up our booth. And he said, Well, hey, by the way, there should be some boxes from Mike from 10 Jam. And I was like, amazing. And I got there and I saw the boxes, and he said, They're chairs, and I said, Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to move these, right? And so Matt Dahl from American Fire was there with his son Hayden. And I was like, Hey guys, I'm gonna need you to help me move these boxes. They brought, I have some chairs from 10 Jam. And I was like, Can you guys help me move these? And they're like, Yeah, sure, no problem. And they're over there opening the boxes around these um pallets, and they like opened the boxes and they were like, Natalie, you're kidding, right? And I was like, No, I need help. And they went to move the chairs over there, and I was like, that was way too easy. And I like walked over there and I like moved it, and I was like, and I like lifted it up, and I was like, Well, dang, that's really I could have done that.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah, we integrate like carrying handles and all that and stuff.

SPEAKER_09 24:00

Yeah, they were like, it's okay, Natalie, we'll do the heavy lifting. And I was like, Well, shocks, okay, good to know. But no, you're absolutely right. I mean, I was looking and I saw these big boxes, and I was like, Well, shoot, I'm not gonna be able to lift that. And I go over there and I was like, Well, hey, look at me.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 24:16

I mean, so yeah, you're absolutely right. I would say definitely check out the videos. And I was, it was really cool. I mean, because again, I was like, I'm not gonna be able to move that. And it was like boom. And so by I I mean, seeing that in the water, so much easier. And, you know, as a as a mom of two little girls, I can't tell you how many rubber duckies and like pool toys we go through because water gets in it and then mold starts to grow. And so I can't even imagine, you know, having to turn around getting different uh, you know, furniture because of that same issue. Because pool furniture can get, you know, fairly expensive, especially you're having to do a turnover every season.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah. And pool furniture is fairly expensive. It is. Yeah. And uh, you know, it can be part of that is the quality manufacturers out there. Right. We put in the highest grade of color UV stabilizers that we can put into the material. So it just lasts longer. All plastic's gonna fade over time. It's just these this kind of like top-tier manufacturing group that we compete with. We're all putting in, we're all doing it with great material. We're really trying hard to deliver good products. I'd say that's our competitors across the board. We are seeing some very low-cost products come into the market. They're very thin-walled plastic, cheap, drilling them together with with metal fasteners and things like that. So uh, and that's back to that pretty kind of the pretty picture thing we're talking about. Like people just see a pretty picture, pretty pool. Well, that that lounger is half the cost of these other ones. There's something there, everybody. We're in a very, very competitive market. And I'm just not saying our loungers $600 because I'm making all this extra money on it, because we have so much design work and quality and and the material costs more because of what we're using. And and that's kind of what you're gonna get with this kind of top-tier manufacturing competitor group that you see out there with these loungers from like that $600 to $1,100 price point. Now, nothing different between the $600 one and the $1,200 one, but there's a lot of difference when you get onto that $200, $250 one.

SPEAKER_09 26:23

Yeah. I mean, you get what you pay for, right? I mean, if you if you have a if you have a pool party and you need something tomorrow, and you I mean, okay, you go out and you spend the $100, right? But is it gonna be is it gonna last? No.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Yeah. I do like that that get what you pay for thing, though. There's some really, really low cost stuff out there, and that's kind of like uh you get what you pay for. Yeah. But we're at our lounger today, we're a Lalo Lounger. We have a couple different loungers. At our Lalo Lounger today, we're at a $600 retail price point. And then we have risers you can add and things like that that increase the price point.

unknown 26:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

But I have competitors and and these are kind of all in this top rank group. We're using the best materials and all that. And they're at twice the cost. But they're no actually they're no better there. You're not getting what you pay for. A lot of them are selling direct to consumers, spending thousands, like tens of thousands on on marketplace ads and all this stuff that you know are hitting consumers. And so you're a lot of times you are paying them for their marketing fees on that. Where that is true.

