0:00
You're so bad at telling your own story.
Search this video
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Uh, well, you just said the intro. This isn't my story.
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You want me to tell Well, I would say Yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.
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Missouri Star Quilt Company.
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Missouri Star Quilt Company.
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It's a behemoth of a quilting company.
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Can you say what the revenues are?
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Uh, yeah, it's the biggest.
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Let's first start with that. It is the biggest. It's the biggest. It's the biggest.
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It's uh, let's see, we're we're 400 some employees, over 100 million in revenue.
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Like it's a it's a big old It's a big old boy. We're live, by the way. This is it. This is the pod. Okay. Okay.
0:39
How Wait, how did you meet him?
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Well, you got to keep the Hoobastank story in.
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That needs to be like one of our Can you just Did we get it?
0:44
Or should we say it again?
0:47
Say it again funny and we'll laugh. Exactly the same way.
0:50
The joke was when we started the Hustle, we would for some reason I picked Hoobastank as the band that I liked.
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Like But you don't have to pick a band when you start a company. I was like, "What?"
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There's no form you got to fill out.
1:02
What's your favorite What's your tree? What's your flower?
1:04
What band are It was like our insiders joke.
1:06
And we in the email we'd be like, you know, like this young kid who just raised a bunch of funding, like he's going to be one of the greats, like Elon, like Steve Jobs or or Hoobastank or you know, like Slip it in. Would people notice?
1:19
Would you get replies or like, "What the crap are you talking about?" Every once in a while.
1:23
So, I put it on my LinkedIn.
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I put that I'm the the webmaster of the hoobastankfanclub. com.
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When you endorse a skill, it's like good at Hoobastanking.
1:32
Well, and when I wanted to like make a joke with someone, I would email them from sam@hoobastankfanclub. com. You owned it, of course.
1:39
Yeah, yeah, I still have it.
1:41
Still have Keep renewing it? Just in case.
1:44
It's $9 for a great joke. It's still going.
1:46
Wait, so dude, you got to give your intro. Who are you?
1:48
What do you What would you say you do? Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm Al Done. What do I do?
1:52
I uh, not not as much right now.
1:56
I just shut down a a software company.
1:58
I own or I'm the owner and the executive chairman of of creativity Inc, which is you know, it's got a quilting company, a big quilting company, and a knitting company, and an art company.
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A lot of a lot of stuff in that space.
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Dude, you're so bad at telling your own story. All right.
2:13
What you just said the intro. This isn't my story. You want me to tell?
2:17
Well, I would say yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Star Quilt Company.
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Missouri Star Quilt Company.
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Missouri Star Quilt Company.
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It's It's a behemoth of a quilting company.
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Can you say what the revenues are? Uh, yes. It's the biggest.
2:30
Let's first start with that. It is the biggest. It's the biggest. It's the biggest. It's Let's see.
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We're We're 400 some employees, over 100 million in revenue.
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Like it's a It's a big old It's a big old boy.
2:41
You own the largest quilting company in the world.
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It does over 100 million dollars in revenue, and you also have now bought two towns.
2:49
It was So So the quilting company in Hamilton, right?
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We We bought the entire downtown district.
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So 27 buildings Because you had to or because that's awesome?
2:57
No, this was the So like when we started this quilt company, the the challenge is like there's 3,500 quilt companies in America, right?
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Like they're in every little city.
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You're saying that like we know that. You're like, right?
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You know, 3,500 You're with me, right?
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So 3,501 doesn't really pull the eyeballs in.
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And so I like there's no ESPN for quilters, right?
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I can't just go advertise for this.
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And so I'm like, how am we going to get this?
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And so our like we were in this little town.
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We We We grew big enough online that we had to like like we couldn't fit all the the inventory in our space. Or in our in our store.
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And because like we could either go open a warehouse, which would have been the normal sane thing to do, or we're like We're like, man, it's awesome cuz when people come to our town, there's normally no customers.
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And so like the the impression you get if you walked in there and it was just retail is like nobody's here and this is really sucky.
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And so instead we had like 12 people cutting and fulfilling fabric.
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So, you'd walk in and there's like this energy, this buzz that was happening in the shop.
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And so, we split it out and bought and bought the the next building over and put fabric in there.
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And then I was like, man, who has the most quilt shops of any town in the world, right?
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Like that was like it's the biggest wooden nickel in Minnesota.
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This was going to be my thing.
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And I was some town in Germany I think had four and I was like, we're going to we're going to take it to the next to create a tourist destination.
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Yeah, you you're Just Just be a novelty, right?
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It was just supposed to be a novelty.
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And so, then we had So, it's like Dollywood or whatever.
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It's like this is that's our thing.
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So, they're like if you're driving by on the highway, you're like, the most? Are you kidding me?
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All right, let's go check it out. it.
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Yeah, and so in in that process do we got like we people were coming to town we only had like Subway and the gas station for food.
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So, we started restaurants.
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So, we've got a sleep and sew where like it's a slumber party for ladies to come and they So, you're saying it right now like it's like, you know, this is a natural thing to do.
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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.
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That's not what most companies do.
4:51
So, you you have this idea from where and then aren't people saying, yo, this is crazy.
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We don't have to do this.
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You know, do you and your family own the whole thing? Yeah, yeah.
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So, you're able to do crazy like this.
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Well, 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 6 months before you get it.
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We're growing 200% a year.
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We got to hold the fabric for 9 months, recover your your initial cost in the first 90 days, right?
5:18
So, that you can have your terms and like it's like a really complicated we're betting the farm every 3 months and like if we're wrong, we go under.
5:26
So, if you do 150 million in revenue, how much EBITDA can it do?
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Uh it's So, we're like a normal e-commerce or like e-commerce business.
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So, our goal is about 20%.
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We're not there yet, especially this year, right?
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But like but like that's where we that's where we'll end up.
