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SPEAKER_02
You own the largest quilting company in the world. It does over $100 million in revenue, and you also have now bought two towns.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I thought it was gonna work for Microsoft or Facebook or something, right? Like, from an e-commerce standpoint, honestly, man, I think I'm world-class. I think I'm one of the best brains at selling stuff on the internet. And that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off on a road.
Let's travel, never looking back.
SPEAKER_03
We're live, by the way. This is it. This is the pod.
Okay, okay. How did you meet him?
SPEAKER_02
Well, you gotta keep the Hubestank story in.
SPEAKER_03
At least he'd be like one of our, can you just? Yeah, the joke was when we started the hustle, for some reason, I picked Hubestank as the band that I liked. And in the email, we'd be like, you know, like this young kid who just raised a bunch of funding, like he's gonna be one of the greats, like Elon, like Steve Jobs or Hubestank.
SPEAKER_01
Or, you know, like, Wait, what people notice? Would you get replies that are like,
SPEAKER_03
what the crap he's done? Every once in a while. So I put it on my LinkedIn and I put that I'm the webmaster of the Hubestankfanclub.com.
SPEAKER_03
So give up. Dude, you gotta give your intro. Who are you? What would you say you do?
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm Al Done. What do I do? I own Creativity Inc, which is, you know, it's got a quilting company, a big quilting company, and a knitting company, and an art company.
A lot of stuff in that space. Dude, you're so bad at telling your own story. Well, you just said the intro.
This isn't my story. You want me to tell? Well, I would say, yeah, I would say
SPEAKER_03
I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.
SPEAKER_01
Missouri Star Quilt Company.
SPEAKER_03
Missouri Star Quilt Company.
SPEAKER_01
It's a behemoth of a quilting company.
SPEAKER_02
Can you say what the revenues are? Yeah, it's the biggest. Let's first start with that.
SPEAKER_01
It is the biggest. It's the biggest. It's, let's see, we're 400-some employees, over 100 million in revenue.
Like, it's a big old bull.
SPEAKER_02
You own the largest quilting company in the world. It does over $100 million in revenue, and you also have now bought two towns.
SPEAKER_01
So the quilting company in Hamilton, right? We bought the entire downtown district. So 27 buildings downtown. Because you had two or because that's awesome.
No, this was the, so like, when we started this quilt company, the challenge is like, there's 3,500 quilt companies in America, right? Like, they're in every little city. And you're saying that like we know that.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Like, right, you know, I'm under it.
SPEAKER_01
I'm like, you're with me, right? It's a 3,501. Doesn't really pull the eyeballs in. And so I, like, there's no ESPN for quilters, right? I can't just go advertise for this.
And so I'm like, how are we gonna get this? And so our, like, we were in this little town. We grew big enough online that we had the like, like we couldn't fit all the inventory in our space. And because like, we could either go open a warehouse, which would have been the normal same thing to do, or we're like, man, it's awesome.
Cause when people come to our town, there's normally no customers. And so like the impression you get if you walked in there, it was just retail is like, nobody's here and this is really sucky. And so instead we had like 12 people cutting and fulfilling fabrics.
You'd walk in and there's like this energy, this buzz that was happening in the shop. And so we split it out and bought, or and bought the next building over and put fabric in there. And then I was like, man, who has the most quilt shops of any town in the world? Right? Like that was like, it's the biggest wood nickel in Minnesota.
This was gonna be my thing. And some town in Germany, I think had four. And I was like, we're gonna, we're gonna take it to these ladies.
SPEAKER_02
So you wanted to create a tourist destination. Yeah, you're quilting.
SPEAKER_01
Just be a novelty, right? It was just supposed to be a novelty. And so then we ended up like Dollywood or whatever. It's like, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02
Either way, so you're basically, you were like, I'm gonna have the most quilting shops.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So then like, if you're driving by on the highway, you're like, the most are you kidding me? All right, let's go check it out. I gotta see it.
Yeah. And so in that process too, we got like, people were coming to town, we only had like subway and the gas station for food. So we started restaurants and we've got a sleep and so, we're like, it's a slumber party for ladies to come.
SPEAKER_02
So you're saying it right now, like it's like, you know, this is a natural thing to do. But like the first part of the idea, which is like, let's create the town with the most, let's create a tourist destination. That's not what most companies do.
So you have this idea from where and then aren't people saying, yo, this is crazy. We don't have to do this.
SPEAKER_03
You know, do you and your family own the whole thing? Yeah. Yeah. So you're able to do crazy shit like this.
SPEAKER_01
Well, we're bootstrapped. But like, dude, fabric, a fabric company is a hard thing to bootstrap because like, like fabric, you order your fabric six months before you get it. We're growing 200% a year.
We got to hold the fabric for nine months, recover your initial costs in the first 90 days, right? So that you can cover terms and like, it's like a really complicated, we're betting the farm every three months. And like, if we're wrong, we go under.
SPEAKER_03
So if you do 150 million in revenue, how much EBITDA can you do?
SPEAKER_01
So we're like a normal e-commerce business. So our goal is about 20%. We're not there yet, especially this year, right? But like, that's where we'll end up.
SPEAKER_03
But then you take the profits out and buy.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I've made like seven nickels. Alongside that, I pay myself a fine salary, but like, all the money goes back in, right?
SPEAKER_02
Next purchase order, next purchase order.
SPEAKER_01
Well, because we're growing by significant amounts every year, most of that gets tied up in inventory.
SPEAKER_03
In two years, what do you think you could sell the business for?
SPEAKER_01
Well, our goal right now, man, well, I think we can get 20% growth for a couple of years, right, which should move our valuation to like a 5x revenue.