SPEAKER_09 27:26

That's and that's the wonderfully misunderstood part. See, I like that. Yeah, that's true. That is true. I I do it. See, and I get it wrong. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Hey, hey, that's what we're talking about today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 27:42

The wonderfully misunderstood. Well, you know, and talking about pool furniture, another myth is that in pool furniture is uncomfortable. You know, and I think a lot of homeowners assume well that if furniture is designed to sit in the water, that comfort is going to be compromised. You know, where do you think that perception comes from?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

You know, I I totally agree with them. That is that's not just a myth. Uh, a lot of pool furniture is uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_09 28:07

Can be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

And I sit on some of this and I'm like, did no one think about sitting on this? They just designed another, they just designed kind of that pretty picture, but didn't put a lot into ergonomics. Uh, I would say that not all are, but a lot of them a cop not copied, uh mimicked some of the first products that were in the marketplace. Yeah. And they and they just weren't comfortable, but for some reason they all went with this big leg hump design. A lot of the competitors followed that. And I don't know why. Uh, but I will say, I'm just gonna speak to to our company right here, is is we we couldn't put an uncomfortable product out there in our school market because we would get decimated by the the architects and interior designers of the world who are selecting uh uh project furniture. You know, they're not gonna go buy 60 uncomfortable chairs. No, they'll sit in all of them, make sure they're picking the right stuff. So as we came into the pool furniture market, our we've always been focused on comfort and function. And so comfort though is number one. If it's not comfortable, why make it? And so if we can make it comfortable, then we also work on function.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

So uh a lot of pool furniture is unfortunately uncomfortable. As we came into the market in pool, we worked on our product called the Shays Lounger, S-H-A-Y-Z, Shaise Lounger. It has armrests, and a big part of the armrests were because we found it very difficult to get in and out of some of the other competitors' loungers, and a lot of the pool owners were sometimes a little older, not a lot of and these little bit older folks sometimes would have a hard time getting in and off a lounger that was sitting an inch and three-quarters off the bottom of a swimming pool. So we gave ours armrests so you could actually have something to hold on to as you're getting in and out of the lounger that really did enhance the comfort. We gave ours a more upright backrest angle. We call it a social backrest angle. Now we see new products coming to market, also social backrest angle.

SPEAKER_09 30:08

Hey, you're doing something right.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

I call it a leg hump design, but there's a big defined hump where your legs sit, and that doesn't fit the widest range of people. If you have a bend in the leg of the lounger, who's that designed for? Is that designed for someone from 5'8 to 5'10? Is that what the leg bend hits? What if you put a kid on that product? Uh someone short, someone tall. Yeah. How does that work? So, one thing we definitely knew we wanted to do is we designed a lounger was to completely relax the leg rest. So you had support from your butt all the way down through your legs and even your ankles. The whole your whole body's making contact. I like that. Because we lowered the leg rest, that meant we didn't have as big of a working depth range. So that's why we patented risers, snap and risers on our property. So it allowed it gave us our depth range back, but comfort the entire way through. So oh, not all furniture is uncomfortable, but that's why I do encourage you to go try them out or at least watch some videos showing different sized people sitting in these loungers. If it's just if it's just you and I, we're gonna pick a lounger for us. But now you mention your little girls. Are they gonna use them? Are they gonna be, you know, have them go sit on the lounger? And a lot of these leg hump design loungers, you put a small child on them, their legs are going like straight up in the air.

SPEAKER_09 31:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

So it just is it's a funny look. But so keep that in mind too. Are you looking for a lounger for just you? Does it fit just you? Or are you looking for a lounger that's gonna fit your whole entire family group and your friends?

SPEAKER_09 31:44

Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, I I'll say, you know, there's a lot of uh if there's even pool furniture that I have trouble getting out of. And then I I mean, when we went to St. Thomas, uh we went to it was one day the kids went to the beach with my mom and I went to like an indoor pool. And um they had some loungers there and some of them were really comfortable, but one of the loungers was actually in the pool. I couldn't get out of it. I could not get out of it. I had to like combat roll out of it, like into the pool. And my mom was like, What are you doing? I was like, I can't get out of the darn thing. And then when she went to get out of it, she's like, I can't get out of it either. And I was like, See, like it you can't get out of it. I mean, it was comfortable as we were sitting in there, but when it came time to get out, we had to like combat roll like duck roll like under your um your desk, like you did like when there was a fire drill. You could not get out of the darn thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

And like I sort of busting this myth of all pool furniture is uncomfortable. When we first started talking in this podcast, I talked about going to dealers of our competitors' products, and some of them would be like, I'm not, I'm not sitting on it. I won't sit on it if someone comes in. It's like because I've got to, in order to get out of it, I've got to like roll over on the Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