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then you take the profits out and buy Yeah, I've made like seven nickels.
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I don't I pay myself a fine salary, but like but like all the money goes back in, right?
5:49
Next purchase order, next purchase order.
5:51
Well, because because we're growing by significant amounts every year and most of that gets tied up in inventory.
5:56
In 2 years, what do you think you could sell the business for?
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Well, our goal right now Well, I I I think we can get 20% growth for a couple of years, right?
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Which should move our valuation to like a 5x revenue.
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So, like a billion dollars?
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Yeah, that's the That's the idea.
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How many is your like is it like your wife or your sister or your mom who who all is the shareholders?
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So, like your whole family's going to get Yeah, so it's me and my sister, my buddy Dave are the are the 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 who've been there for any kind of time. That's a cool feeling.
6:29
But you started it with your mom or your mom started it and you No, we Me and my so the idea like me and my sister been talking about starting a company for a while.
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I was I was like a year out of college, right?
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And so like I I was uh I don't know.
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Everybody's sort of an entrepreneur right out of college.
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That's what I'm going to do and and we were sort of that same way.
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And my mom had taken a quilt into a to the quilt.
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She's You sew the top together and take it to a lady that's got a big $40,000 machine and they're going to stitch all the the the backing and the fluffy stuff in the middle and the top.
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They're going to stitch it all together.
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And this lady was out a year and she's like, "Oh, I made your sister a quilt. I took it in.
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I'll get it back in you know, 2008."
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And I'm like, "Nothing takes a year to do."
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Like you can build a house in less time than it takes to get this quilt done.
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So, either she's terrible or there's a lot of demand.
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Well, well, that was literally my market research.
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I was like there is going to be a market here for this. Are there others?
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She's like, "Yeah, everybody's backed up."
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And I'm just you say quilt, like literally just a blanket, right? Shut up, okay? How dare you? Yeah. It's a quilt.
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But I mean like a quilt like cuz I know some people like hang on their walls.
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Yeah, yeah, so And then some people have like a decorative quilt and then some people like I had a quilt like comforter.
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Yeah, yeah, it's it's exactly that.
7:41
And like my mom's stick is she's like she's like the McDonald's of quilting, right?
7:48
Cuz quilting like most of these hobbies are very like I don't know like very defined, you know, there's there's a quilt police that's going to come and get you if the if the seams are off or whatever, right?
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If your points don't match.
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And every I feel like 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.
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And so mom's like, "Nah, nah, finish is better than perfect."
8:10
Like and our big innovation that we made like the the LEGO blocks of quilting, right?
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So it's a pack of 5-in squares and pack of 10-in squares and you sew them together and cut them like this and whack it makes it this.
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And so like really simple tricks and techniques.
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She was a costumer You're saying McDonald's cuz he like kind of made a process out of the burger making process where it's like anybody can make this burger.
8:30
Well, no, I'm saying McDonald's cuz it's like it's like not fancy, right?
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It's not you're not spending a lot on it.
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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.
8:41
I mean I mean it's funny cuz like quilting I never thought that you know, quilt my my business buddies and stuff will sort of laugh at like my whiteboards like layer cakes up 17% turnovers down you know, jelly rolls.
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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.
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But like man, it's it's a 45 to 70-year-old demographic is the majority of my customers and there are so few people building awesome experiences for them that like I I feel 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 and Same phrase for that is a a dwarf amongst midgets is that such a phrase?
9:20
Yeah, no, everybody normally says that a dwarf amongst midgets. That's very clever.
9:25
It's not that's it's not allowed anymore, but I will we're both Missourians.
9:28
We probably grew up in somewhat similar environments and that was a phrase and I like that and like It's the same people, right?
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That's why it's hilarious.
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A dwarf among midgets, it's like a dwarf is like a tall Like like that's just a phrase.
9:43
I didn't even realize it was like Don't cancel him, all right?
9:46
I didn't I didn't I didn't realize it was bad.
9:48
Another one is tough titties, said the kitty, but the milk's still good.
9:49
Have you heard of that one? Yeah, yeah, sure.
9:52
So, anyway, what is What do you think it's going to be like in two or three years if you ever sell?
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I mean, are you guys Like you're going to be the richest person in like by hundreds of miles.
10:01
What are you going to do?
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Just buy thousands of acres?
10:05
I mean, what do you What do you do? Crazy question.
10:08
Cuz that's what he says he does.
10:09
This feels very aggressive, the way that you're phrasing this.
10:11
I'm just going to say that right now.
10:16
Uh the the Well, the idea is not to Like I don't know if I don't know if we'll sell it, right?
10:20
But there's a big question in my head of like of like I don't what My my my main say is like I don't want my kid to grow up and say, "I got to be a quilter cuz Papa was a quilter, right?"
10:29
It's like, "Aha, it's a business. You got to get in here."
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tail as as all this time.
10:34
It's tough titties with the kitty and the milk and the goods.
10:38
Uh but uh but like I So, I'm trying to figure out how to navigate around that.
10:42
Like how Like is there uh how how do you maximize value and create the most opportunity and all that kind of stuff?
10:48
I'm very attracted to a finish line, right?
10:50
Which a an IPO or a sale or something would be, but also, you know, get to the point where it's shutting off even done.
10:56
It's a very easy one to just keep running. 12 years. Yeah.
11:00
You didn't know Were you even like into quilting before that? Like were you into this? No. No.
11:04
My mom makes me She's She made me make one quilt.
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She's like, "You can't run this company and not be a quilter." So, I I've made one.
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I'm making another right now.
11:11
A nice bear paw on point. did you know how to do?
11:14
You didn't You You worked at You were a software guy.
11:18
These are such mean questions.
11:21
No, I uh I The funny thing is at this event Why are you being Sam's basically been having an intervention cuz he's asking questions that he thinks are completely normal questions that everyone here's been like Wait, and women would date you? That's so weird.
