This episode features an interview with Alden, the founder of a massive, multi-million dollar quilting company, who shares his journey of scaling a niche business into a dominant market force. The conversation covers the challenges of bootstrapping, the importance of building a strong brand, and the unconventional strategies used to grow the company, including the creation of a unique, community-driven culture.
Topics: Entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, scaling a business, niche markets, brand building, e-commerce, company culture, business strategy.
The Origin of Missouri Quilt Co [00:00]
Sam Parr: You’re so bad at telling your own story.
Shaan Puri: What you just said the intro. This is my story. You want me to tell?
Sam Parr: Well, I would say, yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.
Shaan Puri: Missouri Star Quilt Company.
Sam Parr: Missouri Star Quilt Company. It’s a behemoth of a quilting company. Can you say what the revenues are?
Shaan Puri: Yeah, so it’s the biggest. Let’s first start with that. It is the biggest. It’s the biggest. It’s the biggest. It’s, let’s see, we’re, we’re 400 some employees, over 100 million in revenue. Like, it’s a, it’s a big, it’s a big old boy.
The “Hubastank” Joke [00:36]
Sam Parr: We’re live, by the way. This is it. This is the pod.
Shaan Puri: Okay, okay. How, wait, how did you meet him?
Sam Parr: Well, you got to keep the Hubastank story in. That needs to be like one of our, could you just tell it? Can we get it? Should we say it again? Yeah, say it again, funny, and we’ll laugh.
Shaan Puri: The exact same way. The joke, the joke was when we started the hustle, we would, for some reason, I picked Hubastank as the band that I liked. Like, and you don’t have to pick a band when you start a company. I was like, there’s no form you got to fill out like, what’s your band that you like? What’s the tree? What’s the flower? What band are we?
Sam Parr: It was like our insider’s joke, 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 Hubastank, or, you know, like.
Shaan Puri: Would people notice? Would you get replies like, what the crap are you talking about?
Sam Parr: Every once in a while. So I put it on my LinkedIn, I put that I’m the the webmaster of the Hubastankfanclub.com.
Shaan Puri: When you endorse a skill, it’s like, good at Hubastanking.
Sam Parr: Well, and when I wanted to like make a joke with someone, I would email them from Sam@hubastankfanclub.com.
Shaan Puri: You owned it? Of course you owned it.
Sam Parr: Yeah, yeah, I still have it. I still keep renewing it. Just in case. It’s $9 for a great joke that’s still going.
Alden’s Background and Business [01:47]
Shaan Puri: So, dude, you got to give your intro. Who are you? What are you, what would you say you do?
Alden: Oh yeah, yeah. I’m Alden. What do I do? I, uh, not, not as much right now. I just shut down a, a software company. I own, or I’m the owner and the executive chairman of, uh, of Creativity Inc, which is, you know, it’s got a quilting company, a big quilting company, and a, a knitting company, and an art company. A lot of, a lot of stuff in that space.
Sam Parr: Dude, you’re so bad at telling your own story.
Alden: Well, you just said the intro. This is my story. You want me to tell?
Sam Parr: Well, I would say, yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.
Alden: Missouri Star Quilt Company.
Sam Parr: Missouri Star Quilt Company. It’s a behemoth of a quilting company. Can you say what the revenues are?
Alden: Uh, yeah, so it’s the biggest. Let’s first start with that. It is the biggest. It’s the biggest. It’s the biggest. It’s, let’s see, we’re, we’re 400 some employees, over 100 million in revenue. Like, it’s a, it’s a big, it’s a big old boy.
Shaan Puri: You own the largest quilting company in the world. It does over $100 million in revenue, and you also have now bought two towns.
Alden: So, so the quilting company in Hamilton, right? We, we bought the entire downtown district. So 27 buildings downtown.
Sam Parr: Because you had to, or because that’s awesome?
Alden: 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? Like, they’re in every little city. And most You’re saying that like we know that. You’re like, right, you know.
Alden: You’re with me, right? So 3,500 and one 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 going to get this? And so our, uh, like we were in this little town, we, uh, 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. 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 because when people come to our town, there’s normally no customers. And so like the, the impression you get if you walked in there, it was just retail, it’s like, nobody’s here and this is really sucky. And so instead, we had like 12 people cutting and fulfilling fabric. So 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, 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 wooden nickel in Minnesota. This was going to be my thing. And uh, it was some town in Germany, I think had four, and I was like, we’re going to, we’re going to take it to this level. You wanted to create a tourist destination for quilting. Just, just be a novelty, right? It was just supposed to be a novelty. And so then we ended up like, it’s like, like Dollywood or whatever. It’s like, this is that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, so then like if you’re driving by on the highway, you’re like, the most, are you kidding me? All right, let’s get you. Yeah.
