We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alejandro Badillo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alejandro , appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Hello and thank you for reaching out to me and giving me this opportunity. Definitly been creative has helped me alot on starting my bussines and coming up with new ideas. To try to the keep my creativity alive and coming up with new ideas, I like to walk around my neighborhood for Denver where theres alot of art studios and see all the diferent styles and art that people come up with, that keeps me fresh and open minded to all the diferent things that people have come up with and ideas that I can make.
Colorado definitly has alot of art studios, and art museums where I like to go and walk around, I believe to make art you have to see and apreciate other peoples art, Santa Fe street has a great variety of artists and local shops that every first Friday of every month they all have a great open house were everyone opens their doors late, theres live music , drinks and food, alot of local people show up and make a great envyroment .
Traveling also is a key ingredient to not getting dull and boring , going to the mountains here in Colorado is a great mind reset and forgetting about the normal work and resposabilities that might keep you from been creative. Going to diferent states around the U.S.A. has been an amazing experience, traveling to Mexico, and Japan has also open my mind and learned new cultures , going to their museums, seen the street art, eating great food keeps everyones creativy open and fresh, I highly recomend traveling the world as much as you can.
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?
Definitly im more then exited to share my ideas and producs to the world. Well let me tell you about my latest project and bussies that I have started a few months ago. I stated a bicycle parts bussines, the first product that I made is MILE HIGH CUSTOM BIKES , as the name implies I make custom bike parts. I really like going riding on the bicycle when the wheather is nice, there are alot of nice parks all over Colorado where I eather go with my family or take a ride by my self. Customizing parts is been a great hobby of mine, and bike riding is a great stress reliever, so one day the idea of making custom make bikes was just ready to happen one day. The pedals I machine them, powder coat them, engrave them , I have to bend them to the right shape of the pedal, then I finish hand painting then last details of the pedal.
The other bussines that I started in 2019 is MILE HIGH BOTTLE BONGS , here in Denver Colorado . I like reciclyng as much as I can and be able to reuse as many resourses as I can. One day I was having a beer on one hand and a bong on the other, I notice that both are made of glass, and are kinda similar since they both have openings where ones gives beer and the other delivers weed, I tough about all the glass bottles that go to the trash and that can be turned into a bong, my mind started flowing with ideas of all the diferent bongs that I could make with all the empty liquo bottles, I would be keeping trash away from the land field, meeting new people on the events and stores where I can well them , and also making a little extra money.
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?
Well looking back at all the previous achievements and failures the main thing and quality is not been afraid in starting a project, you can have all the ideas in the world, but if you dont start anithing then you wont acomplish or learn anithing. Starting a new project is always the fun part, because I like researching the ways to do them , and then putting them to test is algo great because im learning from all the trials and errors.
The other important thing that I have learned over time is been able to take failures and learning from them , all of my projects from doing the bongs to doing the pedals, I have to do alot of prototypes, had to break alot of bottles, waste alot of material, I sometimes brought the wrong tools thinking that it would help me in making the job easier, when in reality it was not what I needed, but from all the wrong choises, and failures, theres been also alot of succes, and wins. For every bottle that I broke and every pedal that whent to waste, I got more knowledge and Ideas thanks from learning from those mistakes.
Also the last thing that I can tell you is been consistent on your work, always trying to improve and coming up with new ideas has been a great journey. When I start a new project and do the first prototipe of eather a bong or a pedal, it atways exites me seen the first product, because I can just imagine how it would look if I keep on improving and coming up with new ideas.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
One of the main things that I need to work on is putting the word out for all of my bussines out there, I keep myself so bussy in doing the products the bongs, pedals and all the other ideas that come to my head, once im done with all of that im not sure how to advertise them , I do some marketing on the social webs like Instagram and Facebook but I know thats now enough, I would like to have my producs to be sold on local stores, my bongs on local smoke shops and the pedals on local bike shops, I just need to take my time to set apointments to show the stores my producs and tell them what Im trying to acomplish with them.
Contact Info:
- Website: MILEHIGHBOTTLEBONGS.COM
MILEHIGHCUSTOMBIKES.COM - Instagram: MILEHIGHBOTTLEBONGS
MILEHIGHCUSTOMBIKES
Image Credits
ALEJANDRO BADILLO
