Forbidn Manufacturing / Graydon Udelhoven, Owner
Forbidn Manufacturing utilizes the latest technology to reverse engineer, machine and fabricate products for the oilfield, mining and automotive industries.
I’m always judging my work and looking for better solutions to keep myself honest and make the business elite.
Entrepreneurial inspiration
Personal strengths
How do you measure success?
I spent two years in college studying pre-engineering and mechanical engineering, but I wasn’t getting the new technology experience I really wanted. I knew I wanted to start my own business, and saw a definite need for someone who could work with the newest machines to implement the latest technologies. I wanted to be the one driving innovation and producing state-of-the-art parts.
Determination. There’s always a better and faster way to do something. When you’re creating products from ideas, you have no reference point or guidebook to follow so things don’t always work out the way you expected. You can’t get discouraged.
Being able to close the shop at the end of the day knowing that a customer who had a vision is now holding that part in his or her hand.
Secret sauce Leveraging the latest technology to
What challenges do startups encounter? Poor planning, organization and budgeting. When you start a business, you really need to understand your
What keeps you motivated? Ultimately, I’m very passionate about what I do and the industry I work in. There’s a definite excitement in developing a concept and transforming it into reality.
Your toughest lesson was… Organization and planning. I learned quickly I could make a lot of promises to customers, but during the course of the project, challenges always came up that pushed things back. I needed to be more organized and prepared for unexpected issues in order to produce what I committed to on paper.
How has your business changed? The original vision was to get the latest machines and produce parts for diesel trucks. This has changed 180 degrees. Now we develop parts for oilfield companies for their fracking and drilling equipment.
produce parts faster than the customer expected. I’m always judging my work and looking for better solutions to keep myself honest and make the business elite.
Biggest myth about starting a business: Once the business is running and you can let it go, and it will run itself. In order for this to work, you need people working for you who care about your business as much as you do.
market, product, services and processes in order to budget and plan appropriately.
Advice to others Always listen to customer opinions.
Learning or Knowing. Which is more important? It’s all about learning. Push yourself to learn what customers want and what the market needs.
Photo by Casey Page
88 I JULY/AUGUST 2014 I MAGIC CITY MAGAZINE