Alden: Yeah, and so in, in that process, too, we got like, we, 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 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, 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, you have this idea from where, and then aren’t people saying, yo, this is crazy. We don’t have to do this. Well, and you know, Do you and your family own the whole thing?
Alden: Yeah, yeah.
Shaan Puri: So you’re able to do crazy shit like this.
Alden: 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, your initial cost 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.
Sam Parr: So if you do 150 million in revenue, how much EBITDA can it do?
Alden: Uh, it’s, so we’re like a normal e-commerce or like e-commerce business, so our goal is about 20%. We’re not there yet, especially this year, right? But like, but like, that’s where we, that’s where we’ll end up.
Sam Parr: And but then you take the profits out and buy Yeah, I’ve made like seven nickels along the way. I pay myself a fine salary, but like, but like all the money goes back in, right? Next purchase order, next purchase order. Well, because, because we’re growing by significant amounts every year, and most of that gets tied up in inventory.
Sam Parr: In two years, what do you think you could sell the business for?
Alden: Well, our goal right now, well, I, I, I think we can get 20% growth, uh, for a couple of years, right? Which should move our valuation to like a 5X revenue.
Sam Parr: So like a billion dollars.
Alden: Yeah, that’s the, that’s the idea.
Ownership and Team Structure [10:10]
Shaan Puri: How many are, is your like, is it like your wife or your sister, your mom? Who, who all are the shareholders? So like your whole family’s going to get Yeah, so it’s me and my sister, my buddy Dave are the, uh, 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 that have been there for any kind of time. And that’s a cool feeling.
Sam Parr: Well, you started it with your mom, or your mom started it and you tell that little bit of the story.
Alden: No, we, me and my, so the idea, like me and my sister have been talking about starting a company for a while. I was, I was like a year out of college, right? And so like, I, I was, uh, I don’t know, everybody’s sort of an entrepreneur right out of college. That’s what I’m going to do. And, and we were sort of that same way. And my mom had taken a quilt into a, to the quilt, 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, they’re going to 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, uh, 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 Either she’s terrible or there’s a lot of demand. Well, well, that was literally my market research. I was like, there is going to be a market here for this. Are there others? She’s like, yeah, everybody’s backed up. And I’m like, great. And when you say quilt, like literally just a blanket, right? Shut up, okay? How dare you. Yeah. It’s a quilt, not a blanket. But I mean, like quilt, like cuz 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. Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s exactly that. And like my mom’s stick, uh, is she’s like, she’s like the McDonald’s of quilting, right? 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? If your points don’t match. 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. And so, uh, mom’s like, no, finish is better than perfect. And and our big innovation that we made like the the the Lego blocks of quilting, right? So it’s a pack of 5-inch squares and pack of 10-inch squares and you sew them together and cut them like this and whack and makes it this. And so like really simple tricks and techniques. She was a costumer, uh, when we were kids. You’re saying McDonald’s because he like kind of made a process out of the burger, made a process where it’s like anybody can make this burger. Well, no, I’m saying McDonald’s because 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. I mean, I mean, it’s funny because like quilting, I never thought that, uh, you know, quilt my my business buddies and stuff, they’ll 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, uh, 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 is the majority of my customers. And there are so few people building awesome experiences for them that like I I 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 Sam’s phrase, that is a a dwarf amongst midgets. Is that what is that your phrase? Yeah, no, everybody normally says that, a dwarf amongst midgets. That’s very clever. 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 Wait, wait. It’s the same people, right? That’s why it’s hilarious. No one understood it. He just said it. A 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 him. All right, all right. I didn’t realize it was bad. And then another one is, tough titty said the kitty, but the milk’s still good. Have you heard of that one? Yeah, yeah, sure. So, anyway, what what do you think it’s going to be like in two or three years if you ever sell? I mean, are you guys like 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? No, well, I mean, what do you what do you do? This is a crazy question. This is what he says he does. This feels very aggressive, the way that you’re phrasing this. I’m just going to say that right now. 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? But there’s a big question in my head of like, of like, I don’t want, well, my my my main stay 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. You got to get in here. Tail is as old as time. It’s tough titties with the kitty and the milk and the goods. Uh, but uh, but like I so I’m trying to figure out how to navigate around that. Like how like is there uh, 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 to just keep running. 