Why The Gold Bison

Built for the terrain.

People ask me about the name.

The bison means something to me personally.
But I chose it for this business because of what it does.

It evolved on the plains of North America, shaped by the grass, the drought and the winters it had to live through.
The plains made it what it is.

That's the first question I ask of a product venture.
Does it work on the bench? That's the easy part.
Was it built for the terrain it's about to walk into?

It faces the storm.

There's a popular story that bison run into storms because they know the storm will pass faster.
It's a good story.
I couldn't find the evidence for it.

What's observed is quieter, and more useful.
When a blizzard comes, bison turn and face it. Their heaviest coat is on the head and shoulders, so that's the side they give the wind.
And they come through blizzards better than cattle do.

That's how I treat the hardest question in a venture: will anyone pay for this?
In my experience it's the one that gets put off until the product is built and the budget is spent.
I bring it forward, to the first sketch, while it's still cheap to answer.

There's no bravado in it.
The method is built to take that weather.

It doesn't camp at the waterhole.

Bison need water, and they don't linger at it.
When water is scarce, they range further to feed. Researchers who study them see them move on after three or four days in one place.
In summer their metabolism rises and they grow. In winter it drops right down, and they wait out the lean months.

I work the same way.
A pilot before the big money. Phases paid for at the start, each with a clear end.
Grow when the ground is rich. Hold steady when it isn't.

I call it the diesel. Slow to warm up, then constant speed.

It leaves the land better than it found it.

On the Montana prairie, researchers compared creeks grazed by bison with creeks grazed by cattle.
The bison creeks carried more vegetation and more bird species. Bison wallows hold rainwater after a storm. Nesting birds collect the fur they shed.
Beaver Creek came back once bison replaced cattle. Danny Kinka of American Prairie put it plainly: "We just put bison here."

A cattle rancher on the edge of Yellowstone has a line I keep coming back to.
"It's not the cow, it's the how."
Managed with care, her cattle do much of the same work. The animal matters less than the way it's run.

That's the part I care about.
Products that serve the people who use them, respect the planet, and still make money. Products that stay on the shelf for twenty years, not twenty months.
Three goals that strengthen each other.
One venture, designed as one.

Why gold.

The bison faces the storm.
Gold is what's waiting on the other side of it.

Value that lasts, and is shared: by the founder, by the people who use the product, and by the ground it comes from.
Prosperity that doesn't use up what it depends on.

What it means for your venture.

Built for its real terrain.
The hard question faced early.
Steady momentum, and money spent where it counts.
A venture that leaves things better than it found them.

You bring the venture.
I bring a way of working I've spent thirty-three years building.

C'est ça, la différence.