11:34
Yeah, he's And people like, Sam, when you ask questions it's like a full frontal attack.
11:38
He's like, what do you mean?
11:40
He's like completely oblivious to the fact that these questions are outrageously aggressive.
11:45
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 and like, oh, she looked exactly like I I expected. And he was like, what? He goes, what the hell? I was like, what?
11:56
I expected her to be like a nice I don't believe it.
12:00
I'm like, very rarely is, oh, she looked exactly how I thought she would.
12:06
A lot of misunderstandings going on.
12:06
I was like, I thought she sounded like a lovely nice woman and she was cool and and I was like, and she looks like it. Sweet Dorothy Mantle.
12:15
But uh Well, and but he also said that you own 200 acres and you like I do own some I like like this sort of the issue.
12:23
I'm 100% hillbilly rich, right?
12:23
Like like give me a hundred million dollars tomorrow, my life doesn't change at all. Right.
12:28
Uh I've got I've got a uh 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.
12:37
I mean beautiful extensive all of them.
12:39
And and like I'm I'm done, right?
12:42
And so it's sort of a weird spot where I don't need I don't need the finish line.
12:45
The the only value that a finish line would offer is like pass the mantle, right?
12:50
Like I no longer wake up and and have to stress about like what if we ruin it all tomorrow?
12:56
What if the person that we hired to do this like screws it all up? What were you good at?
13:00
The I the Oh, yeah, yeah.
13:01
What skill what what attributes did you bring to the quilting table? Great question. Great question. Yeah. Uh not a lot.
13:07
Like like I mean I so I came out of I came out of college uh and and my first job was with Symantec.
13:17
Like I I was a really good uh kind of networker, right?
13:20
And and uh not not networker but like I I like people that I like and I hate people that I hate and I like some guys that like we're doing You're the most popular guy in the house right now by the way.
13:31
I don't know if you know this. For real?
13:32
There's like 25 people here.
13:32
There's some famous people.
13:34
Everybody's like big Everyone's got a different nickname for you.
13:37
It's like big owl then somebody's like big city cuz he's buying cities.
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And other guys are like oh owl don't good.
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And so the big city's a cool name.
13:43
It's like It's like you know Tom Big city.
13:48
Yeah man it's like it's like calling like a really tall guy shorty or something you know this is perfect. than big country.
13:52
I get big country a lot but big city.
13:55
No it's not funny when you are.
13:57
Oh Yeah you'd have to be like tiny country or something.
14:01
It'd have to be some opposite thing.
14:03
Yeah I know big city's good. Okay thank you.
14:04
But anyways you're super likable.
14:04
I was calling out there like what did you go you go He's You're like he's rich, he's smart, and he's and he's funny.
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And I was like yeah you need to be the next bachelor dude.
14:14
You know like this is amazing. him?
14:18
Well I mean I don't even know but I'm here.
14:20
Patrick was on the podcast. came on the pod.
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That was the first time I thought about the word quilt in like 12 years.
14:26
Well he was telling my story and all my buddies were like dude you were on this podcast dude.
14:29
You got to check this out.
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So I'm like what the crap?
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And then you DM'd him too.
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And then I DM'd you and I was like oh man that's my story.
14:35
Like if you want to hear it I'm happy Patrick was like yo there's this there's this niche market of quilting that's way bigger than people realize. And I was like what? Really?
14:41
We remember we were like blown away.
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And then he we were like what's He's like yeah there's companies that are huge.
14:47
The conversation was great cuz you were like oh that's rad man love to hear it sometime. Do you ball?
14:52
Do you want to come Yeah he DM'd me and I said I think I ghosted you for like a month and then I was like Oh wait by the way yeah I do want to talk about that but more importantly you want to meet up in person and play basketball. here right? No no no.
15:02
No yeah this is this is great for Did you even know Patrick? No. Oh wow.
15:07
No I've never met any of these guys.
15:09
an amazing leap of faith to show up.
15:11
Dude and I turn out to be like 6'7" and love playing basketball and and yeah it was great. ass on the court? was amazing.
15:17
No except you dude you smoked us for the for the The game drained three threes in my face.
15:22
Yeah I had like the greatest moment of my life today, so you know. No, it's it's all good.
15:26
So, all right, so you do the you do the quilting thing. No, wait, wait, wait.
15:28
My skills before this, uh just just buddies that like that like connect me.
15:33
And so I was working in a software company, lost that job uh in dramatic fashion.
15:37
I'd never been without a job at the time. What's that mean? Like a fired?
15:40
Yeah, like me and 20,000 people got laid off in 2008, right?
15:42
And uh and so I'm, you know, I'm like consulting and trying to like just were you? I was 20 six. In Missouri? Yeah. Yeah.
15:51
Uh but like but well, I was like living in Boston at the time.
15:54
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.
16:00
You me and the pre-style.
16:00
And it was like, "We'll start a company up here. Let's do it."
16:04
So we tried like three of them.
16:05
We tried to do an ozone cleaning technology that we'd sell to real estate agents.
16:08
And that was like a terrible time to sell to real estate agents. It was 2008.
16:12
And uh we tried to do a little wealth management thing cuz he wanted to be a wealth management advisor.
16:17
And so we tried to start that.
16:19
And then uh And then this the quilt company we had already and I wanted to do like a daily deal version.
16:22
Cuz at the time Groupon was hot, right? Or not? It was like woot.
16:27
com and steep and cheap and uh We just talked all about Woot.
16:31
And like chain love and all that stuff, man.
16:32
I loved those in college cuz they were they were great and I'd wait up till midnight, which in in Hawaii, where I was going to school, was like was like 7:00, right?
16:39
And I'd be like, "Wait to see what it is." cool.
16:42
It's cool, but like I but like it hooked me as a college kid.
16:44
And like every site was built for like for like, "Are you a dude that loves riding bikes? Get chainlove. com."
