Kyle Ewing is the Founder of TerraSlate Inc., a company specializing in waterproof and tear-proof paper solutions designed for high-durability environments, such as the military, medical, and restaurant industries. He has helped innovate the centuries-old paper industry by creating materials that resist water, chemicals, and tearing, positioning TerraSlate as a go-to brand for extreme-use cases. Kyle previously founded and sold Guerrilla Tags ID Systems, launched an all-electric rideshare startup to compete with Uber, and currently owns Big Island Honey Company, a premium Hawaiian honey brand. A recipient of Inc. 5000 recognition for leading one of America’s fastest-growing companies, he recently authored Against the Clock: Strategic Time Hacking for Entrepreneurs to help others reclaim time and scale smarter.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [02:53] How Kyle Ewing sold eggs at $8 a dozen as a kid using “world champion” chickens as his pitch
- [05:48] The pivot moment from athletics to business after an injury
- [12:40] Why Kyle calls 9/9/09 his “Personal Independence Day” as an entrepreneur
- [16:16] The failed passport protector idea that led to the invention of waterproof paper
- [18:08] How the US military became TerraSlate’s first major customer
- [20:10] What Kyle learned from launching an electric rideshare to compete with Uber and Lyft
- [27:22] Acquiring Big Island Honey Company and applying scalable distribution strategies
- [35:22] Time-hacking tips from Kyle’s new book, Against the Clock
In this episode…
Most entrepreneurs dream of innovating within a brand-new industry, but what about disrupting one that hasn’t changed in centuries? With high failure rates and entrenched legacy players, entering old-school sectors like paper manufacturing might seem impossible. But what if durable, waterproof paper could save lives in the military, survive restaurant spills, and still look great?
Kyle Ewing has built a business doing exactly that. A serial entrepreneur and time-hacking expert, he transformed a centuries-old product into a high-performance solution for rugged environments, from nuclear submarines to hospital menus. Kyle shares how he identified the niche, iterated on the product, and transitioned from selling safety IDs and running an electric rideshare startup to focusing full-time on TerraSlate’s explosive growth. He emphasizes systematization by hiring strong leadership, installing operational frameworks, and stepping away from daily tasks as the key to building lasting entrepreneurial freedom.
In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, John Corcoran interviews Kyle Ewing, Founder of TerraSlate Inc., about breaking industry norms through bold innovation. Kyle discusses building a product for durability, designing time-hacking systems to scale, and how a failed Olympic dream redirected him toward entrepreneurship. This episode is packed with insights for entrepreneurs seeking impact, efficiency, and the confidence to do things differently.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- LinkedIn | Website
- TerraSlate Inc.
- Big Island Honey Co.
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Colorado chapter
- Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)
Quotable Moments:
- “People will spend on quality, even if they don’t know they need it; just show them the value.”
- “If someone can do it 80% as well as you, delegate it today.”
- “The military didn’t just like TerraSlate; they spread it across submarines and tanks.”
- “I didn’t want to be an athlete forever; I wanted to own the game.”
- “Closing one business gave me the clarity to scale the one that mattered most.”
Action Steps:
- Identify a legacy industry to disrupt: Just because an industry is old doesn’t mean it’s efficient. Kyle Ewing’s success came from spotting inefficiencies in traditional paper products and creating a superior alternative.
- Validate early with niche customers: TerraSlate gained traction by focusing on specific use cases like military manuals, showing the importance of serving niche, high-need users first.
- Build repeatable sales processes: From laminated pitch books to concierge commissions, Kyle showed how grassroots strategies can be systematized for scale.
- Prepare your business to operate without you: By hiring a CEO and implementing EOS, Kyle ensured TerraSlate could thrive while he moved to Hawaii — an important lesson in operational independence.
- Use side projects to gain leverage: Kyle’s tour company in Hawaii wasn’t just a moneymaker — it was a strategic move to boost his MBA application, showing how side hustles can serve multiple goals.
