Meet King Ant McCray

We were lucky to catch up with King Ant McCray recently and have shared our conversation below.

King Ant, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

Keeping creativity alive is an incredibly challenging thing to do in a world that serves to overstimulate the senses with short-form content and “reality” shows that are scripted to death. As a solopreneur, I have full creative control over my brand, my products, and my content. My entire reason for even starting what I do and continuing to this day boils down to a simple yet effective phrase “F*** it, I’ll do it myself.” I consume content like any other human on the planet, I am also a consumer, just like the vast majority. Where I differ is that I choose to design and make things that I either can’t afford or can no longer find in the world’s marketplace. My niche is problem solving. Whilst that may be a grand arena to fill it isn’t nearly full. There are a lot of “problem solving” products on the market, unfortunately, a lot of them are mere copycats of each other that offer no difference in cost nor benefit.

By consuming content, seeing what I like and do not like, and always having that phrase in my head, “F*** it, I’ll do it myself.” I have a constant stream of creativity that can be a bit overwhelming. AA mind swirling with ideas and not enough time to put them all into action. Daily, I challenge myself to create something, it doesn’t matter what, just something.

If I see a 3d file that I can download and print, I challenge myself to make it myself. I have a background in CAD, although many years ago, picking up a new CAD program is not that difficult for me. I am self-taught in Autodesk Fusion360, took a few courses in Blender, and self-taught in some iOS programs for CAD. I have even started to dabble in VR CAD with the Oculus headset. I am a BLERD at heart (Black nerd) so tinkering, learning, computers, and designing are the core of my real personality. SO, combine being a blerd with a desire to do things myself, 3D designing and printing is a perfect fit for me. I have never been the type to excel at a typical job and doing this just fits me. I started with an idea that I designed and farmed the actual printing to someone who had a 3d printer. After my fiancé, now wife, saw how much it made me happy to do this she purchased my first 3d printer. Since then, she’s purchased 3 additional printers and I had personally purchased 2 more!

My creativity stems from seeing a problem and having the wherewithal to know how to solve it.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

A little about me and my story:

I am the youngest of two and spent a majority of my childhood in my own world. I have always been able to see things a little differently than my contemporaries and I had no idea that they could blossom into what they have. I was never really the “traditional” artistic type, as in, I cannot draw well, nor can I sculpt anything in clay. What I can do, however, is see the world in 3 dimensions. If a customer were to describe to me what they were looking to have created, I can usually within 3 iterations bring that idea into an actual product. Some say it’s an uncanny thing, but I have always been able to “see” the item in my imagination in a full 3d space. As I said in my extremely long-winded intro, I have always been a problem solver. My journey into business was again not traditional.

I have had several “businesses” over the past 25 years ranging from drop-shipping car parts, to being an eBay reseller, to manufacturing vape liquids, and now to being a 3d designer and print shop. It has always started as a way to solve a problem. I wanted inexpensive car parts, and the best way was to sell them to my friends and local community and make enough on top to have some “play” money. Then I noticed that I could turn a tidy profit buying in bulk from Asian vendors and reselling individually on eBay. That was a bit more tedious than I had time for at that point so that one didn’t last long. I noticed that vaping was starting to boom in 2013 and I decided to see how much profit margin there was on liquids. I’ll be the first to tell you that those margins are ridiculously high, so why not do it myself and again save money personally whilst also making money at the same time. I did that to supplement myself while going to community college. While in college I studied computer sciences with a secondary degree in business management. At the age of 39 I had 2 associate degrees in two different majors and several study certificates (minor degrees). I had thought, at the time, that I wanted to be in IT but that never panned out. A few years in retail and then the wonderful world of 3d Printed items started to show up in the vaping world. I took the same path as I always do, solving a problem, filling a niche, saving some money, and making a little on the side. Unbeknownst to me, a “little play money” turned into a passion.