16:49
And there's a new thing every night.
16:51
And but like nobody was building them for the 45 to 70-year-old demo.
16:54
And so when I did Quilters Daily Deal, I think it was literally the first time anybody had done a daily deal site for my demographic.
17:02
Which is like a uh discounted fabric.
17:05
Well, it I mean, it was discounted items, right? Okay.
17:08
And like it dude, in the beginning it was so funny cuz like I was I was the guy doing it all.
17:11
We were just scrapping our way through it.
17:12
So like I'm I'm not a good writer for my mom, right?
17:18
Where like I'd write these stories and it would Yeah, you would always say like, "Hey ladies." Like Well, no. Hey fellow women. No, no.
17:26
So we started a forum and the the first 6 months of the forum because nobody wants to join an empty forum.
17:30
I was Genie B and Sarah Sue and my buddy Dave was Carmen and Elizabeth.
17:34
And we just had these like Chatting all day. Yes, yeah.
17:39
What kind of quilt did YOU MAKE? OH, THAT'S SO CUTE. That's the brother.
17:42
And eventually now it's like 90,000 members and like it's a great old thing.
17:46
Wow, so that's really So you But your mom had must have some following or something. Is that how it started?
17:50
No, she had zero following.
17:50
No, I I literally started with the forum.
17:52
No, no, we launched So the the chronology, we launched with the website that I like sat and built.
17:58
We launched with a store that we started. She was doing quilts.
18:02
And then I I built this website on 1and1. com.
18:04
Do you remember that old shared hosting, man? It was a disaster.
18:08
They lost my site a couple times.
18:08
I was like, "I'll start over. Thanks, guys."
18:13
And uh built this site And and it was a daily deal site that I would change at midnight.
18:17
I didn't have any automation and I would just like go in, you know, be on a date and be like, "Hold on a second.
18:21
I got to log in to my quilting website and change it up."
18:26
Tens of women are waiting for this, yeah.
18:28
And and we we Dude, we launched it I still have the Facebook post in like February 2009 and then it's like, "Hey, I made a quilt shop for my mom. Check it out." Two likes. Right?
18:35
Like zero orders the first 3 weeks.
18:37
And and but like every day I'm going in there writing these stories. give up. Didn't give up. Didn't give up. Persevered. Why?
18:43
Just like I Well, I mean it was it was a marketing challenge at that point, right?
18:47
Like we knew we knew that we had a product that was interesting.
18:50
Like like we're selling fabric online and like the other sites were like were like built on Yahoo stores and crap.
18:55
And I'm like, I can like there's a way better experience for this.
18:59
And we're just going to we're going to take better pictures. This is our novelty.
19:01
We're going to we're going to sell it better.
19:02
And uh and so we we kept working at it just thinking we had to figure out how to find people.
19:06
And our Dude, like I would write these deals every day and be like, Like they were always some version of the Pinocchio nightmare scene.
19:14
I'm like, and then he turned into a donkey.
19:15
And then he was in the whale's belly.
19:18
And Jumbo Rick Rack is $3. 99 today.
19:20
You know, it was like some weird things I like I was just trying to be creative and I was like Luke did it, too. They were pretty funny.
19:27
Well, dude, I was modeling after that just trying to like be humorous and and turns out like my mom was like, this isn't good.
19:32
You You need to stop doing this. This is weird.
19:34
My buddy Dave ended up doing it for the next the next while and he was much better than I was.
19:37
but uh So we we went 3 weeks without a sale.
19:41
Finally my cousin Jennifer ordered something and so that you know, we're like, oh, that's all right. Thank you, Jen. That's very nice.
19:45
And uh and we'd get like an order or two a day and one day one day we meant to price something at like 288.
19:51
It was the Crazy 8's charm pack.
19:53
We meant to price it at like 288, accidentally priced it at 88 cents. We sold like 11 of them.
19:57
But but shipping was $5, right?
20:00
And so like our cost on it was four or something and so we're like, we still made money.
20:04
Like this works and the average order size was actually like $28. Dude, a loss leader.
20:10
We should lose money on this in a meaningful way and and we can build this.
20:15
And so it turned into like the deals are are great deals and people love them.
20:18
And uh but that's what ended up building our business.
20:20
And then as we went like Where were you getting the fabric and supplies from?
20:24
Well, we buy them from vendors.
20:24
So like even even today there's probably 40 vendors that we buy from.
20:27
Then to grow it, we started uh making videos like the the education stuff.
20:32
YouTube was only a year and a half old at that point.
20:33
And so like, you know, late 2008, early 2009 and uh there's like there's like this guy Quilton Buck on there and there's like a webcam that he'd show on his quilt that and he was it was cool that people were trying to do stuff and nobody had like done it well.
20:46
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 and uh you know, the manual zooming stuff.
20:55
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 your lingo, right?
21:04
I need you to talk to me so I can understand. I'm not a dummy.
21:06
I've no idea what what a wolf is, right? With the fabric.
21:12
Well, like I'm like 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."
21:23
And I just wouldn't let mom do that.
21:25
So, she had to speak in a way that anybody could understand and we became this very approachable if you've never made a quilt, you start with Missouri with Missouri Star.
21:32
And because we're 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.
21:39
It was like, "We made this great new tutorial for you with all these cool tricks and tips and stuff."
21:43
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.
21:50
And you you're 12 year you're in 12 years in, you're like 100 150 or something like that revenue.
21:54
What were the first 5 years do you think?
21:57
First year was 100 grand, then we did a million, then we did four, then we did eight, and then we did 14.
22:03
And then did eight it kept going at that rate? Yeah, yeah.
22:05
It would and but I but again, man, like bootstrap through that was intense. It was crazy.
22:11
were you able to pay yourself and make money?
22:13
So, we paid mom after 3 years, right?
22:15
Like it's crazy cuz I I have I have like seven siblings in my family and five of them work on the quilt company.