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:00
All right. Today we’re talking with an entrepreneur who is working to revolutionize an industry that is static and has literally not changed in centuries. I’ll tell you his story in a second. His name is Kyle Ewing. He is the founder of TerraSlate Inc., his company. And again, I’ll tell you about him in a second.
John Corcoran: 00:19
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:35
All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran, I am the host of this show. And you know, every week we feature smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. And if you check out the archives that we have, Netflix and Grubhub and Redfin, Gusto, Kinkos, lots of great episodes for you to check out.
And before we get into this interview, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping companies to run their podcasts. We are the easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast.
We do strategy, accountability in full execution on the production side, and we do all of those things. If you want to learn more, you can go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected]. All right. My guest today is Kyle Ewing. He’s the Founder of TerraSlate.
It’s a company that has transformed the world of paper. Yes, paper. Durable printing solutions. They provide waterproof and tear proof paper that is used by restaurants, the military, hospitals and various industries that require some kind of long lasting printed materials. And as I previewed in the beginning here, this is an industry that’s been around for centuries, maybe millennia.
I mean, I mean, I don’t even know how long it’s been around. So it’s incredible that he is revolutionizing this. But first, Kyle, it’s such a pleasure to have you here today. And before we get into your story around TerraSlate, I want to know about what you were like growing up as a kid. So you grew up on a horse farm in Colorado, and you were raising chickens and selling chicken eggs. Tell me a little bit about the young Kyle Ewing going and learning these entrepreneurial lessons on On the Farm.
Kyle Ewing: 02:12
Yeah. Hey, John. Thanks for having me on the show. Big fan. Yeah. When I was a little kid, I was always trying to sell stuff. I always wanted to make money. And I lived on a farm, and so I had a pony. But the. But I was a big fan of our chickens.
And so I sort of took over the chickens and the chicken farming, and I would sell eggs at church and to the headmaster’s wife at my school to literally anybody I could. And at the time, I was selling them for like eight bucks a dozen, which was astronomical.
John Corcoran: 02:41
That’s quite high for, you know, 15, 20 years ago. 30 years.
Kyle Ewing: 02:44
Ago. Yeah, absolutely. Longer than that. And my tagline, which I’m still very proud of, was Kyle’s Egg Farm. Delicious eggs from happy Chickens.
John Corcoran: 02:53
Yeah. That’s good, that’s good. How do you think you managed to sell them for such a high price? Like how? One. You know, a lot of times we have trouble with pricing things, especially at a young age. So what gave you the confidence to charge that amount? And why do you think people paid it?
Kyle Ewing: 03:10
Oh, man, no one’s ever asked me that. And I’m so glad you did. Because in Denver we have what’s called the National Western Stock Show, which if you didn’t grow up on a farm, means that’s where you bring the prize cow and prize bull and prize chicken. And we would go to the stock show, and I would buy the prize hen and rooster. And to give you some context, the world champion rooster cost $6 at the time. So I would save up a couple bucks and buy the prize rooster and the prize hen. And I would include that in my little marketing pitch that these are literally from the best chickens in the entire world.
John Corcoran: 03:46
That is brilliant. And they cost six bucks. That’s what a deal cost today.
Kyle Ewing: 03:51
But yeah, I remember forking over a five and a single for each chicken. And I was just, like, carrying them around like I had the coolest thing in the world. People would ask me about it. I was so proud to tell them. It was just absolutely hilarious. I loved it.
John Corcoran: 04:06
You know, I’ve had a lot of entrepreneurs, I’ve interviewed over a thousand entrepreneurs, and some of them are really proud of the businesses that they’ve acquired and how quickly they get ROI on their investment. But I have not found someone yet who spends $6 and gets eight bucks back on their very first dozen eggs that they like. Two weeks later. You’ve got ROI.
Kyle Ewing: 04:25
Yeah, absolutely. And what’s funny is, like, chickens lay one egg a day. So pretty quickly you have more than you can. Like you can’t sell that many. I mean, it just goes so fast. So anyway, I love that business.
John Corcoran: 04:35
I guess the question is, why did you ever abandon that business? I mean, that clearly was the best business of all of these businesses, right?