You know, things like that. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 33:00

I mean, if you're gonna, you know, and that's that's one thing too. It's I you know, you're gonna buy some things that you you might know, okay, the quality isn't gonna be that great, but that's my thing. If you're gonna put product out there, stand by it, you know. I mean, it's just yeah, but you can only ask for so much sometimes. Yeah. But you know, another thing too with with buying pool furniture, um, I think people tend to think, well, if I'm gonna buy pool furniture, it's just one more thing that's gonna require maintenance. And that's it's just gonna require too much maintenance. And, you know, I think many homeowners, they love to look, they love the look of in-pool furniture, but worry that it's creating another thing that they'll just gonna have to clean.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Sure. Yeah, I'm kind of with them on that. It's like, I don't want another thing I have to deal with at this point. Right. All right, so a few things to think about. And again, a lot of a lot of good quality manufacturers and design out there are with in-pool furniture. I think in order to have it require less maintenance, it's to the ability to take it in and out of the pool more often. So in a lot of our markets, you know, warm warm markets, it's Florida's Arizona's, all these places, they'll leave their furniture in the pool just like year-round. And even with what I'm getting to here is like calcium scum buildup on furniture. And a lot of people just sometimes they leave it in the pool because it's just too hard for them to go out and move our competitors 160, 260 lounger out of the pool. It's just they're not gonna be. I wouldn't be so you know, leave it in the pool. Yeah, even you know, these products, even though the top-tier manufacturers were using the top grade UV color stabilizers year-round in a Florida pool, Arizona pool, wherever pool, it's a tough environment to live in. And all plastic, all products really will fade over time. Now, we're putting in that UV color stabilizer that's gonna slow that fade over time. Your product's taking a lot more wear and tear if you're just leaving in the pool. Another thing is pool product or pool chemistry, grit game. You guys talk pool chemistry all the time, right? You could have the best maintained pool chemistry, but man, it's you know, if calcium's gonna build up on something, it's actually gonna build up on the pool furniture before anywhere else. And so if you're seeing a little calcium and scum line on your tile line, well, if you have swimming pool furniture in there, it's building up there first. And you can, again, perfect chemistry, but you'll still get that. We have we have a c uh videos, we have all kinds of videos. I think we have 80 different videos out there of our products, competitors' products, cleaning videos. We have a new video on cleaning and removing scum and calcium from pool furniture. There's some really good products out there now that aren't like crazy acids and things, just some really easy products to clean things up. But back to maintenance, you want the ability to get the products in and out of the pool easy. So you don't just you're not just stuck with them in the pool all the time.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

We design our products. A lot of our products are they look good out of the pool, and they're good seating out of the pool. We have those you brought those moon chairs to that show where you have them in your booth.

unknown 36:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

You could use those as patio furniture all day long. Yeah. You just go put them in your pool. You can put those in a pool within seconds. You can take them out of the pool within seconds. Yeah, and they're multi-functional. Where pool furniture where you trap water inside, that's probably my that's probably the biggest thing that I think people get so frustrated with, is because it really is dedicated pool furniture at that point. Yeah. You talk in loungers, but but these competitors also have chairs and tables. And I have videos where I'm dealing with like a little small chair in a pool that is water-filled, and now that thing weighs 125 pounds. I'm taking that out of my pool to use it for some extra patio seating, no chance. So, what I'm doing is leaving in the pool. And what's gonna happen? It's gonna get it's gonna get color faded faster, it's gonna get calcium and all that faster. And another thing people don't do, those people that leave them in the pool year-round, they never change the water out of the core.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

And those products, if you don't, they will get algae inside so fast, and they'll wonder why do these products look why do they look stained? Well smell. People with these types of furniture, they were never they they were never even aware that they had to change the water out once a month. And to do that, you don't just go drain those products back into your pool. You have to drain them off to the side yard somewhere, drain them in the bushes, and then go refill them. And you have to do that every month. Ton of people aren't doing that.

SPEAKER_09 37:42

No, there's they're probably draining it back in their pool.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

They probably are, but what however they're gonna do it, that that's hard to maintain. And so, what we want, all of our products have open air holes at the bottom, and so open air drain holes. And so when they're in the pool, that pool water can constantly recirculate throughout the core of the product and just requires less maintenance over time. So yeah, look for products if you're a homeowner and you know you're not gonna go drain and refill your products every month. Look for products that don't have screw plugs and plugs that trap water. Look for products that have more open air holes designed. And it's not just our products, there's a few others out there like that.

