Black Flag Survival: Three Years in Business and the Power of Community

Written By Nick Italiano

Blackflagsurvival.com just passed its three year anniversary and I decided to sit down to reflect on the series of events that led me to launching this website and ultimately pursue a career as a writer and small business consultant in the survival, everyday carry, and outdoor space. It is really amazing how one simple event can change the course of our lives and lead us down a path that we never thought would be possible. So today, we have a story, an accounting of the events and people who helped to shape who I am today.

Before I mention anyone else, I have to thank my wife Robin for her support, encouragement, and hard work. Without all these things, Black Flag Survival would not exist. There is not a day that goes by that one or all three of those things come from her to keep this ship afloat! When I found myself in the most confusing time in my life when my health declined and I was forced to leave my full-time job, it was her encouragement and support that really pushed me to believe in myself and move Black Flag Survival forward.     

We will start back in 2019 with an event that seemingly has nothing to do with me. It starts with Stu and Ben Shank, avid outdoorsmen and knife enthusiasts who were kicking around the idea of starting a knife company. They wanted to make premium quality outdoor knives that outdoors enthusiasts could rely on for all their outdoor tasks, and they wanted to make sure that they were 100% American made. This is not a simple task. The Shank brothers did not have the equipment to manufacture knives, and they would have to outsource the production. While they worked tirelessly on the designs for their first two knives, they also set out to find American made steel and American machine shops who could help bring their vision to life. Two years later, Reiff Knives was formally organized, and they were ready to start testing their F4 and F6 models.

It was around that time that my Instagram had started to pick up traction, and Stu sent me a message asking if I would be interested in providing feedback on the F4. This was a very exciting moment for me. This was the first prototype model that anyone had ever asked me to provide any kind of feedback on. Of course I said yes! In my mind, I would like to believe that I was calm and professional in my response, but the overwhelming excitement that a knife company would care about my opinion on their product was hard to contain. This is the kind of moment that really sticks with you, because ultimately this simple request had totally changed the course of my life and it was what gave me the confidence to charge forward with my dream taking Black Flag beyond social media and to pursue professional writing. Shortly later, I launched this website and wrote my very first product review, and it was on the Reiff F4! 

I remember sending the review over to Stu after it was completed, and he offered high praise, and his thanks for writing it. I think he may have just been trying to be nice, as I often look back on this review to remind me of how much I have grown, both as a reviewer and a writer. I can say it wasn’t a technically bad article, but it lacked the depth that makes a product review really pop. Despite being what I would consider not my greatest work, that review remains one of my most popular articles on this website. Regardless of my own harsh criticism of my work, this first review really gave me the motivation to do so much more! 

After the F4 article went live, I began searching for more opportunities to write. During this search, I came across a story post by Knife Pivot Lube as they were looking for a new blog writer. Armed with my newfound confidence, I responded, saying I was interested. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was going to give it a shot! Ryan, owner and chemist of KPL, explained what they were looking for and gave me a topic to write about. I remember being so excited and nervous that I stayed up to some absurd hour of the night working on the sample article. Once it was done, I sent it over and started filling my head with all kinds of self-doubt. Very shortly after I sent the article, Ryan responded, and much to my surprise, he loved it! He asked me to come on as a blog writer for them on the spot! I couldn’t believe it, my mind was running a million miles a minute, For the first time in my life I was being paid to write! I did not know at the time that I was embarking down a path that would lead to the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done in my life.  

By 2022, I was regularly contributing monthly articles to the KPL blog and writing more on this website. Ryan and Lindi at KPL asked if I would be interested in attending Blade Show in Atlanta to help out with their booth. I was so excited at the prospect of meeting many of the people that I had talked with online as well as seeing some of my favorite makers. It was really the first time that I felt like an “industry person” and not just an enthusiast. It was an absolute blast, and I got the opportunity to flex my sales muscles a bit for KPL while also making a ton of new connections myself. While much of the time seems like a blur, Blade Show 2022 was a tremendous moment in my career. I met so many people that would greatly influence the course of my life. I met Dustin from Wazoo Gear, and we had a great conversation that ultimately led to me working with them and a team of awesome content creators in the industry on the launch of their new Spark Necklace.