12 years. Yeah. You didn’t know, were you even like into quilting before that? Like, were you an No, my mom makes me, she’s she made me make one quilt cuz she’s like, you can’t run this company and not be a quilter. So I I’ve made one, I’m making another right now, a nice bear paw on point. So what did you know how to do? You didn’t you you worked at, you were a software guy. These are such mean questions. No, I uh The funny thing is at this event, why are you Sam’s basically been having an intervention. Cuz he’s asking questions that he thinks are completely normal questions that everybody here is like, Wait, and women would date you? That’s so weird. Yeah, he’s like, and people are like, Sam, when you ask questions, it’s like a full frontal attack. He’s like, what do you mean? Well, he is completely oblivious to the fact that these questions are outrageously aggressive. 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? I expected her to be like a nice He’s like, that was a compliment. I was like, very rarely is, oh, she looked exactly how I thought she would be a compliment. A lot of misunderstandings going on. I was like, I thought she sounded like a lovely nice woman and who’s cool. And and I was like, and she looks like it. Sweet Dorothy Main too. But but uh Well, and but he also said that you own 200 acres and you like I I do own so I like like this is sort of the issue. But what do you do in Missouri when you become that? I’m 100% hillbilly rich, right? Like like give me $100 million tomorrow, my life doesn’t change at all. Right. 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 uh beautiful wife also. I mean beautiful extends to all of them. And uh 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 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? I I Oh yeah, yeah. What skill, what what what attributes did you bring to the quilting table? Great question. Great question. Yeah. Uh not a lot. Like like uh I mean I so I came out of I came out of college uh and and my first job was with Semantic. Like I I was a really good uh kind of networker, right? 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 were doing You’re the most popular guy in the house right now, by the way. I don’t know if you know this. There’s like 25 people here. There’s some famous people. Everybody’s like, big Everybody’s got a different nickname for you. It’s like big out and then somebody’s like big city because he’s buying cities. And other guys like, oh, Alden. Big city’s good. And and so Big city’s a cool name. Yeah, it’s like it’s like, you know, calling Big city. Yeah, I mean it’s like it’s like calling like a really tall guy shorty or something, you know, this is perfect. It’s better than big country. I get big country a lot, but big city. No, it’s not funny when you are. Oh, you’d have to be like tiny country or something. Yeah, yeah. It has to be some opposite thing. Yeah, no, big city’s good. Okay, thank you. But anyways, you’re super like, I was calling out there like, what did you, how did you go? He’s like, you’re 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. You know, like this is amazing. How did you meet him? Well, I mean, I don’t even know. No, no, no. Patrick was on the podcast. So Patrick came on the pod. That was the first time I thought about the word quilt in like 12 years. Well, he was telling my story and all my buddies were like, dude, you were on this podcast. Dude, you got to check this out. So I’m like, what the crap? And then I DM’d you and I was like, oh man, that’s my story. Like, if you want to hear it, I’m happy to hear it. Patrick was like, there’s this there’s this niche market of quilting that’s way bigger than people realize. And I was like, what? Really? We remember we were like blown away. And then we were like, what’s he’s like, yeah, there’s companies that are huge. The conversation was great because you were like, oh, that’s rad, man. Love to hear it sometime. Do you ball? You want to come Yeah, he DM’d me. 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? But you don’t know anyone here, right? No, no, no. No, yeah, this is this is great. Did you even know Patrick? No. Oh, wow. No, I’d never met any of these guys. You took a amazing leap of faith. Show up. Dude, and I turned out to be like 6’7 and love playing basketball and and uh, yeah. Dude, he’s my ass on the court. Yeah, he was amazing. No, except you dude, you smoked us for the for the championship game, drained three threes in my face. Yeah, I like the greatest moment of my life today, so you know. It’s okay. So, okay, so you do the you do the quilting thing. No, wait, wait, wait. My skills before this, uh, just just buddies that like that like connected me up. So I was working in a software company, lost that job uh in dramatic fashion. I’d 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 uh and so I’m, you know, I’m like consulting and trying to like just How old were you? I was 26. In Missouri? Yeah. Yeah. Uh but like but 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 De Pre style. And was like, we’ll start a company up here. Let’s do it. So we tried like three of them. We tried a no zone 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 uh 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 uh 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 Groupon was hot, right? Or it was like woot.com and steep and cheap and uh We just talked all about Woot. And like chain love and all that stuff. Man, I loved those in college because 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? And I’d be like, wait to see what it is. It’s still cool. It’s cool, but like I but like it hooked me as a college kid and like every site was built for like for like, are you a dude that loves riding bikes? Get 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 Quilter’s Daily Deal, I think it was literally the first time anybody had done a daily deal site for my demographic. Which is like a uh uh