SPEAKER_09 38:22

Yeah, yeah. I mean, good furniture, it should be easy to clean, easy to remove. I mean, it should just it shouldn't be more of a hassle.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

You should be able to enjoy it, not you know, give it a side eye at once a month when it's time to one more one more thing on this topic, and I'm draining up, but but people, some products do have open air holes like ours at the bottom of the products, but they're so tiny or they're so poorly placed that you can't actually like lean the furniture into one direction to try to drain the water out. The the holes aren't put in the right spots. So you might go Where are they put? What's that? Where are the holes put? So let's say it's a bottom of a lounger and and one of our competitors, they have holes that are like I don't know, like right in the middle of the lounger, but they should be on the on the very like the more most outset corner on like the foot rest. So when you kind of lean the lounger up, tip it to its side, and I say lounger a lot, but it could be a table, it could be a chair, right? It's just you can want to like kind of put the product on edge almost and then have that hole be where the water is gonna filter to in the inside of this core of this product, where I don't know, that's we're always thinking about that. We're thinking about when we when we take this product out of a pool, are we making sure that all the water's coming out of it? Because if you're left with a couple inches of water inside of there, that's gonna become stagnant and nasty.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

So we want all the water out. We want the core of the product to be able to dry. And so we really are thinking through not just the comfort of the front of the seat, but everything throughout the bottom, how things are going to drain out of the core and stay dry.

SPEAKER_09 40:00

Man, oh man, I think I'm gonna tell you this right now. When my husband listens, my husband does listen to my uh my episodes, and uh I'm gonna tell you this right now. He's gonna tell me, I'm telling you right now, Natalie, if you buy furniture for our pool and I have to dump it out once a month like this, it's just gonna live there because I I can already see it now. I can just see him out there using every word under the sun that we're not supposed to use in this house because of our littles. I can just see it now. The the rainbow will be lit up. But yeah, no, I mean, God, why would you put him on the bottom?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

I mean, we do a lot of uh comparison videos. Uh-huh. And usually how I find those is I just put I just put posts out there and I say, Does anyone own XYZ furniture? And could we do a comparison video? And we'll go over to these people's home and you know, I'll bring our product and they'll see us demonstrating our product compared to other products they already have.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Every single one of them has ended up selling their product and buying our product. Because they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I've lived so long with that.

SPEAKER_09 41:06

Yeah, see, no, my my husband would would just be like, no, take it back. Go. This is not coming in my house. Right. Absolutely not. Or I would get like the third degree of you've been in the pool industry for how long and you brought this home. Seriously. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I would get the third degree, immediate third degree. Yeah. But so shifting gears a little bit, right? So there's different, there's, there's all different pool types. And a big one is vinyl. You know, there's a really big myth out there, and it's that vinyl liner pools, they can't have luxury in pool furniture. And coinciding one is that, you know, in pool furniture can damage fiberglass gel coat. And, you know, this is something that vinyl line and pool owners they hear all the time. And um, you know, the industry, they talk about it. It's very con. I'm sure you've heard it. You know, where does this mis, you know, where does this misconception come from? Definitely as someone that's that you you know live and breathe this every day.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Sure. Um, well, some of their initial designs of in-pool furniture trapped water inside the core. You had to they had to be super heavy. And then some other manufacturers mimic that design and create ultra heavy furniture. Again, go neck and myth. Everything you gotta have heavy furniture in order for it to be stable in the pool. Okay. You don't. Now, when it comes to vinyl liner and fiberglass pools, when you put these ultra heavy products in a pool, well, people, when they need to uh a lot of times in the pool, your son's facing a certain way. And as the day moves on, what do you want to do with your lounger or your chair? You sometimes want to reposition it, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