I am a 3d designer at the core of it but much like a painter and their palette I needed a medium to bring those designs to life. The most exciting thing that has yet to lose its luster in my eyes is the appearance of seeing something in my imagination, sitting at my command center (my desk) and within 24 hours having my idea in my hands as a physical object. It’s an insane process to comprehend and I am unsure if I actually can comprehend it, still to this day. Some would say it’s art, but I see it as an everyday occurrence. What began as a means to an end has become a passion project that will hopefully sustain me. To think, I started this because a product I wanted to buy was no longer available and I was too stubborn to purchase something different.

My brand and my name started as a simple nickname in a chat room. We were asked to come up with an animal that we admired and explain why. The typical answers abounded, shark, bear, tiger, lion, butterfly, etc. Me, being not one to follow any conventional routes came up with siafu. Siafu is a species of driver ant in Africa. The are relentless when on the hunt and will not stop until their prey is devoured. While humans are never on the table the Maasai fear and respect them. There is an old legend that these ants have killed infants or ill/injured adults, although that has not necessarily been proven. The trope was good enough for Steven Spielberg to include them, albeit on the wrong continent, in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So, I quickly went from Siafu, to Ant and its kind of stuck there on and offline. When I started making vape juice, I named the company “The Vaping Ant.” One of my customers at the time deemed me the “King” of local juice purveyors and said that my next business venture should be called King Ant. As they say, the rest is history. The name stuck and in my local and extended circles I was known as King Ant, and I still am today.

My website is up and running currently and the exciting part is that I am starting to venture into the world of cosplay. Well, not personally, but printing items that either I or others have designed, and I have a commercial license to sell. be sure to visit the site @ kingantdesigns.com or email me at @ info@kingantdesigns.com for any custom work or general questions.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three qualities and/or skills that impacted my journey to where I am and beyond are: stubbornness, determination, and self-sufficiency.

 

The best advice I have ever received was to “Just start”! Just start drawing, just start making, just start designing, just start playing, just start doing whatever your passion points you to. You will never know how great you COULD be at something if you never just start. You don’t ever strive for perfection because you will always fail to achieve that. Only strive for a better today than yesterday. Strive for just a few minutes of practice, not an entire afternoon. Strive to be the person you want to eventually be. There is a reason the old proverb still rings true, because in the millennia since it was uttered, we as humans have not changed that much. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Van Gogh wasn’t brilliant at first, Aristotle was never perfect, Jimmy Hendrix didn’t come out of the womb playing perfectly, Jeff Bezos failed more than he won, Bill Gates had a multitude of set-backs, Oprah Winfrey got fired as a news anchor, Dave Chappelle got booed off stage, Peyton Manning doesn’t have 100% accuracy. What they all have in common is, they started.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

his question has two answers and is important for similar but varied reasons.

Firstly, my wife. She has always stood by me and been my champion in whatever I do. She has been a solid foundation on which I have begun to build upon. Without her support I likely would have given up when things got tough. While she doesn’t understand every single aspect of what I do, that doesn’t matter in the end. She understands what it means to me and what it will mean for us. She learned the basics to help me with prints while I was at work, and she was at home. She is currently a full-time student working towards her law degree. She is there for every victory and defeat with properly placed words of encouragement. Knowing that SHE thinks I am doing an excellent job in expanding my skills is the driving force for me.

Secondly, is my brother. He and I didn’t always have the best relationship, but we have always had a strong bond. He challenges me to be a better designer. When I hit a brick wall on something I can call him and explain what I am feeling, and he usually has insight into what I should try. Even if he doesn’t have that insight, he will say something that may trigger me to relax a bit and come back to the problem with a clearer mind. He is a student as well working towards his Ph.D. in psychology, so I guess that helps with encouragement too.

These two people, my wife, Jessica, and my brother, Clarence, have been my BIGGEST champions and most trusted advisors.

Contact Info:

elationship but we have always had a strong bond. He challenges me to be a better designer. When I hit a brick wall on something I can call him and explain what I am feeling and he usually has insight into what I should try. Even if he doesn’t have that insight he will say something that may trigger me to relax a bit and come back to the problem with a clearer mind. He is a student as well working towards his Ph.d in psychology so I guess that helps with the encouragement too.

These two people, my wife, Jessica, and my brother, Clarence, have been my BIGGEST champions and most trusted advisors.

Contact Info:

 

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