I met Heather and Todd from PNWBUSHCRAFT. Todd was just like me, a lost soul who struggled to remain behind the booth. So we frequently ran into each other during our trips around the Cobb Galleria. In all my travels around the show, I frequently ended up back at the PNWBUSHCRAFT booth as Heather’s cheerful personality was just so welcoming! Heather and Todd later became not just business associates but good friends!

I met some of the folks over at ESEE Knives, including Shane Adams and Reuben Bolieu, both of which had a major impact down the road of helping me establish my presence in the outdoor industry.

In my travels around the show, I had the opportunity to chat with many knife makers I respected and see the passion behind what they do. I found the Reiff Knives booth, and I was happy to see all their knives and many people who were interested in them! I waited until the booth died down a bit and went to formally introduce myself to Stu in person. I was greeted with an enthusiastic hug, and we spent some time catching up on all the things we were both working on and our plans for the future.

Armed with new found motivation and a desire to take my business even further, I returned home with fresh ideas for creating content and a host of new makers to work with on product reviews and promotions. I started doing live shows on Instagram, talking with makers and business owners in the industry, which ended up being the precursor to the Raise the Flag Podcast.

During the Wazoo Spark Necklace project, I met Bourbon Bill, who runs the Sparrow Bushcraft page on Instagram. He later introduced me to Tom Nugent, owner of Knives by Nuge. Tom was looking for some help promoting his knives and what started with a request to review one of his knives grew into a great friendship and collaborative partnership! To this day, we still work closely to help grow each other’s businesses.

As Tom and I worked together we started doing weekly live shows on Instagram that I called “Nonsense with Nick and Nuge” and after a few months of near daily encouragement to start a podcast Tom finally pushed me to start Raise the Flag Podcast in early 2023

I honestly had no idea how hard a podcast could actually be. I had no idea how to record well or edit a podcast, and that was quite evident in our early episodes! That’s when my friend Ross stepped in to help out. He later joined us as a third host and producer. Ross ended up exiting the podcast down the line because of some creative differences and general life craziness, but I am grateful for his contributions, teaching me how to better record and edit podcasts, and for the intro and outro music he wrote for the podcast that I still use today! Tom and I continued to make podcasts, getting some really awesome guests on and having a ton of fun just chatting with them.

The website was also picking up a ton of visitors.  I had several guest writers including Anthony Bryant, who also did all of Black Flags graphic work, publish articles and had regular contributions from Phil Spano who was running an EDC page on Instagram called The Ruthless Project on Instagram. 

I again attended Blade Show with KPL in 2023 and had another amazing year catching up with old friends and making new ones. Later on that year, I took on the Role of Blog Manager for KPL, and I was now coming up with all the topics, writing, editing, and formatting all of their blog posts.

Beyond the scope of the work I was doing for KPL, I was also working on the podcast, trying to grow my social media, writing for my website, and doing some copy work for Tom’s website, doing a few articles here and there for Brian at The Woods Monkey and other outlets, all while trying to take on more business consulting work. With all that happening it was very hard to keep focus on the direction I was moving, but fortunately I had Tom Nugent to help keep me focused, mostly through cursing at me New Jersey style, but in the most constructive way possible! 

Tom, his girlfriend Lauren, and I attended the Campfire Co-Op Business Summit, followed by the Georgia Bushcraft Fall Gathering in 2023 where we had an awesome time freezing our butts off over the freakishly cold nights, attending business discussions, networking with other business owners, and hanging out by campfires talking with our friends in the industry.

I got to spend more time with Reuben Bolieu, who is an incredible writer in the outdoor space, an amazing storyteller, and a true inspiration for me. Since then he has done so much to help me better position myself as a professional writer with absolutely no expectation of anything in return, he is truly a stand up person and I am fortunate to call him a friend.