If you can't like lift the product, what are you gonna do? You're gonna drag it and you're gonna drag it across the bottom of your fiberglass pool, which could scratch the gel coat. You're gonna drag it on your vinyl liner bottom, which could buckle and tear the uh the vinyl. Yeah. And so a lot of I feel builders, I I see a lot of meet a lot of builders and vinyl liner builders, especially will be like, no, that no one should ever put furniture in a pool. So our like our products, they're designed, so they're not actually holding all that water, right? So if someone wants to reposition a chair to face a different direction, they can easily just slightly lift the 30 pounds of the chair, reposition it, set it down, and the bottoms of our products. It's another thing we think through in all of our designs is making sure that we don't have any sharp edges on the bottom of our products. So we have drain holes throughout the bottom of our products. Well, those drain holes, we actually don't let the cut hole touch the bottom of the pool. They have these little standoffs, I call them in our design that raises that hole up a little bit off the bottom of the pool. Very cool. So it won't touch the the liner. We see the heavy products, again, those are hard to remove from the pool. So if people have those heavy, super heavy products, they leave them in the pool all the time because they're not going to go out there and pull it, pull a chair out of the pool.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

And you have wave action, you have wind action, and those Products will all all the products will actually slightly move sometimes, waves, wind, and that constant movement can wear a vinyl liner and can also wear a gel coat. So if you have these types of pools, you should look to furniture that's lighter weight, easier to put into the pool, easier to remove from the pool, because that way you're you're not gonna jeopardize those materials because you can take the furniture out without any you without much effort. You can put a chair or lounger out of a pool, and it's not gonna sit in there day after day for a year, just constant movement that could wear out the liner.

SPEAKER_09 44:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 44:39

That's just well, and you know, another thing too, and I've just in this last year, there have been so many changes in the industry, right? And so one thing that I've I've really come up against is oh, well, this is how we've been doing it for 30 years. You you you come against the old timers, and you know, well, we've been doing it this way for 30 years, and you know, we really shouldn't be changing things. And, you know, quite frankly, I'm gonna say it, there are a lot of things that were done wrong 30, 40 years ago. They were done wrong, and now there are a lot of companies like yourself that are doing them right. They're they're getting it done right, they're doing the research, they have the resources, the tools, you know. And so I definitely one thing I always try and say to the listeners is do your research. You know, don't just go off the common, you know, myths that you hear, right? I mean, look what I said earlier. Um, you get what you buy, but that's not true, right? I was wonderfully misunderstood. Yep. Very wonderfully misunderstood. And so, you know, properly designed furniture, it I I think it should coexist with fiberglass finishes. You I don't think that you should be limited. You just need to do your research to better understand if this is the type of pool design you're gonna go with, perfectly fine, depending on you know where where you live. Uh, totally get it, right? You you do have to accommodate to your environmental conditions, but you shouldn't be limited. You should be able to explore what you'd like to do in your backyard oasis, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Even we deal with a lot of fiberglass pool manufacturers. Yeah. People actually make the fiberglass shells and the builders who install them. Yeah, we have we have a couple of not have standardized on our furniture because it's I guess it's what they would find to be the most safe for their pools. But again, there's uh some other brands out there that aren't trapping for water inside and making things ultra heavy. You're able to get it in and out. Seeing a lot more automated covers built into these fiberglass, vinyl, all kinds of pool designs. Again, yeah, furniture it's easy to get in and get out. And then one thing I forgot to say on these on these vinyl liner pools is the tanning ledge has like a drop-off point, right? So you got this shallow tanning ledge, sun shelf, whatever you call it. It runs, and then there's a drop-off point where it's gonna go down two to three feet of water right there. And a lot of these products do require when you put them in the pool that you kind of place them off that edge so they can fill with water.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

And then you replace them onto the tanny ledge itself. Well, these ultra heavy pool products that were you filled all the way up, and now this thing's 160 pounds. It's that front of that edge where we've seen multiple pictures where that's where that vinyl liner gets torn because people they just drag it back over that edge all the time. And these manufacturers also say they don't recommend you take the furniture out of the pool because it's too heavy. They know that. So the solution is just push the furniture every day off that into the deeper water and let it just float, run your pool cover over that, and the next day open your pool back up and then go fish the products back out and get them back under your tanning ledge, and that's a solution. Well, as you're moving those big heavy products over that lip of the tanning ledge frequently, sliding around the bottom of your pool frequently, that is what's going to buckle and tear a vinyl liner.

SPEAKER_09 47:57

So And that is what we call wonderfully misunderstood. Yes. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Too much, so much to think about, right?