Kyle Ewing: 04:40
Well, you know, at some point I moved off to boarding school and my father was literally collecting the eggs and delivering them, and he was like, all right, dude, I gotta wrap this up. Like I was like, but you’re keeping the money. And he’s like, Kyle, this is no more. So that was the end of that business.
John Corcoran: 04:56
That’s funny. All right. And you actually eventually became a pro skier in high school and college. Were you, like making money and getting paid or did you have sponsorships?
Kyle Ewing: 05:08
Yeah. There was a little bit of prize money that we would get at some of the events, and then the sponsors would cut us checks. You have what’s called a victory schedule. So if you get third place or second place or first place, you get a certain amount of payout. And if you get their logo on TV like you do an interview, they measure the number of seconds. You would like to cut the clip. And I would literally do it on a VCR and then send it in with an exact time stamp. And then they would pay per second.
John Corcoran: 05:37
Wow. And you actually went to the Olympic trials. And so you’re this is to qualify for the Olympics and you got injured.
Kyle Ewing: 05:48
Yeah. Yeah. I was having a great day. Unfortunately, I had a piece of equipment break and I crashed and was injured. So it was pretty devastating.
In reality, at that point in my life, my entire identity and everything I thought about was dedicated to him, like freestyle skiing and going to the Olympics. This happened in December. The Olympics were in February. And then what happened is I actually got to go, but go as athlete support. So I would carry extra gear for the folks and use their skis and their poles and bring it up to the top of the mountain.
So if they had an equipment malfunction, we could switch. I could take the broken stuff back down and they’d have a new set ready to go. The best part was going to the parties at the Olympics with like Budweiser and McDonald’s and Visa and Coca-Cola, though interacting with the bigwigs from those companies is really what took my passion for business to a whole nother level. I just saw the business of the Olympics in a totally new light versus just the athletic piece. And I decided I don’t want to try to come back in four years as an athlete.
I want to go back to business school right away as soon as I can, and I want to get an MBA because I want their job. I don’t want to try to be an athlete forever and end up kind of running out, because your body can only last so long. And that’s what.
John Corcoran: 07:09
Sounds like quite a pivot point for you. I know you end up moving to Hawaii and you’ve kind of got this lifelong passion for Hawaii. You have lived, I believe, part time in Colorado, part time in Hawaii, and you just now are planning to move permanently to Hawaii in a couple of months time. When did this develop?
Kyle Ewing: 07:31
Yeah, you know, I’ve never said it publicly. So you will literally hear this first breaking news.
John Corcoran: 07:35
You’ve heard it here first.
Kyle Ewing: 07:37
Breaking news with John Corcoran. Yeah, between business school, undergraduate and graduate school, I thought I needed something to help me get into this program. And I wanted to get into this program specifically because I liked the folks that came out of it, and I liked what they had to offer. So I started this business in Hawaii where I was living, and I called it MBA Adventure Tours because I was trying to get an MBA. And it’s literally.
John Corcoran: 08:03
Before we even get to that, like, what brought you to Hawaii? There’s a lot of places you could have gone for the time in between undergrad and grad school. And, and you obviously have a lifelong passion for the place. So was there, was there a movie that you saw? Was it something, you know, growing up in the, you know, the frigid, you know, ski slopes that you just kind of wanted to go somewhere warm. What was it?
Kyle Ewing: 08:25
Absolutely. You know, I had a good friend, Milo, in high school, and he had gotten a job out there and he said, hey, I’ve got a two bedroom apartment and I’m looking for a roommate. So if you want to come out here this summer, I’d love to have you. And I had done the mountain and the ski thing forever, and my plan wasn’t to keep skiing, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity.
John Corcoran: 08:46
Got it. So that was, you know, coming out there is what opened your eyes to what Paradise is like.
Kyle Ewing: 08:53
Absolutely.
John Corcoran: 08:53
Yeah. And so you go there and you start this company, which you call MBA tours, because you wanted to start, you wanted to apply for business school, and you thought that you needed to start a business. Clearly in Paradise, in order to get into a business school.