22:18
Like we couldn't have done it if they couldn't have just like worked for free for the beginning.
22:24
And like I mean it's it's like volunteers, right?
22:27
Well, what year was it making enough money where you're like, "Fuck it, let's buy a town.
22:29
You know, let's do this."
22:31
so so uh 4 years in, we we bought our second building, right?
22:35
Or 3 years in, we bought our second building.
22:37
And like we remodeled it all ourselves, we did all the work, and then we bought you know, we we piecemealed the beginning one.
22:43
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."
22:48
But like that was never the intent in the beginning.
22:49
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.
22:55
And 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.
23:01
And now we have like like there's a few other businesses in town, but uh And is there like because what normally happens if you start to like buy everything in a town, like there's always like one or two people are like, "I'm going to hold out."
23:12
And I'm going to like, you know, negotiate.
23:14
Like yeah, cuz you need it.
23:16
You need to complete the set.
23:17
And then Tiny comes knocking on their door. We need to talk. No, you can't.
23:22
I cannot promise you protection.
23:25
Like did you guys run into that at all?
23:27
Uh like like the average price for a building in a small Missouri town like that was about 20 grand.
23:30
And uh and by the our last building was about 80, right?
23:35
So So we I just bought this other town down the road from us, Kingston, right?
23:38
And so like seven Kingston, Missouri?
23:41
Yeah, so 7 mi down the road is our county seat.
23:43
Like with the really nice like King like they have a huge Is that on the way to Mizzou? From St. Louis? No.
23:49
I'm thinking of Kingsland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Kingston is by me.
23:54
And uh and the other side by Kansas City.
23:56
It was 7 mi from our town and uh and so we bought it's it's I think it's eight buildings and it's like it'll be like 70,000 for all of them, right? Wow.
24:05
And so there's just these old like condemned or sort of overrun buildings.
24:08
We'll We'll put 2 million into them to get them fixed up, right?
24:10
But like but like the the real estate is cheap and the fact that it's already there and we're just kind of fixing what's there is Do you uh is great. I mean, I lived in St.
24:21
Louis, which is way bigger than where you're from, but even that a competition. But even St.
24:26
Louis, I felt like, "Oh, No one gets me.
24:28
I feel like a freak here cuz I'm building this internet shit."
24:31
And so that's why I left and I moved to eventually San Francisco.
24:35
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 cuz you you meet people and you like spread ideas and you like are inspired by one another, whatever, and like rubs off on each other.
24:49
Other than the internet, which is I mean, where were you learning how to do all this stuff?
24:53
And do you ever feel like what the hell, man?
24:55
I need to get out of here.
24:58
I can't find this client info.
25:00
Have you heard of HubSpot?
25:00
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.
25:04
Every team can stay aligned.
25:07
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.
25:14
Uh so after college I actually left this part out. This is a cool part.
25:15
I after college I when I when I lost my job, this was let's see, 2009, I I declared my year of the MBA, right?
25:22
I was looking at like going to back to to Harvard. I lived in Boston.
25:26
I was like, I should I should really go spend 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.
25:34
And and so I declared the year of my MBA.
25:36
I emailed all the guys who were like successful in business who were like, what are the three books that you'd recommend I read?
25:41
And I got like a constrained list of of like 37 books, right?
25:47
And so I bought them all on Amazon for like $200.
25:48
And then I I had a bunch of buddies who were like doing cool stuff that I wanted to try.
25:53
Like a guy was doing an import-export out in Hawaii and and another dude was doing like venture capital in Salt Lake and and so I was just like, let me come work for free for you guys for like 3 months.
26:03
I just want to I'll I'll shine your shoes and make your coffee.
26:05
I just want to see how you run your business.
26:06
And and so I like I hopped around some of that and then I got into like I got to be an an intern in Techstars in 2010, right? So like Which which one? Colorado? Boulder, yeah.
26:18
So it it was only Boulder and Boulder and Seattle, but like it was David Cohen and Nicole Glaros 2010.
26:22
And so like while I'm building this quilt 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.
26:34
you're listening at all these office hours?
26:35
Yeah, Dick Costolo, that's super interesting.
26:37
What would you do if you had a quilt company, man? I'm just curious.
26:39
Like how would you how would you do this?
26:41
How would you like a deal, David? You like deals, right?
26:46
I don't do anything cool. Okay, great.
26:48
Well so like I was getting like this way you reached for your phone when I said that.
26:51
Are you trying to tell somebody about this?
26:54
Talk to me about what what what's your feeling right now?
26:55
Yeah, no, it's always getting this way out sized like brain for for the internet stuff and I I always thought that I would do something like like I thought I was going to work for Microsoft or Facebook or something, right?
27:05
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
27:19
it's very technology focused uh 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 cuz 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. Once Patrick told
27:33
Once Patrick told all your listeners How do you feel?
27:37
Do you have peers and how are you do you have like peers in the internet world or e-com world who you're like you're chatting with on a regular basis to be inspired by?
27:44
Or learn from or share ideas? I got buddies, right?
27:47
Like I'm I'm an angel investor, I'm in 50 companies doing stuff.
27:50
We I I have a early stage fund that I run with some buddies.
27:54
Like like I'm still like these are still friends.
27:56
We still talk but but there's like from an e-commerce standpoint, honestly, man, like I think I'm world class.
28:03
I think I like I think I'm one of the best brains at selling stuff on the internet and That's awesome. That's awesome.
28:09
Also the the the MBA like give myself an MBA thing, the way you approach that, that's like that is so smart but also once you hear that story you're like of course this person's going to be successful as a hustler, right?
28:20
Cuz you you basically do the math you're like, okay, what do I want?
28:23
What's the normal way to get there?
28:25
Oh, this is like kind of long two-year really expensive way.
28:26
Can I just get that in like Dude, that was my reasoning 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 smartest people I know, right?