SPEAKER_03
So like a billion dollars.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that's the idea.
SPEAKER_03
How many, is it like your wife or your sister, your mom, who all is the shareholders? So like your whole family is gonna get.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So it's me and my sister, my buddy, Dave, are the main ones. And then like all of our family, just this year, just this year we cut in like all of our employees that have been there for any kind of time.
And that's a cool feeling.
SPEAKER_02
Well, you started it with your mom, or your mom started and you tell that little bit of a story.
SPEAKER_01
So the idea, like me and my sister have been talking about starting a company for a while. I was like a year out of college, right? And so like, I was, I don't know, everybody's sort of an entrepreneur right out of college. That's what I'm gonna do.
And we were sort of that same way. And my mom had taken a quilt into the quilt. She's, you sew the top together and take it to a lady.
It's got a big $40,000 machine and they're gonna stitch all the backing and the fluffy stuff in the middle and the top, they're gonna stitch it all together. And this lady was out a year and she's like, oh, I made your sister a quilt. I took it in, I'll get it back in, you know, 2008.
And I'm like, nothing takes a year to do. Like you can build a house in less time than it takes to get this quilt done. And so-
SPEAKER_02
Either she's terrible or there's a lot of demand.
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, that was literally my market research. I was like, there is gonna be a market here for this. Are there others? She's like, yeah, everybody's backed up.
SPEAKER_03
And when you say quilt, like literally just a blanket, right? Shut up, okay?
SPEAKER_01
How dare you? Yeah. It's a quilt, not a blanket. But I mean like quilt,
SPEAKER_03
like cause I know some people like hang shit on their walls. Yeah, yeah. And then some people have like a decorative quilt and then some people like I had a quilt like comforter.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that. And like my mom's shtick is she's like, she's like the McDonald's of quilting, right? Cause quilting, like most of these hobbies are very defined. You know, there's a quilt police.
It's kind of come and get you if the seams are off or whatever, right? And if your points don't match, getting into any hobby, there's that sentiment that you're like, I can't go to the group yet. I'm not good enough. Right. And so mom's like, ah, no, finish is better than perfect. Well, and our big innovation, do we made like the Lego blocks of quilting, right? So it's a pack of five inch squares and pack of 10 inch squares.
And you sew them together and cut them like this and whack, it makes it this. So like really simple tricks and techniques. She was a costumer when we were kids.
SPEAKER_02
You're saying McDonald's cause he like kind of made a process out of the burger,
SPEAKER_01
making process where it's like, anybody can make this burger. Well, no, I'm saying McDonald's cause it's like, it's like not fancy, right? It's not, you're not spending a lot on it. It's like, it's, you're trying to do it to get to the, it's serving the purpose of filling you with food.
Right.
SPEAKER_00
Air quotes food.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it's funny cause like my business buddies and stuff will sort of laugh at like my whiteboard. It's like layer cakes up 17%. Turnovers down, you know, jelly rolls.
We got to get these back. You know, it's like, it's, it's all sort of, you know, goofy terms for people that aren't in the space. But like, man, it's, it's a 45 to 70 year old demographic as the majority of my customers.
And there are so few people building awesome experiences for them that like, I feel like a, you know, a lion among sheep being in there. Just like, we're going to build amazing, great experiences for these people.
SPEAKER_02
Sam's pretty sure that is a dwarf amongst widgets.
SPEAKER_01
Is that your phrase? Yeah. No, everybody normally says that a dwarf amongst midgets. That's very clever.
SPEAKER_03
It's not, it's not allowed anymore. But we're both Missourians. We probably grew up in somewhat similar environments.
And that was a phrase. And I like that and like,
SPEAKER_01
they're the same people, right? Is that why it's hilarious?
SPEAKER_02
No one understood it.
SPEAKER_03
You just dwarf among midgets. It's like a dwarf is like a tall midget. Look, like that's just a phrase.
I didn't even realize it was like, don't cancel it.
SPEAKER_02
I didn't realize it was bad.
SPEAKER_03
Another one is tough. Kitty said the kitty, but the milk's still good. Have you heard of that one?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_03
So anyway, what do you think it's going to be like in two or three years if you ever sell? I mean, are you guys, you're going to be the richest person in like by hundreds of miles. What are you going to do? Just buy thousands of acres?
SPEAKER_01
Well, the idea is not like, I don't know if we'll sell it, right? But there's a big question in my head of like, my main say is like, I don't want my kid to grow up and say, I got to be a quilter because papa was a quilter, right? And it's like, it's a business.
SPEAKER_03
You got to get in here. The tail is all this time.
SPEAKER_01
Tough titties with the kitty and the milk and the goods. But, but like, so I'm trying to figure out how to navigate around that. Like how do you maximize value and create the most opportunity and all that kind of stuff.
I'm very attracted to a finish line, right? Which a, an IPO or a sale or something would be, but also, you know, get to the point where it's shedding off EBITDA and it's a very easy one
SPEAKER_02
to just keep running. 12 years. Yeah. You didn't know, were you even like into quilting before that? Like, were you an induce?
SPEAKER_01
No, no, my mom makes me, she's, she made me make one quilt. She's like, you can't run this company and not be a quilter. So I've, I've made one.
I'm making another right now. A nice bear paw on point.
SPEAKER_03
What did you know how to do? You didn't, you just, you worked at, you were a software guy.
SPEAKER_01
These are such mean questions.
SPEAKER_02
No, I, the funny thing is at this event, why are you? Sam's basically been having an intervention. Cause he's asking questions that he thinks are completely normal questions that everybody here's been like,
SPEAKER_01
wait, and women would date you. That's so weird.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. So like Sam, when you ask questions, it's like a full frontal attack. He's like, what do you mean? He is like completely oblivious to the fact that these questions are outrageous.