discounted fabric. Well, it I mean, it was discounted items, right? Okay. And like dude, at the beginning, it was so funny because like I was I was the guy doing it all. We were just scrapping our way through and so like I’m I’m I’m not a good writer for my mom, right? Where like I’d write these stories and they were like, you’d say like, hey ladies, like Hey fellow women. No, no, so we started a forum and the the first six months of the forum because nobody wants to join an empty forum, I was Genie B and Sarah Sue and my buddy Dave was Carmen and Elizabeth. And we just have these like chatting all day. Oh dude, we be just uh what kind of quilt did you make? Oh, that’s so cute. How’s the brother? And eventually now it’s like 90,000 members and like it’s a great old thing. Wow, so that’s really so you But your mom had must have had some following or something? Is that how it started? No, she had zero following. No, I I literally You started with the forum. When we no, no, we launched. So the 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 I built this website on uh 1and1.com, if you remember that old shared hosting, man. It was a disaster. They lost my site a couple times. I was like, I’ll start over. Thanks, guys. And uh built this site and 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, you know, be on a date, be like, hold on a second. I got to log into my quilting website and change it up. Tens of women are waiting for this. Yeah. 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? Like zero orders the first three weeks. And 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. Persevered. Why? Just like uh I 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 like we’re selling fabric online and like the other sites were like were like built on Yahoo stores and crap. And I’m like, I can 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 uh and so we we kept working at it just thinking we had to figure out how to find people. And our dude, like I would write these deals every day and be like 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 whale’s belly and Jumbo Rickrack is $3.99. You know, it was like some weird thing cuz I like like I was just trying to be creative. That’s how Woot did it, too. They were pretty funny. 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 you need to stop doing this. This is weird. My buddy Dave ended up doing it for the next the next while and he was much better than I was. But uh so we we went three weeks without a sale. 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. 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. It was the crazy 8s charm pack. We meant to price it at like 288, accidentally priced it at 88 cents and we sold like 11 of them. But but shipping was $5, right? And so like our cost on it was four something and so we’re like, we still made money. Like this works and the average order size was actually like $28. Like the 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 are great deals and people love them. And uh but that’s what ended up building our business. And then as we went like Where were you getting the fabric and supplies from? We buy them from vendors. So like even even a day, there’s probably 40 vendors that we buy from. Then to grow it, we started uh making videos. Like the the education stuff. YouTube was only a year and a half old at that point. And so like, you know, late 2008, early 2009 and and uh there was like a there was like this guy Quilting Buck on there and it was like a webcam that he’d show on his quilt. And it was it was cool. People were trying to do stuff, but 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 and uh 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 your lingo, right? I need you to talk to me so I can understand. I’m not a dummy. I have no idea what what a wof is, right? A width of fabric. But like I’m like, cuz normally teachers when they try and start teaching, they’ll try and like like give themselves some uh 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 could understand and we became this very approachable. If you’ve never made a quilt, you start with Missouri 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 uh 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. And you you’re 12 year you’re in 12 years in, you’re like 100 150 or something like that revenue. What were the first five years, you think? Uh, first year was 100 grand, then we did a million, then we did four, then we did eight, and then we did 14. And then did eight we kept going at that rate. Yeah, yeah. It well and but but again, man, like bootstrap through that was intense. It was crazy. At what point were you able to pay yourself and make money? Uh, so we paid mom after three years, right? Like it’s crazy cuz I have I have like seven siblings in 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 so it’s like volunteers, right? Well, what year was it making enough money where you’re like, fuck it, let’s buy a town. You know, let’s do this. Well, well, so, so, uh, 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 piecemealed the beginning one. Like it’s we can look back on it now and be like, oh yeah, 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 uh and by the time like because we were running so far ahead of our own curve, uh we just ended up with like our whole downtown. And now we have like like there’s a few other businesses in town, but uh And is it like 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 I’m going to like, you know, negotiate like, yeah, cuz you need it. You need to complete the set. Yeah. But then Tiny comes knocking on their door. We need to talk. No, you cannot. I cannot promise you protection. Like, did you guys run into that? Oh yeah, like like the average price for a building in a small Missouri town like that was like about 20 grand. And uh and by the our last building was about 80, right? So so we I just bought this other town down the road from us, Kingston, right? And so like seven Is it in Missouri? Yeah, so seven miles down the road. It’s our county seat. Like with the really nice like king like they have a huge Is that on the way to Mizzou? From St. Louis? No. Oh, I’m thinking of Kingsland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Kingston is by me. And uh at the other side by Kansas City. It was seven miles 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. And so they’re just these old like condemned sort of overrun buildings. We’ll we’ll put 2 million into them to get them fixed up, right? 