28:41
for a dude for like three months like like Cohen and Glaros, these guys they'll still go to bat to me for me to this day because that three-month investment that I made of like 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.
28:54
And I mean you do that and like they'll open every door you ever need to get through.
29:00
the most game-changing book of all those that you read?
29:03
Honestly dude, it's this book that's out of print.
29:07
Like I didn't I didn't read any business books that changed my life, right?
29:09
Like once you get through like six or seven, I quit reading them because I'm like it's the exact same thing.
29:14
The the principles for business are the exact same just told in a different parable every time.
29:19
And whatever your parable is, that's what you glom onto say man it's good to great. That's the best one.
29:25
This one it's your bible.
29:25
But for me like the most impactful one is this one called Coming Out of the Ice by Victor Herman which is this this dude that like went over to Russia and like ended up being an amazing Olympian athlete but like Russia wanted to take credit for it so they and he was like no I'm American so they threw him in jail for like 50 years and it's this crazy story that I'm like this guy's an American hero.
29:48
Somebody should know this story but it's like dude reading that while I felt like my life was so hard was like I know I'll be fine.
29:56
Dude, I read that I do the exact same thing.
29:57
I'll read uh It's like better than therapy. For sure.
30:00
You want you want the fast version of therapy?
30:02
It's David Goggins back in the day. Totally.
30:05
Like I'll read like like a book about Navy SEALs or about like I just read about the Cherokee Native Americans.
30:12
Oh man, it makes you your problems are so I'm like I'm such a punk. Yeah. You know what I mean?
30:17
I do the exact same thing.
30:18
It's way better than business books too.
30:20
No, it's like my favorite one out of that whole list because cuz just a buddy of mine was like oh, this is the best book I've ever read. Read this.
30:24
And I was like all right, I'm in man.
30:26
And that one still to this day is like great.
30:30
But but like dude the books this is my problem with college is like every marketing class I sat through or something I'm like oh, there's your great idea.
30:37
You say sell it for more than I bought it. You You are clever. Thanks.
30:41
I'm glad I'm paying for this, right?
30:42
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.
30:49
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?
30:55
Like that's going to open way more doors for me. How many They're great.
30:59
How many people do you We have 400 of the employees, but how many of them are doing like like white-collar jobs like SEO work or or like internet internet-related Maybe maybe a hundred of them. A hundred of them.
31:11
How many of them live in the town?
31:14
Uh gosh, I I I don't know.
31:14
I'd I'd say how many of them are are are on site in in Missouri?
31:19
I think we have like 40 remote like fully remote.
31:21
Like our engineering team is remote like they?
31:25
all over from Seattle to Serbia, right?
31:28
Um and then we have then we have like our design team is mostly remote.
31:32
Like the a lot of a lot of ones that make sense to be remote are remote.
31:35
Um but then like in town, I don't know, there's probably 250 of them that are like right there in town.
31:41
Is buying a town a good business besides like you had a you have a business and this is kind of like adjacent, helpful.
31:51
If I didn't have that, but if I was like, oh, there's this kind of like abandoned-ish town, really cheap real estate, I can buy that, I can reconfigure it.
31:57
Is that a good idea or no?
31:59
Well like I think I think every company should have a town. Well, like they did.
32:03
CARMACK DUDE, THAT'S YOU KNOW, so we can list a few for Henry Ford tried doing this in uh Pella Windows is up in Iowa.
32:11
They have their own town.
32:13
Like Like there's Well, a lot of Bethlehem, PA did and when a lot of towns were built around like that big company, right? or something like that.
32:20
But But my thing is like is like every dumb internet brand should should have one, right?
32:24
Like like a buddy of mine does This This is my thought pattern here is like is like if you're a 10-year-old girl and super into baking, where in America do I have to take you? Nowhere. Right?
32:35
But somebody if could just take that opportunity it and like and and we're going to have Dutch ovens in this store just going and cooking stuff and then the KitchenAid mixer you come and have the the experience.
32:45
You could come and spend 2 weeks here and try everything they've got and 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 And that's and that's what you're doing for quilting.
32:59
That's what we're doing for quilting.
32:59
That's exactly what I'm doing.
33:00
Are people people doing this for everything?
33:01
Like if I wanted to go learn cooking, people are like, "Oh, I need to go to Paris to get that experience."
33:04
But like if I'm into like cooking or design or like let's say let's say let's say it's cooking, right? And you go to Paris.
33:09
You go to Paris and you take a class but it's like you have not gone to the cooking Mecca. Yeah. Right?
33:15
The the the cooking Mecca looks like we bought every building on this street and uh and walk in this one.
33:19
We have we have all the cake decorating stuff in here.
33:22
And then we've got all the baking stuff in here and then we've got all the this to get and so you'll give tours.
33:25
Or I don't know what you want to call it. you sell the stuff.
33:29
You're a retailer, right?
33:30
And and like tours are tours are part of it.
33:33
Like people people Well, cuz when I go there, I'm all of a sudden a part of the community, right?
33:37
It's comic it's comic relief. Right?
33:41
It's like you go to a brewery, you could buy the stuff or a winery.
33:42
You could It's like uh like Napa is a good example of this. Sure.
33:47
Like wine, it's like Napa.
33:48
Well, when if you're a consumer of it, yeah, right?
33:50
And it'd be cool to go and take the wine tour and do the whole thing.
33:53
If you're a beer maker, where in America do you have to go?
33:56
There's no Somebody should do it, right?
33:58
We I was I forget who I was talking to but they're like They Oh, uh Patrick, right? He's from Wisconsin.
34:03
I was like, "It's crazy, man.
34:05
If I want to get into cheese making, give me the town that like it'll teach me.
34:09
It has It has 20 stores and I buy the cloth and I you have every kind of cloth and I'll buy the basket and all every kind of basket.
34:15
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." Right?