SPEAKER_03
So like his mom is like the face of like their YouTube. And he was explaining to me what she was like. And I, I looked up the YouTube like, oh, she looked exactly like I expected.
And he was like, what the hell? I was like, look, I explained her to be like a nice.
SPEAKER_01
He's like, that was a compliment. I was like, very rarely is, oh, she looked exactly how I thought she would make a couple.
SPEAKER_02
A lot of misunderstandings going on.
SPEAKER_03
I was like, I thought she sounded like a lovely nice woman. And who's cool. And I was like, and she looks like it.
SPEAKER_01
Sweet Dorothy Manto.
SPEAKER_03
But, but, but he also said that you own 200 acres. And you like, I do own.
SPEAKER_01
So I like, like this story. When you become this, I'm 100% hillbilly rich, right? Like, like give me a hundred million dollars tomorrow. My life doesn't change at all.
I've got, I've got a car that I like to drive. I've got a house that I like to live in. I got three beautiful boys and a wife and a beautiful wife.
Also, I mean, beautiful, extensive, all of them. And, and like I'm, I'm done, right? And so it's sort of a weird spot where I don't need, I don't need the finish line. The, the only value that a finish line would offer is like the past the mantle, right? Like I no longer wake up and have to stress about like, what if we ruin it all tomorrow? What if the person that we hired to do this, like screws it all up? What were you good at?
SPEAKER_03
The, I, I, Oh yeah, yeah. What skill, what attributes did you bring to the quilting table?
SPEAKER_01
Great question. Great questions. Yeah. Not a lot. I mean, so I came out of, I came out of college and my first job was with Symantec.
Like I, I was a really good kind of networker, right? And, and not, not networker, but like, I like people that I like and I hate people that I hate. And I like some guys that like we're doing this all.
SPEAKER_02
You're the most popular guy in the house right now, by the way.
SPEAKER_00
I don't know if you know this.
SPEAKER_02
For real? There's like 25 people here. There's some famous people. Everybody's like, big, I'm gonna give a different nickname for you.
It's like big out. Then somebody's like big city cause he's buying cities. And other guys like, oh,
SPEAKER_01
I'll own big cities. A cool name. It's like, it's better than big country.
I get big country a lot, but big city. Yeah. No, big city is okay.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you. But anyways, you're super like, I was calling out there like, what did you know? You go, he's like, he's rich, he's smart, and he's, and he's funny. And I was like, yeah, you need to be the next bachelor, dude.
SPEAKER_00
And I like, this is amazing.
SPEAKER_02
How did you meet him? Well, I mean, I don't even know. Patrick was on the podcast. So Patrick came on the pod.
That was the first time I thought about the word quilt
SPEAKER_01
in like 12 years. Well, he was telling my story and all my buddies were like, dude, you're on this podcast, dude. You gotta check this out.
So I'm like, what the crap? And then you DMed. And then I DMed you and I was like, oh man, that's my story. Like, if you want to hear it,
SPEAKER_02
I'll have it for you around. Because Patrick was like, there's this niche market of quilting that's way bigger than people realize. And I was like, what? Really? Remember when we were like blown away? And then we were like, what's, he's like, yeah, there's companies that are huge.
SPEAKER_01
The conversation was great. Cause you're like, oh, that's rad man, love to hear it sometime. Do you ball?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Do you want to come? I think I ghosted you for like a month. And I was like, oh, hey, by the way, yeah, I do want to talk about that.
But more importantly, you want to meet up and person it and play basketball.
SPEAKER_01
You didn't know anyone here, right? No, no, no. Yeah, this is great. Did you even know Patrick? No.
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow. No, I'd never met any of these guys. You took an amazing,
SPEAKER_01
we put face to show up. And I turned out to be like six foot seven and love playing basketball.
SPEAKER_03
And yeah. Did he kick my ass on the court?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, here's the basic. So dude, you smoked us for the championship game, drained three threes in my face.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I had like the greatest moment of my life today. So you know, it's okay.
So, okay. So you do the quilting thing.
SPEAKER_01
No, wait, wait, wait. My skills before this, just buddies that like, that like connected me up. So I was working in a software company, lost that job in dramatic fashion.
I never been without a job at the time. What does that mean? Like I fired? Yeah. Like me and 20,000 people got laid off in 2008, right? And so I'm like consulting and trying to like just.
How old were you? I was 26. In Missouri? Yeah. Yeah. But like, well, I was like living in Boston at the time. They moved me out there and I was visiting my buddy up in Toronto and then I moved in with him and his wife and their new baby, you, me and DePri style.
And it was like, we'll start a company up here. Let's do it. So we tried like three of them.
We tried to know his own cleaning technology that we'd sell to real estate agents. And I was like a terrible time to sell to real estate agents in 2008. And we tried to do a little wealth management thing because he wanted to be a wealth management advisor.
And so we tried to start that. And then, and then this, the Quilt company we had already and I wanted to do like a daily deal version because at the time it was hot, right? Or it was like woot.com and steep and cheap.
And just talked all about whoop. And like chain love and all that stuff. And I loved those in college because they were, they were great.
And I'd wait up till midnight, which in Hawaii where I was going to school was like, was like seven o'clock, right? And I'd be like, wait to see what it is. And like every site was built for like, right, you would do the loves riding bikes, chainlove.com. And there's a new thing every night. But like nobody was building them for the 45 to 70 year old demo.