Tom and I also took the opportunity to invite Heather from PNWBUSHCRAFT,who was already a frequent guest on the podcast, to join us as a full-time host of Raise the Flag. Heather’s vibrant energy , sense of humor, and incredible drive were a great addition to balance out our grumpy rumblings! I met so many awesome people, many of whom ended up being guests on our podcast and/or had products featured in reviews for my website or the KPL blog.

Going into 2024, my head was absolutely buzzing, and I felt it was time to drill down on the number of things I was trying to accomplish on a daily basis. As social media has become increasingly hostile to the knife and outdoor communities, I turned more of my attention to the website and really started to increase the number of articles being written. Publishing one article every week and sometimes even more. I limited my consulting work to just a few companies as I really wanted to focus on more writing related work.

I was contacted by Patrick Diedrich, who was launching a new online survival training website called Vargold. What started with a simple email exchange and a few phone calls ended up with him being a repeat guest on the podcast and me working with him to help build Vargold. While I was helping him test some of the website features of Vargold, he inspired me to create a video based course on foraging that is available on Vargold! This was a very fun project, and reminded me how much I enjoyed sharing the knowledge I have acquired over the years with others.

Today, I continue to work with Patrick on developing new coursework for Vargold, and I am happy to have yet another great friendship that came about from my professional journey.

I attended Blade Show with KPL once more in 2024. This year, we did a big collaborative booth with Knives by Nuge and had an amazing show full of great sales and making connections. The show after hours were spent in “The Pit” hanging out with some friends in the industry, including Scott and Kevin from USA Made Blade, Joe Flowers from Bushcraft Global, and many more.  I got to connect with Mike from Auxiliary Manufacturing, JD from JD Custom Knives, Adam from AA Forge and Jason from Kpaw Custom Knives. Collectively, these guys are really awesome makers and human beings, It was awesome to talk with them and their families!

Reuben hooked me up with some of my favorite Voodoo Ranger “tall boys” and after drinking enough to not be so self conscious of my innate social awkwardness, he took the time to introduce me to just about every writer and the industry. After a marathon weekend of working hard at the show, staying up too late during the after parties, and consuming my annual allotment of alcohol, I was exhausted but incredibly motivated to get back home and start doing more work on Black Flag!

Now, coming to the tail end of 2024, I am busier than ever writing, creating courses, managing KPL’s blog and Instagram page, hosting the podcast, and doing some limited consulting work. As I am wrapping up my 3rd year of business, I am eagerly looking forward to opportunities to come in the next 3 years and hopefully another 30 beyond that! 

If I had to summarize the most important point in this entire story with one word, it would be “community.” What I have found is more than just a career path, but a robust community filled with some of the hardest working, driven, and amazingly collaborative small businesses and content creators. It goes beyond just having a sense of camaraderie. It is so inspiring to see people work so hard to achieve their dreams. This is even taken a step further when I learned that so many of these people have had similar experiences as me. So many of these folks worked in corporate jobs or in fields that they simply did not find fulfilling and through a crazy life event or simple burnout they were able to find their entrepreneurial spirit and build something amazing that both filled their wallets and their souls! 

While this story chronicles the positive highlights of my 3 years in business, it at best glosses over the struggles, and believe me when I say the struggles of building a small business are very real! Getting past those hard times requires a lot of mental gymnastics, the ability to deal with a ton of stress, and an insane amount of outside the box thinking. It also requires an understanding that you can’t do everything on your own, and having the support of an outstanding community is so important. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats!  I am beyond grateful that I have had the honor of helping my friends grow their businesses and the privilege of having them help me to grow mine!

Over the years I have met so many people that I now call friends and business associates that I can not name them all here, but you can find many of them all over my website in product articles, maker features, and my training and outfitting pages.

Beyond that, I am just as grateful for each of my subscribers, readers, podcast listeners, and social media followers. It truly brings me more joy and satisfaction that thousands of people each year take the time and see value in reading my articles and checking out the other content I create.

None of what I do would be possible without the support of this amazing community of knife enthusiasts, outdoors people, small business owners, content creators, and of course the support of my Wife and children who never stopped believing in me!