Kyle Ewing: 09:10
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I thought having started a business would really help my application.
John Corcoran: 09:14
Yeah. And you’re. So you’re schlepping up and down the beach, selling, like, skydiving tours, selling, like, you know, surf lessons and things like that, which was that as all it was cut out to be, was or was it more glamorous than you would think it would be or what was the experience like?
Kyle Ewing: 09:32
You know, I loved doing it because I got to meet the coolest people from all over the world. And the way I would do it is I made this, like, little Menu book. And it was of all the tours, and I took all the pictures from the various websites of the tour operators, and I went to Kinko’s and I laminated it, and I would carry it up and down the beach. And the way that I would initiate a conversation is I would see people taking a picture and I would say, oh, do you want me to get one of the two of you or the four of you? And they would say, oh my gosh, yes, that’s great.
And that would be my entree. As soon as I take the picture to say, hey, you know, where are you guys from? And they’d say, in California or whatever it is, and I’d be like, oh, have you guys learned to surf while you’re while you’ve been in Hawaii? You know, I kind of size them up. If they look athletic like young guys, they want to learn how to surf. And so I’m asking them, they’re like, oh no. Yeah. We don’t know how. And we’re like, actually I teach surfing. I could do a group private lesson for you guys.
We could meet right here at the beach tomorrow if you want to do it. And if and if that was a yes, I would do that. And if they said, oh, you know, we’re not really into water sports, then I would say, you know, if you haven’t been skydiving on the North Shore, you haven’t lived yet. Let me show you what it’s like. And then I would book the tour operator. And then they would give me a cut of the sale. So that’s how I was making money.
John Corcoran: 10:49
So you’re focusing on the sales? You didn’t have to do the fulfillment that way.
Kyle Ewing: 10:54
Exactly. And then the next level, which I learned about a month in, was to go to all of the hotel concierges in Waikiki and say, hey, here’s my business card. Book the tour through me. And they would say, well, we already have. We already work with these people.
Why do we need to do that? And I would say, because I’m going to pay the commission to you that same day. So if you sell, if you book a 2 or 3 me today, I’m going to come back later with cash and I’m going to hand it to you. I’m not going to put it in the group pool. I’m going to hand it to you, John.
And then I did that a couple of times, and then all of a sudden they’d get interested. Plus, if we had extra room on the dive boat on a Saturday or something, when I know it’s their day off, I’d say, hey, John, I got a couple spots. If you want to bring your friends, come out here, it’s on me. And we would just take some of the spots and then we built that relationship.
John Corcoran: 11:39
Did you go into these hotels, walk up to the concierges and introduce yourself, hand them your business card and make this pitch?
Kyle Ewing: 11:47
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I remember like the third one, I was in the Outrigger Waikiki and they said, well, I need a copy of your insurance. And I was like, insurance? What? Like what?
What even is that for something like this? And then I called around and got a $1 million policy for a pretty reasonable cost. And then I came back and I said, you know, here it is. So then I was able to get it.
John Corcoran: 12:12
Yeah, yeah. So you, you go and you get your MBA program and then I am sorry. You go and get your MBA. And then I believe you were a management consultant for a little while. That management consulting agency wanted to move you to Chicago. And you’re like, forget it. I don’t want to do that. And I know you had this day that you call your personal Independence Day Nine. 909. What was that?
Kyle Ewing: 12:40
Yeah. So nine. 909 was my first day without a real job. And that was the day I was going to become an entrepreneur. For real.
I was going to live off this, and I’m never going back to the corporate world. So. 9909I call it my personal Independence Day. And at least up until now, I haven’t had to go get a real job yet. So I’m very appreciative of that.
John Corcoran: 13:02
And what was the plan? Did you have an idea of what you were going to do, or did you quit and figure it out, I’ll figure it out after I quit.