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 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 cuz 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 because 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. Other than the internet, which is I mean, 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. I can’t find this client info. Have you heard of Hubspot? Hubspot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dealing databases. Hubspot, grow better. Uh so after call I actually left this part out. This is a cool part. After college, I uh when I when I lost my job, this was uh let’s see, 2009, I I declared my year of the MBA, right? I was looking at like going to back to to Harvard. I’d lived in Boston. I was like, I should I should really go spend and it was like 200 grand to get I was to get an MBA there and I was like, man, that’s that’s too much money for this broke farmer. And uh 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 uh constrained list of uh of like 37 books, right? And so I bought them all on Amazon for like $200. And uh 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 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 three months. I just want to I’ll I’ll shine your shoes and make your coffee. I just want to see how you run your business. And uh and so I like I hopped around to some of that and then I got into uh I like I got to be an an intern in Techstars in 2010, right? So like Which which one? Colorado? Boulder, yeah. So it was only Boulder at the well, Boulder and Seattle, but like um it was David Cohen and Nicole Glaros, 2010. And so like while I’m building this quilt company on the side, we’ve got these like world-class mentors coming and and like they’d mentor these companies doing, you know, cool robots and stuff. And you’re listening to all these hours. Yeah, Dick Costello, that’s super interesting. What would you do if you had a quilt company, man? I’m just curious. Like, how would you how would you move this? How would you like a deal daily? Yeah. You like deals, right? You don’t do anything like, okay, great. It’s well, so like I was getting like this way outsized like brain for for the internet stuff. And I 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 uh 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 uh and shoveled all that into into this quilting company, which is, you know, again, like it’s 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 because there’s no other like dude, there’s no kids coming out of their MBA school trying to take my margins saying, that’s that’s except for Patrick. Once Patrick told all your listeners, there’s a hot. How do you How 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? Or learn from or share ideas? No, I like I got buddies, right? Like I’m I’m an angel investor. I’m in 50 companies doing stuff. We I I have a uh uh early stage fund that I run with some buddies. Like like I’m still like these are still friends. We still talk, but but uh there’s like from an e-commerce standpoint, honestly, man, like I I think I’m world-class. I think I I like I think I’m one of the best brains at selling stuff on the internet. And uh That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Also the the the MBA the 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? Cuz 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 in like Well, dude, that was my reason. 9 months for $250 and you’re like, oh yeah, what if I just emailed all the smart people, ask them what are the best three books? I read all those books and then I like go shadow, you know, the three smart people I know, right? You worked for free 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 and dude, I was the first one in, the last one out. Like I knew I wasn’t getting paid, but but like I was trying to soak it all up. And uh you I mean, you do that and like they’ll open every door you ever need to get through. What was the most game-changing book of all those that you read? Uh 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 them cuz I’m like, it’s the exact same thing. The 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 glam on to and say, oh man, it’s good to great. That’s the best one. This one I and you it’s your Bible. Um but for me like the most impactful one was this one called Coming Out of the Ice by Victor Herman, which is this uh this this dude that like uh 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 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 uh like dude, reading that while I felt like my life was so hard was like, oh, I don’t know, I’ll be fine. I’m Dude, I read that I do the exact same thing. I’ll read uh It’s like better than therapy. For sure. You want you want the fast version of therapy? It’s like It’s it’s David Goggins back in the day. Totally. Like I’ll read like uh like a book about Navy SEALs or about like I just read about uh the Cherokee uh Native Americans. Oh man, it makes your problems are so small. Yeah. I’m like, I’m such a punk. Yeah. You know what I mean? I do the exact same thing. It’s way better than business books, too. No, it’s like my favorite one of that whole list cuz cuz just a buddy of mine 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 uh that that one still to this day is like great. But but like dude, the books, I 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. Oh, you guys are clever. 