And so when I did the quilters daily deal, I think it was literally the first time anybody had done a daily deal site for my demographic.
SPEAKER_03
Which is like a discounted fabric.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it was discounted items, right? And like, dude at the beginning it was so funny cause like I was, I was the guy doing it all. We're just scrapping our way through it. So like, I'm not a good writer for my mom, right? We're like, I'd write these stories.
SPEAKER_03
And they're always like, hey ladies, like,
SPEAKER_01
hey, fellow women. No, no, so we started a forum and the first six months of the forum cause nobody wants to join an empty forum. I was Jeannie B and Sarah Sue and my buddy Dave was Carmen and Elizabeth.
And we just have these like,
SPEAKER_02
Chatting all day.
SPEAKER_01
Oh, dude, we be, yes. What kind of quilt did you make? That's so cute. I was the brother.
And eventually now it's like 90,000 members and like it's a great old thing.
SPEAKER_03
Wow, so that's really, so you. All right, everyone. Today's episode is brought to you by Imperfect Action hosted by Steph Taylor.
It's a podcast on HubSpots Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Imperfect Action is a bite-sized online marketing podcast for business owners. So join Steph Taylor as she answers all your business marketing questions that deep dives into the nitty gritty of online marketing, content marketing, social media marketing and marketing for strategy for business owners.
A few recent episodes include some of the biggest mistakes you can make with your launch. Another one is why growing your audience feels so hard in 2022. And another one is five ways to make content creation less consuming.
So check it out. It's called Imperfect Action. You can look it up wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_02
But your mom had must have had some following or something? Is that how it started?
SPEAKER_01
No, she had zero following. No, I started with the forum. No, no, we launched.
So the chronology, we launched with the website that I like sat and built. We launched with the store that we started. She was doing quilts.
And then I built this website on oneandone.com. Do you remember that old shared hosting? They lost my site a couple times. I was like, I'll start over.
Thanks, guys. And built this site. And it was a daily deal site that I would change at midnight.
I didn't have any automation. And I would just like go in, be on a date. Be like, hold on a second.
I got a log in to my quilting website and change it up. Tens of women are waiting for this. Dude, we launched it.
I still have the Facebook post in February 2009. And it's like, hey, I made a quilt shop for my mom. Check it out.
Two likes, right? Like zero orders the first three weeks. And but like every day I'm going in there writing these stories. But you didn't give up.
Didn't give up. Didn't give up. Why? Just like, uh, well, I mean, it was, it was a marketing challenge at that point.
Right. Like we knew, we knew that we had a product that was interesting. Like we're selling fabric online and like the other sites were like built on Yahoo stores and crap.
And I'm like, this is a way better experience for this. And we're just going to, we're going to take better pictures. This is our novelty.
We're going to, we're going to sell it better. And, and so we, we kept working at it. And we just thinking we had to figure out how to find people.
And dude, like I would write these deals every day and be like, there were always some version of the Pinocchio nightmare scene. I'm like, and then he turned into a donkey. And then he was in the whales belly and jumbo Rick rack is 399.
You know, it was like some weird things. I like, I was just trying to be creative.
SPEAKER_03
That's how wood did it too. They were pretty funny.
SPEAKER_01
Well, dude, I was modeling after that and just trying to like be humorous. And, and turns out like my mom was like, this isn't good. You need to stop doing this weird.
My buddy Dave ended up doing it for the next, the next while. And he was much better than I was. But, so we, we went three weeks without a sale.
Finally, my cousin, Jennifer ordered something. And so, you know, we're like, oh, that's all right. Thank you, Jen.
It's very nice. And, and we'd get like an order to a day and one day, one day we meant to price something like 288. It was the crazy eights charm pack.
We meant to price it at like 288 accidentally priced at 88 cents. We sold like 11 of them, but, but shipping was $5, right? And so like our cost on it was four or something. And so we're like, we still made money.
Like this works in the average order size was actually like $28. Like dude, a loss leader, we should lose money on this in a meaningful way. And, and we can build this.
And so it turned into like the deals are great deals and people love them. And, but that's what ended up building our business. And then as we went like, wherever you get in the fabric and supplies room, we buy them from vendors.
So like even, even a day, there's probably 40 vendors that we buy from. And then to grow it, we started making videos like the, the education stuff. YouTube was only a year and a half old at that point, late 2008, early 2009.
And there's like, there's like this guy Quilton buck on there. And it's like a webcam that he'd show on his quilt. And it was, it was cool.
People were trying to do stuff and nobody had like done it well. And so I bought like a Canon digital elf that was like the best resolution at the time and just like held it in my hands and, you know, the manual zooming stuff. But like got mom to start doing these tutorials.
And because I'm a 30 year old bearded guy, I'm like, don't say you're lingo, right? And you just talk to me so I can understand. I'm not a dummy. I have no idea what, what a wuff is right with the fabric.
Because normally teachers, when they try and start teaching, they'll try and like, like give themselves some, some validation by like, look, I know all the cool stuff. And I'm, I'm, I'm nerdy like you guys. And I just wouldn't let mom do that.
So she had to speak in a way that anybody can understand. We became this very approachable. If you've never made a quilt, you start with Mr.
Sir with Missouri star. And because we were making this content every week, we'd put it in our emails that we'd send out. And it was so like, we'd lead with that.
It was like, we made this great new tutorial for you with all these cool tricks and tips and stuff. And, and we, we'd ended up with like a 70% open rate on our promo emails, which is just the magic that we built around.
SPEAKER_03
And you, you're 12 years in, you're like a hundred, hundred and fifty or something like that revenue. What were the first five years you think?
SPEAKER_01
First year was a hundred grand. Then we did a million. Then we did four.