Kyle Ewing: 13:11
Yeah, I think a true entrepreneur always has a side hustle, or at least 1 or 5 in their brain. And I had kind of started this company on the side while I was a consultant, and I was making ID systems for athletes. So something that you would wear around your neck or as a bracelet or lace into your shoes and it would have your, your name, emergency contact and your medical allergies. That way, if you and I, John, went on a bike ride or ride, or we went to climb a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado and you bumped your head. I could immediately find out who you are, who to call and tell, the emergency services like your allergies and how to treat you.
John Corcoran: 13:45
So it’s a good idea. It sounds like something that could require a lot of sales in order to be profitable, unless you’re selling them in big groups or bunches. If you’re going up to each, you know, individual person that’s about to go mountain biking, that’s like whatever, like a $20 sale or something. It doesn’t seem like something that would have a lot of potential to it. So how did you sell it or how did you package it in order to not have to, you know, constantly be hustling to make a, you know, $120 sale?
Kyle Ewing: 14:16
Yeah. At first I did that and I realized we’re never going to get there. This is not going to spread on its own at that speed. So what I started doing was opening up a booth at the local five K and the marathon’s in town, and I would go to the triathlons and set up a table and take orders there, and that worked pretty well. And then the thing that really got sales going would be to look at the groups that would be attending races.
So in Denver we have something called the Mile High United Way Turkey Trot. And I would call all the corporate companies that were putting together a team of like run walkers. And I would say, hey, look, here’s the cost. There are 36 bucks a piece, but I can do them for 20 bucks or whatever it is. If you want to buy this quantity of them, buy them for all your people.
Show them how important it is to them that your safety is important to you. And that’s how we kind of got the ball. Or I kind of got the ball rolling on sales is group group stuff.
John Corcoran: 15:14
And you sold this company. How did that come about? Were you tired of it and you wanted to move on to something else or did the opportunity come along?
Kyle Ewing: 15:22
Yeah, the opportunity came along. We were able to sell to a competitor. And that was great. It was a very smooth transaction. I think it gave me the impression that all business transactions are this easy.
I would say if there’s some takeaways, if somebody offers you an amount, it doesn’t matter how much money it is, it might be worth a counter. I was so excited to see it. I was like, yeah, deal done. Sold. We wrapped it up in 30 days, so we left some money on the table. Probably. But you know, was I able to buy my wife a house and myself a sports car? Yeah. So do I regret the decision? I don’t.
John Corcoran: 16:01
Yeah. Did that lead into TerraSlate? Because I can see some kind of connection because it’s a, you know, it’s something that has information printed on it and eventually you start. TerraSlate, is that what led into the TerraSlate idea?
Kyle Ewing: 16:16
Yeah, it is. And originally I thought the need was for there to be waterproof versions of passports. Like, I would travel with mine and at some point I had gotten it wet and the little stampy guy would always give me a hard time. Like all. Your passport’s all wrinkled up.
We’re like, yeah, but it’s still a valid passport. So, like, what do you care about? Yeah, and it was always an issue. So I said, okay, we need to develop waterproof paper so that we can make passports waterproof so that we don’t have this issue. And it was a pretty cool product.
The challenge was the business people that travel internationally all the time, they don’t lose their passport, they don’t get it wet. They don’t need this. And the people that are going to get their passport wet because they’re adventuring don’t know that’s about to happen. So we were selling like two a week. And I like to joke that we were making literally tens of dollars in this business.
But the issue was on 100,000 sheets. First production run. I was never going to sell this stuff. My payback was 200 plus years, and it didn’t feel like a viable business.
John Corcoran: 17:18
And how it was. Did the technology exist already or did you have to innovate and create a new technology, new this new paper?
Kyle Ewing: 17:26
Yeah. So what I did is I called around to figure out, like, who would be able to develop this. And I found out, like, okay, you need a chemical engineer. And then I called chemical engineering firms and they said, this is not a project for us. And then I finally got Ahold of a guy who knew a guy.
And eventually we started iterating. And then we went through a whole bunch of versions of it, like ten different iterations, because it was at first too brittle, and then it wouldn’t take ink or toner, and then it would melt all these different issues that we had to solve. And it took about a year till we got to a product that I could sell.