34:22
I got to go see it cuz it's novelty. you're giving?
34:25
I don't What is a wooden nickel?
34:27
A wooden nickel in Minnesota.
34:27
You said that from real country.
34:28
So so in Iowa, you driving down What what is it? I-70?
34:34
Iowa City has the biggest wooden nickel in Iowa or in the world. What is a wooden nickel? What are you saying?
34:39
It's It's like a giant 16-ft buffalo nickel that's like made out of wood.
34:46
So, is it a buffalo nickel? Sorry.
34:49
Am I the only one that doesn't know what a buffalo nickel is?
34:51
Yeah, it's a buffalo nickel.
34:51
A buffalo nickel is just a nickel that was made before like I love that everyone's looking at you like, "How do you not know buffalo nickels?"
35:00
1905 What is it was like I don't know when they stopped making it.
35:02
Any Any nickel made in the 1800s, I think it had a picture of a buffalo on it. Yeah, that's right. That's it.
35:07
What what the nickel used to have a buffalo on it.
35:10
It's It's Topeka has the biggest ball of twine, right?
35:12
Like it's it's all the just the roadside novelty.
35:14
Come see the biggest whatever.
35:17
The biggest pecan is in like Minnesota, I think or something, right? Got you.
35:23
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 them back."
35:30
So, so what are the economics?
35:30
Let's say somebody does this.
35:31
Like what's a what's a vertical where you're like or like a a category where you're like somebody should definitely do it for I don't know beer or so like we just had twins a couple years ago and I wanted like where do we have to fly to if you're going to have a baby and they have the coolest experience?
35:45
You race the the the you know, the stroller around the track and then you try 15 different car seats.
35:52
Yeah, yeah, it should be in like Lehi, Utah or something, right?
35:56
baby nickel you've ever seen.
35:58
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 with the baby stuff is is the draw, right?
36:06
You're going to All your shopping's done there.
36:07
Every baby product's represented.
36:09
Like that's that's the novelty of it.
36:10
And uh the economics the economics are going to vary by like like interest to interest. Where is the money made?
36:17
Is it in the retail the sales or is it in the land appreciation because you now made a destination?
36:22
it just a just more Is it just a retail business that has higher than normal volume?
36:27
I I 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 dumb.
36:35
So for for an internet business, right?
36:38
The like our company, there's a bunch of no-name warehouses on the internet that sell fabric, right?
36:42
But we are a little quilt shop in Hamilton, Missouri.
36:46
In fact, we're we're a cool quilt shop with all this branding and all this cool stuff that we've done.
36:50
And we'll never be the nameless, faceless warehouse, right?
36:54
So if you're starting if you're starting a you know, whatever whatever goofy company you're doing, right?
36:58
Like uh the second you open up a town.
37:00
So one of the guys here, he's doing like Firebrand Tea, right? Yeah. Uh David Siegel.
37:07
And and I'm like I'm like, "Bro, like go go open up a a retail store cuz the second you do that, I'm not just buying from your crappy warehouse where you're Importing and trying to reach e-commerce lift because you're like, "We're a real place with a real sign." play.
37:21
And like people like this.
37:21
You'll never come here even if you never come here cuz 99% of your traffic never goes there.
37:27
You're saying that that stands you out against every other e-commerce DTC brand.
37:31
And our split our split like we get 90% of our revenue is online, 10% in store.
37:36
A little less than 10, like 8% in store.
37:38
But but like our marketing is 98% the town.
37:41
Let me tell you the story about what oh, Suzy brought her quilt in.
37:44
Oh, look at this new display we did.
37:45
Oh, all this stuff, right?
37:47
And that's that's the story that we tell while most of our traffic where most of our revenue comes from online sales, right?
37:55
So that's why I'm saying like, "Dude, if you're if you have a brand That's fascinating.
37:59
So so many of these guys are just trying to flip Shopify stores like, "Ah, we import and ship stuff out of ShipBob and it's great."
38:03
And it's like, "Yeah, but like people know they're just getting like scammed by I mean, you're just buying to resell and try to make a profit."
38:11
And uh the second you build a little bit of a of an experience around it, right?
38:15
Like do the work to to build the physical manifestation of your brand, it's the the the company all of a sudden is much much more interesting in my mind.
38:23
Let's say you uh you sell the company in two years.
38:24
You're you're you or your family collectively are maybe a billion worth a billion.
38:30
You're not working with quilting anymore.
38:31
What what do you want to do?
38:33
What do you want to start another company and then what type of company what do you want to do with your time and money? no idea.
38:37
I started company I loved called Pretzel this last like two years ago and we it was the it was the the photo roll meets the credit card statement, right?
38:45
So we itemized all of your transactions and show you this very beautiful like oh here's all the stuff I bought.
38:50
It was 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.
38:59
Ended up shutting it down.
39:01
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.
39:07
I felt dude once you take somebody else's money and like don't give them a return.
39:11
I'm like I'm an investor.
39:13
I know it's fine, but I felt so bad, dude.
39:17
So what do you want to do then?
39:18
So now I'm just doing lemonade stand stuff, right?
39:20
It's like my therapist says she's like I think you want to be DaVinci.
39:24
You want to like design a bridge and then a helicopter and then go paint a chapel and I'm like yeah, yeah, I think that's what I want to do.
39:32
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?
39:38
What do you mean by that?
39:39
Like I want to do a barbecue place, right?
39:41
Like and I'm like yeah, that'd be great and I'd like have a have the meat, the pickle, the and the sauce.
39:47
Like that'd be cool and 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.
39:52
As soon as it turned into like now I built this thing and I got to grind it out like I'd be miserable and and so I'll just try like little stuff like that.
40:00
I think I mean At some point I'll get into another thing, but like right now When you're in your early 20s and and late teens, did you think you were going to be wealthy and that No, no.
40:10
I I dude, that's interesting. No, not at all, right?