Then we did eight.
SPEAKER_03
And then we did 14. And then did eight.
SPEAKER_01
We kept growing at that rate. Yeah. And then after that was intense.
SPEAKER_03
At what point were you able to pay yourself and make money?
SPEAKER_01
So we paid mom after three years, right? Like it's crazy because I have, I have like seven siblings and my family and five of them work on the quilt company. And like we couldn't have done it if they couldn't have just like worked for free for the beginning. And like, I mean, it's, it's like volunteers, right?
SPEAKER_03
Well, what year was it making enough money? We're like, fuck it. Let's buy a town.
SPEAKER_01
Let's do this. Well, so four years in, we, we bought our second building, right? Or three years in, we bought our second building. And like we remodeled it all ourselves.
We did all the work. And then we bought, you know, we, we piecemeal the beginning one. Like it's, we can look back on it now and be like, oh yeah, well, we got, we got everything.
This is great. We did a good job. But like that was never the intent in the beginning.
My thought was that like people would see that we were bringing more people to town and they'd start these other businesses and do stuff. And by the time, like because we were running so far ahead of our own curve, we just ended up with like our whole downtown. And now we have like, like there's a few other businesses in town, but, and is there like,
SPEAKER_02
because what normally happens if you start to like buy everything in a town, like there's always like one or two people who are like, I'm going to hold out and we're like, you know, negotiate like, yeah, cause you need it. You need to complete the set.
SPEAKER_03
Then tiny comes knocking on their door.
SPEAKER_01
We need to talk. I cannot promise you protection. Did you guys run into that? Oh, yeah.
Like, like the average price for a building in a small Missouri town like that was about 20 grand. And by the, our last building is about 80, right? So we, I just bought this other town down the road from us, Kingston, right? And so like seven, Missouri. Yes. It was seven miles from our town. And, and so we bought, I think it's eight buildings and it's like, it'll be like 70,000 for all of them.
Right. Wow. And so there's just these old like condemned to sort of overrun buildings. We'll put 2 million into them to get them fixed up.
Right. But like the real estate is cheap. And the fact that it's already there and we're just kind of fixing what's there is,
SPEAKER_03
do you, I mean, I lived in St. Louis, which is way bigger than where you're from, but even that, it's not a competition. But even St.
Louis, I felt like, Oh, fuck, no one gets me. I feel like a freak here. I'm building this internet shit.
And so that's why I left and I moved to eventually San Francisco. And there's a reason why like a lot of companies are started in San Francisco or New York or Chicago or Austin, like these like bigger cities. Cause you, you meet people and you like spread ideas and you like are inspired by one another, whatever, like rubs off on each other.
Where were you learning how to do all this stuff? And did you ever feel like, what the hell man? I need to get out of here.
SPEAKER_01
So after I actually left this part out, this is a cool part. After college, I, uh, when I, when I lost my job, this was a, let's see, 2009, I, I declared my year of the NBA, right? I was looking at it like going back to, to Harvard. I had lived in Boston.
It was like, I should, I should really go. And it was like 200 grand to get, to get an MBA there. And I was like, man, that's, that's too much money for this broke farmer.
And so I declared the year of my MBA, I emailed all the guys who were like successful in business and were like, what are the three books that you'd recommend I read? And I got like a, a constrained list of, of like 37 books, right? And so I bought them all on Amazon for like $200. And then I, I had a bunch of buddies that were like doing cool stuff that I wanted to try. Like a guy was doing import, export out in Hawaii.
And another dude was doing like venture capital in Salt Lake. And so I was just like, let me come work for free for you guys for like three months. I just want to, I'll shine your shoes and make your coffee.
I just want to see how you run your business. And, and so I like, I hopped around to some of that. And then I got into, I got to be an intern in tech stars in 2010.
And so like while I'm building this quote company on the side, we've got these like world-class mentors coming in and like they'd mentor these companies doing, you know, cool robots and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02
You're listening to all these office hours.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Dick Costello, that's super interesting. What would you do if you had a quote company, man? I was just curious.
SPEAKER_02
Like, how would you, how would you move this? How would you like a deal daily? It feels like deals, right? Does that do anything? Yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_02
Like I was getting like this way.
SPEAKER_01
I noticed you were like, I'm not sure. I was like, I was getting like this way.
SPEAKER_02
I noticed you reached for your phone when I said that.
SPEAKER_01
Are you trying to tell somebody about this? What are you feeling right now? Yeah. No, it's, it's getting this way outsized like brain for, for the internet stuff. And I always thought that I would do something like, like I thought it was going to work for Microsoft or Facebook or something, right? And, and, and in the end, in the end, like I just took all the learnings that I had from this and my desire sort of be an internet tech entrepreneur and, and shoveled all that into, into this quilting company, which is, you know, again, like it's, it's very technology focused way, way early adopters on a lot of stuff.
And like it's given us a huge advantage as we've, as we built this stuff. Cause there's no other, like dude, there's no kids coming out of their MBA school trying to take my margins and that's, that's the, except for Patrick.
SPEAKER_03
Once Patrick told all your listeners, how do you have peers and how are you, do you have like peers in the internet world or Ecom world who you're like, you're chatting with on a regular basis to be inspired by, learn from or share ideas.
SPEAKER_01
I got buddies, right? Like I'm an angel investor. I'm in 50 companies doing stuff. We, I have a early stage fund that I run with some buddies.
Like, like I'm still, like these are still friends. We still talk, but, but there's like from an e-commerce standpoint, honestly, man, like I think I'm world class. I think I, I think I'm one of the best brains that sell stuff on the internet.