SPEAKER_09 48:04

It's just I mean, I get it, the quick fix, but it's really not a quick fix. That's that sounds like a very expensive.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Yeah, that's an expensive one.

SPEAKER_09 48:12

Very expensive heartache that you're gonna have to explain.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Right on.

SPEAKER_09 48:17

Mm-mm. As you were telling me, I was just like, just no.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

Again, steer people away from pool furniture. We're all doing tanning ledges and we're figuring out furniture for it. But you do a little bit more research before just purchasing something from a pretty picture.

SPEAKER_09 48:32

Just you you really do have to do more research before you purchase anything. I mean, I used to get on my husband, he would just do so much research before we did anything. And I was very on the fly by or just get something, and he would just do so much research. And I was like, gosh, you're so annoying. You always have to research. And now to this day, I'm like, did you look it up? Have you done your research? And I always I go to him because he's the research guru. And I I'm doing much better these days, depending on what what it's on. But you know, I you're you're right. You really have to better understand what you're purchasing. Uh but you know, our last myth, if you will, it's it's kind of a fun one, but it's well, I I enjoy it. It's pool furniture is just decoration, which is there's nothing wrong with decoration. But I think that is a common myth, right? And I think some people still believe, you know, they view pool furniture as simply an accessory or an aesthetic upgrade. You know, why is that thinking outdated? You know, we've talked about people are kind of still back in somewhat stone age.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Yeah, I think a lot I really do think a lot of the beautiful pools we see, especially you know, we see a lot of resort style pools, and a lot of them have tanning ledges, uh sun shelves, and you see you see furniture in it, and it's that is when people started seeing that, they're like, wow, that just looks so dreamy to be able to sit in furniture in your pool.

SPEAKER_09 49:55

So there is that, yep.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yeah, so you know, it's very aesthetically pleasing. But all you know, all of it's not the same. Make sure you look at the furniture from all angles. Okay, a lot of times we're seeing pretty pictures from their best angles. We're seeing a lot of times models uh sitting on the products positioned just so you know, so precisely so precisely by the photographer.

SPEAKER_08 50:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

We're kind of, you know, maybe sometimes we're with that able to mask comfort, mask some aesthetics. So, you know, if you're really looking at your pool, you're looking out your back windows, you're seeing your beautiful pool. Are you looking at the back of the loungers as they're or back of the chairs as you stare out that window into your beautiful pool? What's the back of the lounger or chair look like? Is it aesthetically pleasing as the front? Things that you gotta think about that. Our we have competitors that put big nasty hexagon screw plugs right in the back up corner of the chair.

SPEAKER_09 50:55

I don't want to look at that in my morning coffee.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Yeah, or like these ribs that go down to support the they do real thin plastic, so they have these kind of ribs or ridges down the backs that aren't that aesthetically pleasing. You really think it through like like you saw a pretty picture online, you want you want to buy the that same dream. But if you're really gonna, if you're you know, think about how it's gonna look in your pool, what the angle is gonna be as you're looking at it all the time. And do you like that view of that product in your pool?

SPEAKER_09 51:24

Right. Yeah, no, I agree. Definitely look at it from all angles, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Yes, it's like trying to and if you go fish them out of the pool, does it look weird outside of your pool, or does it look like, hey, we can also you know, have these things live outside of our pool and they're so aesthetically pleasing. Because some pool furniture just simply isn't. You take out a pool and it's like, well, get rid of that because I only want to look at it if it's in the pool.

SPEAKER_09 51:48

Well, my thing too is if I, you know, where am I gonna put it? I would want to make sure if it's gonna sit on the deck or the tanning ledge, is it's the aesthetically pleasing, right? That would be my big thing because I mean with with my littles, they're gonna they have stuff everywhere as it is, right? And so even in like our backyard, we don't have a pool. Of course, we have the big blow up pool and we've got you know all the the pool accessories. And my husband was like, Oh, are you gonna put the blow up, you know, the big we have the big whale blow up pool. He's like, You're gonna put it up this year. I haven't told him that, you know, it's it's life expectancies.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 52:20

