How He Built a Pro-Second Amendment Startup... | Ryan Spadafore | DSH #2064

**Ryan Spadafore** (0:00)
The thing with this, it's bigger than product and branding, right? It's freedom. I was here before I was here, it's gonna be here long after I'm dead. So it's tied to something bigger than just the business. And so I think we're tapping kind of like the warrior class of people. Fortunately, as long as you got the side of the people, man, a lot of people talk in this world, especially in our industry, they run their mouths. But for us, performance is the gold standard, right? So it's all about action in this world, and we kind of put our money where our mouth is.

**Sean Kelly** (0:36)
All right, guys, got Ryan on the show today. Co-founder and CEO of Atrius Development Group back in Vegas, just had a really successful Shot Show here and already back in town, huh?

**Ryan Spadafore** (0:44)
Yeah, back at it, man. Appreciate having me on.

**Sean Kelly** (0:47)
Absolutely, man. Yeah, we were talking out there how successful Shot Show went, so that must have been a good feeling for you.

**Ryan Spadafore** (0:51)
Yeah, yeah, Shot Show was great.
It's been a pretty exciting kind of like eight months leading up to it since our launch. We were kind of in the trench, we didn't really know what the feedback was like. Obviously, it's kind of different online versus in reality.

**Sean Kelly** (1:10)
Yeah.

**Ryan Spadafore** (1:11)
But yeah, man, it was amazing. And it just showed like all the hard work that we kind of been putting in and kind of bringing a positive shift to the gun culture.
But the feedback was great. Our Range Day was a hit and the response was a blessing.

**Sean Kelly** (1:23)
Yeah. So what exactly were you selling or demonstrating?

**Ryan Spadafore** (1:26)
Yeah. So we developed basically, me and my best friend Malcolm, we developed the Force Reset Selector. And it's a drop-in, reverse compatible selector for existing mil-spec AR-15s. So it gives you your safe semi and kind of gives you a compliant hand semi-automatic solution.
In relation to the gun culture, it's really just kind of flex your rights and increase the capability of the platform.

**Sean Kelly** (1:52)
Got it.

**Ryan Spadafore** (1:52)
Just in a legal, compliant fashion. Nice.

**Sean Kelly** (1:55)
And it took off.

**Ryan Spadafore** (1:56)
Yeah.
Definitely took off. And me and Malcolm have been in this industry for a while, and we've launched various products over our career. We didn't really quite see what the response was going to be like. We just thought we were working on something kind of cool.

**Sean Kelly** (2:13)
Yeah.

**Ryan Spadafore** (2:14)
Like just a couple of dudes in the garage, really. But yeah, I think it scratched the edge of the culture of what people really were kind of looking for.
And so, yeah, it's been good.

**Sean Kelly** (2:27)
Yeah, because you've launched, you said 700 products.

**Ryan Spadafore** (2:29)
Yeah. Yeah. So I was, you know, I've been in the gun industry probably since I was like about 20 years old.
And so, you know, we originally, I was at a company where we were developing solutions for some of the compliance states, right? So that's where I was kind of waking up to some of just like the government overreach stuff that didn't really make sense. You could take California as an example. And, you know, they kind of neutered down a system to make it more safe. But, you know, anyone in relation to firearms know that it's all kind of just BF, you know?

**Sean Kelly** (3:02)
Sounds like California.

**Ryan Spadafore** (3:03)
Yeah, exactly. But we would basically bridge that gap, right? So we were still able to have Californians exercise those rights because we're now we're making those weapons, you know, compliant. And so we would kind of bridge the gap for mil-spec AR-15s into the state. So a lot of people are like, oh, you can't have it because there's all this stuff on it. It's like, no, you can. You just have to do certain things and apply different accessories to it in order for it to be compliant. But that's like when I was younger, I started realizing, like, dude, this is, this is all kind of bullshit, man. You know?
And so it kind of developed kind of the thought process of just playing within the guidelines, because that's kind of what it is. It's, you know, the government dictates your left and right limit of what you can and can't do. And you're allowed to do anything kind of in that, in that sandbox, right? So people may not like the optics of it, may not like what it looks like, but by its very definition, it follows the letter of the law.