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 How many people do you you have 450 employees, but how many of them are doing like uh like white collar jobs, like SEO, marketing, or uh or like internet internet related things? Maybe 100 of them. 100 of them. How many of them live in the town? Uh gosh, I I I don’t know. I’d say I mean, how many of them are are on site in Missouri? I think I think we have 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? Um and then we have Then we have like our design team is mostly remote. Like a lot of a lot of the ones that make sense to be remote are remote. Um but then like in town, there’s probably 250 of them that are like right there in town. Is buying a town a good business besides like you had a you have a business and this is kind of like uh adjacent, helpful. 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 could buy it up, I could reinvigorate it. Is that a good idea or no? Well, like I think I think every company should have a town. Well, like they did. Hot take, dude. That’s a That’s a hot take. You know, so we can list a few. Four, uh Henry Ford tried doing this in uh Yeah, Pella Windows is up in Iowa. They have their own town. Like like there’s well, a lot of them Bethlehem PA. A lot of them did and a lot of towns were built around like that big company, right? Like a coal mine or something like that. But but my thing is like is like every dumb internet brand should should have one, right? Like like a a buddy of mine does uh 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? But somebody, if they just take that opportunity, they’re grabbing they’re like, and 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 the experience. You’re going to come and spend two 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 that thing. And that and that’s what you’re doing for quilting. That’s what we’re doing for quilting. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Are people doing this for everything? Like if I wanted to go learn cooking, people are like, oh, I need to go to Paris to get that experience. But like if I’m learning to like cooking or design, what if people go? Well, what’s funny, like let’s say let’s say it’s cooking, right? 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. Right? The the the cooking Mecca looks like we bought every building on this street and uh and walk in this one, we have 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 But you’re going to get and so you’ll give tours. Or I don’t know what you want to call it. Well, no, you sell the stuff. You’re a retailer, right? And and like tours are tours are part of it. Like people people well, cuz when I go there, I’m all of a sudden a part of the community, right? It’s common. It’s common. It’s like you go to a brewery. It’s like you go to a brewery, you can buy the stuff or a winery. You could it’s like uh like Napa is a good example of this. Sure. Like wine, it’s like Napa. Well, well, and if you’re a consumer of it, yeah, right? And it would 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? We I was I forget who I was talking to, but they were like, they oh, uh 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 I 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 a novelty. What is this example you’re giving? I don’t know. The biggest wooden nickel in Minnesota. You said that like That’s some real country. So so in Iowa, to driving down what what is it? I-70. Iowa City has the biggest wooden nickel in Iowa. Or in the world. What is a wood and nickel? What is that? It’s it’s like a giant 16-foot buffalo nickel that’s like made out of wood. So it’s a buffalo nickel. In the olden days. Sorry, I’m the only one that doesn’t know this. Before Washington was on the quarter. You know what he’s talking about? Yeah, it’s a buffalo nickel. A buffalo nickel just had a nickel that was made before like I love that I’m looking at you like, how do you not know Buffalo nickel? Like 1905, what it was I don’t know what they stopped making it. 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. That’s it. The the the nickel used to have a buffalo. So it’s like a it’s it’s Topeka has the biggest ball of twine, right? Like it’s it’s all the just the roadside novelty. Come see the biggest whatever. The biggest pecan is in like Minnesota, I think or something, right? And 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 a bag. 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 a category where you’re like, somebody should definitely do it for, I don’t know, beer or Well, dude, so like we just had twins a couple years ago and I want it like where do we have to fly to if you’re going to have a baby and they have the coolest experience. You race the the the the, you know, the stroller around the track and then you try 15 different car seats. Yeah, yeah. It should be in like Lehigh, Utah or something, right? But right with the Mormons. Baby nickel you’ve ever seen. Yeah. But 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 products represented. Like that’s that’s the novelty of it. And uh the economics, the economics are going to vary by like like interest to interest. 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? Yeah, is it just just more is it just a retail business that has higher than normal volume? No, no, no, no, no. 