He doesn't know he doesn't know that yet. So we'll just have to go to Costco and get a new one. It's a one summer pool. Yeah, he doesn't know that yet. I haven't I haven't told him yet. But, you know, there's there there's a there's a place and a purpose for all of them in our backyard. But you know, you're right, with pool furniture, you have to make sure that if it's not going to be in the pool and you pull it out on the deck, that it is gonna be pleasing. And I love the fact that, you know, you can pull you can put it in the pool, you can sit in it, you can take it out. Because I'll tell you right now that the the loungers that we sat in at the Western Pool and Spa show, those were comfortable. We had people that were walking by and they're like, You're just sitting on the job. And I'm like, No, actually, you want to take a seat? And they're like, Yeah, and they got in. They're like, I don't know if you're gonna get this seat back. And I'm like, they're comfy, aren't they? Yeah. And I was like, and I was actually, I was telling them, like, how how heavy do you think this is? And they're like, I'm not gonna pick it up. I'm like, no, seriously, try. I was shocked too. And they picked up, they're like, This is really cool. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Yeah, I know we're not sales pitching, but 10 jam shaz here is so comfortable.

SPEAKER_09 53:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

You guys really do it right. People are shocked. They're always just like, oh my gosh, I didn't expect a hard plastic chair to feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_09 53:28

Yeah, no, you guys really do it right. Well, you know, after everything that we've discussed today, what's one thing that you'd like builders, service professionals, and you know, our homeowners to understand about in-pool furniture that they may not realize today?

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Sure. Uh, I think a big thing is that you have choices in your water depth. If you're building a new pool, we we built some water depth configurators. If you go to our Lelo Lounger product page or our Shaise Lounger product page, we have a water depth configurator where you can change the depth of the pool and you can see how that water depth interacts with the lounger. How it looks, does it have a lot of water in the seat? Does it have no water in the seat? One thing we've learned as we patented our riser system is there's a lot of people who who want loungers or chairs in the pool, but they don't want to get their rear end wet.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

And then the other people, it could be a husband and wife couple sometimes. One of them wants to stay dry and one of them wants to be as submerged as possible. Submerged. Yeah. And so with uh with our water depth configurator, you can change the water depth and you can see how that impacts very cool how much water or how little water you have in the seat of a different product. And I was recently working with a customer who called us up, had a lot of questions about pool furniture. And their big thing is they wanted to be as submerged as possible, yet he just had both knees replaced. They only put in six-inch water depth. I said, Why'd you put in six-inch water depth? Well, that's just what our builder does. We didn't even ask him, we didn't know to ask him. And I said, Well, you want to be submerged, but you only have six-inch pool water depth. We need to sell you a product that sits only a couple inches off the bottom of the pool for that. He's like, Yeah, I can't get that low. Well, then you you didn't you didn't build the right pool water depth, buddy. Unfortunately, so I think it is really important for pool builders and their customers when they're building pools with shallow areas of their pool to really think about what furniture they plan to put in the pool. Is it features? Is it chairs? Do you want your rear end dry when you're sitting down? You're just gonna go outside when you get home from work and you want your ankles to get wet, but nothing else, or do you want to go all in and be submerged? And that's gonna deal with pool water depth. If you're a submergent kind of per person, go with a little deeper water because it's gonna allow you to get submerged, but not have to sit on the bottom of the pool to do it. So there's there's something there as well. And I really I hope as we keep going forward that more pool builders will will talk to their customers through that. And I hope our interactive water depth configurators will help people visually see that there there are choices to be made. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_09 56:11

Yeah, I think I think that's great that you you you have that and you offer that to customers because I think having that visual aid is so helpful. People people like to have that visual, right? And people learn differently in all different areas. And I'm a very visual learner and I'm I like to to be very hands-on. So that's really awesome to allow people to kind of visually look and play around and see what would really work best for them. So I I really enjoy that. Well, yeah, Mike, I can't thank you enough for for joining us and kind of helping us separate fact from fiction when it comes to in pool furniture. And, you know, I think one of the biggest takeaways from today's conversation is that not all in pool furniture are created equal, right? So what looks similar online can perform very differently once it's in the water and understanding the engineering behind the product can make it all the difference in long-term satisfaction. And so, you know, for any of our listeners, if you'd like to learn more about Tangim and their products, visit their website, follow them on social media. As Mike said, they have a lot of great videos. And, you know, again, thank you for all of our listeners for listening to the Talking Pools podcast. We hope that you guys enjoyed today's episode. You know, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a fellow pool professional. Guys, until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep challenging the wonderfully misunderstood. Thanks, guys.