40:13
And it's It's 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?
40:21
And so like I was talking to my wife a couple days ago I was like I think I might need Can we do a vision board?
40:27
I've never dreamt of like what else is out there?
40:31
What else I want to I want to do with my life?
40:33
You like overshot what you had pictured. yeah.
40:36
You never re-pictured that.
40:37
Sometimes you can over plan.
40:39
I didn't expect this to work.
40:39
And so landing here landing here I mean it's a it's a big it's a big thing in my head of like trying to navigate like it like in a in a very serious way of like I don't I don't know when you remove the motivation of money, what do you do with the rest of your life?
40:53
Cuz so much of our of our world is built around like got to get money.
40:56
In the same year dude, I stepped back from my company uh so the day-to-day work, 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 like dude when you're dating it's very it's a great reason to go to the gym.
41:11
You're like I got to look good and all of a sudden I'm married and I'm like Screw it.
41:15
You don't care how many push-ups I can do like I'm not going anywhere.
41:17
And 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 was a really hard walk for me.
41:32
And where did you like what was the how did you get out of that? Uh Yeah.
41:39
I I don't know well so like Like any man I just buried it inside and moved on.
41:42
It'll come back up later.
41:44
Dude I I leaned in heavy with the Reboot guys.
41:46
I don't know if you know like Jerry Colonna over at Reboot.
41:49
He's like the like the big exact coach and the coach who did he coach?
41:51
Steve Jobs or something like that? Who who's he coaching? I I don't know.
41:54
He's a nice man though and I like him a lot.
41:57
He's like he coached somebody famous like you know whoever.
42:00
Yeah it was he's But did you like a retreat now for CEOs?
42:03
Yeah well so I like what when I was running the company dude well cuz I was running the Quill company and and it had grown to like 400 employees and I was like I was like 30 32 or something.
42:13
Like I didn't know what I was doing.
42:13
And when you when you scale that fast and you don't you don't scale your own capacity to to lead, uh I found myself like I 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?
42:29
And you're throwing bombs in your own business.
42:31
You're like, "Dang it, RICK.
42:31
I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID this thing."
42:32
And then like afterwards you'd be like, "I'm not a yellow Rick, baby. I'm so sorry.
42:37
This is You know this is not me. We're on the same team."
42:41
And and like like I came out of that and I was like, "Man, I'm hurting the people around me. I got to fix this."
42:44
So I went on a on a boot camp retreat that they do.
42:48
And like I came out of that and I was like, "I either I need to fire my co-founders."
42:54
Which was one of three co-founders that and I came back and was like, "I got to fire you guys."
42:57
They're like, "No, that's not going to happen."
42:58
We're like, "Oh, what should we do?"
43:00
So they were like, "Oh, well I'll step back."
43:02
And like we can we can manage this transition.
43:04
But 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."
43:11
Cuz it's a family business and it's all the it's the town.
43:13
Like I felt all that weight on me and I couldn't get out.
43:16
And so went did a lot of the therapy stuff.
43:18
And at this point now Yeah, no.
43:21
Dude, I'm so I'm so intrigued by psychedelics.
43:24
But like I I'm I'm Mormon, right?
43:26
And so like the idea of doing Yeah, yeah. Wow. Like yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:33
You look just how I thought you would look. No, you don't.
43:36
You're the coolest Mormon I've ever met.
43:39
And you know Mormons here, so that's nice. Thank you.
43:41
You didn't have to say that.
43:41
That was I'm the only one like in the room.
43:45
But the but but no, like I like I think because the stance is very murky in my from the religious standpoint, so I'm like I've got I've got a a bunch of mushrooms capsulated in my medicine cabinet that I'm like Dray my wife I'm like, "Dray, someday I'm going to go walking on the land."
44:03
And I just don't know where I am yet, but I'm going to go over a wall. I've never done it.
44:07
I'm I'm completely sober but I'm totally into it.
44:08
I'm trying to convince my wife to do it.
44:11
My my fear is like I just don't want to be the one guy that like oh, he took it and then his brain snapped and I'm like No, I don't think that will happen with you. Thank you.
44:18
I don't think it would either cuz I've got a good brain but if it did I'd be very scared. No, I don't drink. Never touched it.
44:24
Well, I always thought like if I'm cuz I don't drink either but I'm like if I freak out I could just get super drunk and I'll be okay, you know?
44:29
So, you don't you don't have that.
44:32
Wait, this this playbook feels made up on the spot.
44:35
No, that's that's science-backed. Well, What is science?
44:42
No, I just thought like that's like my and that's my parachute, you know? That's my escape hatch.
44:46
I was man, I don't I don't know what point I'll feel okay with it but like at some point I'm just like Wait, so you bought it or you have it?
44:52
Yeah, no a a buddy of mine a buddy of mine is very he's like, "I'm good at onboarding people into psychedelics. I got you."
44:58
and I'm like, "All right." Have you ever done it?
45:00
No, and I meet those people and they're like, "Dude, it'll be so great, so controlled, so safe."
45:04
And I'm just like uh He's emotionally stable though.
45:09
Yeah, I'm like I don't need this. I'm like you know.
45:11
I was like, "Do I need to get sad first?"
45:14
is just like is just like the the guys are like, "I had my greatest ideas in there."
45:18
and I'm like, "Can I just I just want to see what some of those ideas would be?" Yeah.
45:22
I don't I don't think I need the whole like I don't need the trip.
45:24
I just need using 12% of your brain right now.
45:27
then you got like your barber that's like, "I saw Jesus. Yeah. He was there, bro."
45:30
and I'm like, "Ah, that could be cool, too."
45:33
I mean, I Well, dude, this is awesome.
45:35
Uh you came here not knowing anyone. We got you on the pod. This is pretty sick.
45:41
You're the most popular guy here.
45:42
Did you enjoy meeting some of these people? Oh, this is a blast. This is a blast.