SPEAKER_02
And that's awesome. Yeah. That's also the, the, the, the, the like give myself an MBA thing. The way you approach that, that is so smart.
But also once you hear that story, like, of course this person's going to be successful as a hustler, right? Cause you, you basically do the math. You're like, okay, what do I want? What's the normal way to get there? Oh, this like kind of long two year really expensive way. Can I just get that like nine months for $250 and you're like, Oh yeah.
What if I just emailed all the smart people, asked them, what are the best three books? I read all those books and then I like go shadow, you know, the three free for a dude
SPEAKER_01
for like three months, like, like Cohen and Glarros, these guys, they'll still go to bat to me for me to this day, right? Because that three month investment that I made of like, and that dude, I was the first one in the last one out. Like I knew I wasn't getting paid, but like I was trying to soak it all up. I mean, you do that and like they'll open every door you ever need to get through.
SPEAKER_03
What was the most game changing, changing book of all those that you read?
SPEAKER_01
Well, honestly, dude, it's this book that's out of print. Like, like I didn't, I didn't read any business books that changed my life. Right. Like once you get through like six or seven, I quit reading because I'm like, it's the exact same thing. The principles for business are the exact same.
Just told in a different parable every time. And whatever your parable is, that's what you glom on to say, oh man, it's good to great. That's the best one.
This one, it's your Bible. But for me, like the most impactful was this one called coming out of the ice by Victor Herman, which is this, this dude that went over to Russia and like ended up being an amazing Olympian athlete, but Russia wanted to take credit for it. And he was like, no, I'm America.
So I throw him in jail for like 50 years and it's this crazy story that I'm like, this guy's an American hero. Somebody should know this story, but it's like, dude, reading that while I felt like my life was so hard. It was like, oh no, I'll be fine.
SPEAKER_03
I read that. I do the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_02
I'll read a better than therapy. Yeah. You want the fast version of therapy?
SPEAKER_01
It's David Goggins back in the day.
SPEAKER_03
Totally. Like I'll read like a book about Navy Seals or about like, I just read about the Cherokee Native Americans. Oh man.
SPEAKER_01
It makes your problems are so small.
SPEAKER_02
Like I'm such a punk.
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean? I do the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_01
It's way better than business books. No, it's like my favorite one out of that whole list because, because just a buddy one was like, oh, this is the best book I've ever read. Read this.
And I was like, all right, I'm in man. And that one's still to this day is like great. But this is my problem with college is like every marketing class I sat through or something.
I'm like, oh, this is your great idea. You say sell it for more than I bought it.
SPEAKER_00
You guys are clever.
SPEAKER_01
Thanks. I'm glad I'm paying for this. Right. And it's all these professors that used to be in the industry that you want to get into that no longer are that might have connections that could open the door for you. And so when I was looking at an MBA, I was like, this, this, like, what if I just go to the people that are in the industry right now and somehow network with them? Like that's going to open way more doors for me.
How many did great.
SPEAKER_03
How many people do you have foreign video employees, but how many of them are doing like a like white collar jobs like SEO work or like internet, internet related things? Maybe a hundred of them. A hundred of them. How many of them live in the town?
SPEAKER_03
How many of them are on site in Missouri?
SPEAKER_01
I think we have like 40 remote, like fully remote. Like our engineering team is remote. Like where are they? Like all over from Seattle to Serbia.
Right. Then we have like our design team is mostly remote. Like a lot of the ones that make sense to be remote or remote, but then in town, there's probably 250 of them that are like right there in town.
SPEAKER_02
Is buying a town with good business besides like you had, you have a business and this is kind of like adjacent, helpful. If I didn't have that, but if I was like, oh, there's just kind of like a bandedish town, really cheap real estate. I can buy that.
I can reinvigorate. Is that a good idea or no?
SPEAKER_01
Like, I think, I think every company should have a town. Well, like they did.
SPEAKER_03
That's a, that's like a, you know, so we can list a few for Henry Ford tried doing this in.
SPEAKER_01
Pella windows is up in Iowa. They have their own. Like, like there's a lot of Bethlehem PA.
A lot of them did and when a lot of towns were built around like that big company or something like that, but my thing is like, is like every dumb internet brand should, should have one. Right. Like this is my thought pattern here is if you're a 10 year old girl and super into baking, where in America do I have to take you? Nowhere. Right. But somebody, if they just take that opportunity, they're grabbing their like, and we're going to have Dutch ovens in this store, just going and cooking stuff. And then the kitchen aid mixer, you come and have the experience.
You're going to come and spend two weeks here, try everything they've gotten. You're going to learn how to make all this cool stuff and then go home and your mom's going to be stoked to spend three grand to give you the experience because it's magic and the whole town is built around that.
SPEAKER_03
And that's what you're doing for quilting.
SPEAKER_02
That's what we're doing for quilting. That's exactly what I do. Are people doing this for everything? Like if I wanted to go, they should.
People are like, oh, I need to go to Paris to get that experience. But like, if I'm into like cooking or design, like let's say it's cooking, right?
SPEAKER_01
And you go to Paris, you go to Paris and you take a class, but it's like, you have not gone to the cooking Mecca. Yeah. The cooking Mecca looks like we bought every building on the street and walk in this one. We have all the cake decorating stuff in here.
And then we've got all the baking stuff in here. And then we got all the stuff.
SPEAKER_03
So you'll give tours. I don't know what you want to call it.
SPEAKER_01
Well, no, you sell the stuff. You're a retailer, right? And tours are part of it. When I go there, I'm all of a sudden a part of the community, right?
SPEAKER_02
So if you go to a brewery, you could buy this stuff or a wine. It's like Napa. It's a good example of it.
Like wine. Napa.
SPEAKER_01
When, when, if you're a consumer of it, yeah, right? And it'd be cool to go and take the wine tour and do the whole thing. If you're a beer maker, where in America do you have to go? There's no, somebody should do it, right? I was, I forget who I was talking to, but they're like, oh, Patrick, right? He's from Wisconsin. I was like, it's crazy, man.
If I want to get into cheese making, give me the town that like it'll teach me. It has, it has 20 stores and I buy the cloth and you have every kind of cloth and I'll buy the basket and all every kind of basket. Like somebody's just going to take that branding and go build their, their town around it and like it's the biggest wooden nickel in Wisconsin now.
And I got to go see it because it's not, what is this example you're giving?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Wooden nickel. I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_01
You said that like in Iowa, driving down what is it? I 70 Iowa city has the biggest wooden nickel in Iowa or in the world. What is a wooden nickel? What is that? It's like a giant 16 foot Buffalo nickel that's like, you don't even know what a buffalo
SPEAKER_01
So in the olden days, if I don't know, Washington was on the quarter.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah. A buffalo nickel. A buffalo nickel is just any nickel made in the 1800s.
I think it had a picture of a buffalo.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. Right. Like it's, it's all that just the roadside novelty. Come see the biggest whatever the biggest pecan is in like Minnesota, I think or something right? Gotcha.
And you're like, all right, I'm just going to get off this highway and go look at this stupid huge pecan, take a picture by it and like then buy it back.
SPEAKER_02
So what are the economics? Let's say somebody does this. Like what's a, what's a vertical where you're like, or like a category where you're like, somebody should definitely do it for, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01
So like we just had twins a couple of years ago and I want it like if you're going to have a baby and they have the coolest experience, you race the stroller around the track and then you try 15 different cars. Yeah. Yeah. It should be in like Lehigh, Utah or something.
SPEAKER_01
With the Mormons, baby nickel you've ever seen. But like, but like the novelty of they have 20 stores and you're going to go and spend a week there and come out with $8,000 worth of baby stuff is, is the draw, right? You're going to, all your shopping is done there. Every baby product's represented.
Like that's, that's the novelty of it. And the economics, the economics are going to vary by like interest to interest.
SPEAKER_02
Where's the money made? Is it in the retail, the sales, or is it in the land appreciation because you now made a destination?
SPEAKER_03
Yeah. Is it just more, is it just a retail business that has higher than normal volume?
SPEAKER_01
Who knows, I worry that I'm doing a bad job explaining this. And if I am like, let's keep digging on it because it's great, but like, but like, so for, for an internet business, right? Like our company, there's a bunch of no name warehouses on the internet that sell fabric, but we are a little quilt shop in Hamilton, Missouri. In fact, we're, we're a cool quilt shop with all this branding and all this cool stuff that we've done and we'll never be the nameless faceless warehouse.
Right. So if you're starting, if you're starting a, you know, whatever, whatever goofy company you're doing, the second you open up a town. So one of the guys here, he's doing like firebrand tea, right? Yeah.
David Siegel. And I'm like, I'm like, bro, go open up a retail store. Cause the second you do that, I'm not just buying from your crappy warehouse where you're importing and trying to resell.
SPEAKER_02
You're saying you're trying to E-com lift because you're like, we're a real place with
SPEAKER_01
a real sign. It's a branding play.
SPEAKER_02
And like people like this, you'll never come here, even if you'll never come here because there's 99% of your traffic, never goes there. You're saying that, that stands you out against every other.
SPEAKER_01
He called it D to C brand and our split. Our split like we get 90% of our revenue is online, 10% in store, a little less in there. Like eight percent in store, but, but like our marketing is 98% the town.
Let me tell you the story about, oh, Susie Bradder Quilton. Oh, look at this new display we did. Oh, all this stuff.
Right. And that's, that's the story that we tell while most of our traffic or most of our revenue comes from online sales. So that's why I'm saying, dude, if you have a brand, that's fascinating.
So many of these guys are just trying to flip Shopify stores and like, oh, we import and it ships out of Ship Bob and it's great. And it's like, yeah, but like people know they're just getting scammed by it. I mean, you're just buying to resell and try and make a profit.
And the second you build a little bit of an experience around it, right? Like do the work to build the physical manifestation of your brand, the company all of a sudden is much, much more interesting in my mind.
SPEAKER_03
Let's say you sell the company in two years, you're you or your family collectively or maybe it worth a billion. You're not working with quilting anymore. What do you want to do? What do you want to start another company and what type of company? What do you want to do with your time and money?
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea. I started a company I love called Pretzel this like two years ago and it was the, it was the, the photo role meets the credit card statement, right? So we itemized all of your transactions and show you this very beautiful like, oh, here's all the stuff I bought. I thought it was super cool.
And like the, dude, the skew level data aggregated around the user was so interesting to me and couldn't finance it ended up shutting it down. And so like that was, that was my, my big play at it. And now I've, I've got some major PTSD of like, I never want to raise money again.
Once you take somebody else's money and like don't give them a return. I'm like, I'm an investor. I know it's fine, but I felt so bad.
Dude, it's so bad. So what do you want to do then? Well, so now I'm just doing lemonade stand stuff. Right. It's like, like my therapist says, she's like, I think you want to be Da Vinci. You want to like design a bridge and then a helicopter and then go paint a chapel.
And I'm like, yeah, I think that's what I want to do. I just like, I'm going to do little lemonade stand style businesses, just like little things that can't scale. Like what's an example? What do you mean by that? Like I want to do a barbecue place, right? Like, and I'm like, oh yeah, it'd be great.
And I'll like have the meat, the pickle, the, and the sauce. Right. Like that'd be cool. And I could do the branding amazing.
And as long as I was cool to like let it die in four months, I think I'd really enjoy it. As soon as it turned into like, oh, now I built this thing, I got grinded out, like I'd be miserable. And so I'll just try like little stuff like that.
I think, I mean, at some point I'll get into another thing, but like right now,
SPEAKER_03
when you're in your early twenties and late teens, did you think you were going to be wealthy and then?
SPEAKER_01
No, no, I, dude, that's interesting. No, not at all. Right. And it's kind of jacked, it jacks with your head a little bit. And like, I never, I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that I would be where I am today.
Right. And so like, I was talking to my wife a couple of days ago, I was like, I think I might need, can we do a vision board? I've never dreamt of like, what else is out there? What else I want to, I want to do with my life.
SPEAKER_02
You're like overshot what you had pictures. You never repicture.
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes you go over plan. I didn't expect this to work. And so landing here, landing here, I mean, it's a big, it's a big thing in my head of like trying to navigate, like in a very serious way of like, when you remove the motivation of money, what do you do with the rest of your life? Cause so much of our, of our world is built around like, gotta get money in the same year, dude.
I stepped back from my company, I got married, I bought a house and we got pregnant with our first kid. And I was like, every milestone I imagined I ever wanted to work for. And it was like, it was a full on funky depression, like not, not like a depression, like a lot of like grown up people have, it was like a baby depression for me.
But, but like just figuring out what I was supposed to reach for was a, was a really hard walk for me.
SPEAKER_02
And where'd you like, what was the, how'd you get out of that?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02
Well, so like doing like any man, I just buried it inside and moved on.
SPEAKER_01
He'll come back up later. I didn't have you with the reboot guys. I don't know if you know, like Jerry Kelowna over at reboot.
SPEAKER_02
He's like the, like the big exact coach. Yeah. Coach, who do you, Steve Jobs, some of the, who's he coaching? I don't know. He's a nice man though.
SPEAKER_01
And I like him a lot. He's like, he coached somebody famous, like, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he's like a retreat now for CEOs.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. It was like, when I was running the company, dude, well, cause I was running the quote company and it had grown to like 400 employees. And I was like, I was like 30, 32 or something.
Like, I didn't know what I was doing. And when you, when you scale that fast and you don't, you don't scale your own capacity to lead, I found myself like, you know, I would sit down in a room and, and I was immediately like trying to make these other people feel stupid. So they wouldn't notice that I didn't know what I was doing.
Right. And you're throwing bombs in your own business. And I was like, dang it, Rick, I can't believe he did this.
And then like after a bit, I'm not a yellow Rick. Maybe I'm so sorry. Is it, you know, there's not me.
We're on the same team. And, and like, like I came out of that. I was like, man, I'm hurting the people around me.
I got to fix this. So I went on a, on a boot camp retreat that they do. And like, I came out of that and I was like, either, I need to fire my co-founders, which was one of three co-founders and I came back and was like, I got to fire you guys.
They're like, no, that's not going to happen. We're like, oh, what should we do? So then we're like, oh, well, I'll step back and like, we can, we can manage this transition. But like to get to that point where I could sort of say those words out loud, like, man, I can't keep doing this.
Cause it's a family business and it's all, it's the town. Like I felt all that weight on me and I couldn't get out. And so when, did a lot of the therapy stuff.
And at this point now,
SPEAKER_03
You do psychedelics?
SPEAKER_01
No, dude, I'm so, I'm so intrigued by psychedelics. But like I'm, I'm Mormon, right? And so like the idea of doing- You're Mormon? Yeah. Wow. Oh, that guy. Yeah. You look just how I thought you would look.
SPEAKER_02
No, you don't. You're the coolest Mormon I've ever met.
SPEAKER_01
And you know Mormons here. So this is nice.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you. You didn't have to say that.
SPEAKER_01
That was a little like in the room.
SPEAKER_03
Well, dude, you're the most popular guy here. Do you enjoy meeting some of these people?
SPEAKER_01
Oh, this is a blast. This is a blast. Well, cause like there's money being made everywhere, man.
Particularly- You're the guy-
SPEAKER_02
You're the most random. That's to be clear. It's like everyone here is doing weird stuff.
SPEAKER_03
The thing you just said, everyone has said that about you.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think there's money being made everywhere.
SPEAKER_03
Who the fuck it? Mobile games?
SPEAKER_01
On your phone? Wait, what do you, I mean you guys, you got like your post acquisitions. Like what's the next phase for you? I mean, cause like you're in a similar spot.
SPEAKER_03
I took a year and a half off. So I sold the company.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So you're busy now.
SPEAKER_03
I didn't take a year and a half off. I took a year and a half of just like, I'm not going to make money.
SPEAKER_01
Like I'm not going to like- Are you just back to making money though? Is that what-
SPEAKER_03
And starting and then I realized I was like, okay, I don't care about the money for this next one.
SPEAKER_02
But like- Then I met a lot new richer people.
SPEAKER_03
And now I realized that wasn't enough. I would say it like, you know, like, no, you can't, you know, take away music from the hubus tank. Maybe.
SPEAKER_01
That's full circle. Yeah. But we did it.
SPEAKER_03
It's impossible.
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, I suspect like all, I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. And I'm so curious what I end up doing with the next chapter.
SPEAKER_03
Well, dude, this is awesome. You came here not knowing anyone. We got you on the pod.
SPEAKER_00
This is pretty sick. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
I put my all in it like no days off. On a road less travel never looking back.