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 like so So for for uh an internet business, right? That like our company, there’s a bunch of no-name warehouses on the internet that sell fabric, right? But we are a little quilt shop in Hamilton, Missouri. In fact, we’re a 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, right? Like the second you open up a town. So one of the guys here, he he’s doing like Firebrand tea, right? Yeah. Uh David Siegel. And and I’m like, I’m like, bro, like go go open up a a retail store because the second you do that, I’m not just buying from your crappy warehouse where you’re importing and trying to resell. You’re selling the steam and the comfort lift because you’re like, we’re a real place with a real sign. It’s a branding it’s a branding play. Yeah. And like people like this. You’ll never come here, even if you’ll never come here, cuz 99% of your traffic never goes there. You’re saying that that stands you out against every other e-com. Yeah, that’s exactly a D2C brand. And our split, our split like we get 90% of our revenue is online, 10% is in store. A little less than 10, like 8% is in store. But but like our marketing is 98% the town. Let me tell you the story about what, oh, Suzy Brighter Quilting. Oh, look at this new display we did. Oh, all this stuff, right? And that’s that’s the story that we tell uh while most of our traffic or most of our revenue comes from online sales, right? And so that’s why I’m saying, like dude, if you’re if you have a brand, That’s fascinating. So so many of these guys are just trying to flip Shopify stores and like, oh, we import and it ships out of ship bomb and it’s great. 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 trying to make a profit. And uh the second you build a little bit of a of an experience around it, right? 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. Let’s say you uh you sell the company in two years, you’re you’re you or your family collectively are maybe a billion or worth a billion. You’re not working with quilting anymore. What 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? I have no I have no idea. I started a company I loved called Pretzel this last like two years ago and uh we it was the it was the the photo roll 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 I was super cool and like the dude, the skew leveled data aggregated around the user was so interesting to me. And uh 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. I felt, dude, 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. So bad. So what do you want to do then? Uh 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 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 a have the meat, the pickle, the and the sauce. 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. As soon as it turned into like, oh, now I built this thing, I got to grind it out, like I’d be miserable. And uh and so I’ll just try like little stuff like that. I think I I mean, at some point I’ll get into another thing, but like right now, I When you’re in your early 20s and in late teens, did you think you were going to be wealthy and that No, no. Well, I I dude, that’s interesting. Uh 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 I was talking to my wife a couple 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. You like overshot what you had pictured. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You never repictured. You know, sometimes you can overplan. I didn’t expect this to work. 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 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? Cuz so much of our of our world is built around like, got to get money. 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. You’re like, I got to look good and all of a sudden I’m married and I’m like, screw it. You don’t care how many pushups I can do. Like I’m not going anywhere. 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 uh like just figuring out what I was supposed to reach for was a was a really hard walk for me. And where’d you like, what was the, how’d you get out of that? Uh yeah, I don’t know. Well, so like doing Like any man, I just buried it inside and moved on. I’ll come back up later. Dude, I I leaned in heavy with the reboot guys. I don’t know if you know like Jerry Colonna over at Reboot. He’s like the like the big exact coach. He coach, who do you call? Steve Jobs or something like that? Who who’s he coaching? I I don’t know. He’s a nice man though and I like him a lot. He’s like he coach somebody famous like, you know, whatever. Yeah, he he’s he’s But they do like a retreat now for CEOs. Yeah, well so I like when I was running the company, dude, well cuz I was running the quilt company and it 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 you don’t scale your own capacity to to lead, uh I found myself like a, you know, 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? You’re throwing bombs in your own business. You’re like, dang it, Rick, I can’t believe you did this thing. And then like after it’s like, I’m not a yeller, Rick, baby, I’m so sorry. Is it, you know this is not me. We’re on the same team. And and uh and like I came out and I was like, man, I am hurting the people around me. I got to fix this. So I went on a on a a boot camp retreat that they do and like but I came out of that and I was like, I either I I need to fire my co-founders. Which which one of three co-founders and 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, we’ll all step back and like we can we can manage this transition. But uh but like to get to that point where I could sort of say those words out loud of like, man, I can’t keep doing this. Cuz 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 You do psychedelics? No, dude, I’m so I’m so intrigued by psychedelics. But like I I’m I’m Mormon, right? And so like the idea of doing You’re Mormon? Yeah, yeah. Wow. That guy. Yeah, yeah. You look just how I thought you would look. No, you don’t. You’re the coolest Mormon I’ve ever met. And you know Mormons here, so that’s nice. Thank you. You didn’t have to say that. That was a that was a one like in the room. But the uh but but uh no, like I like I think I know 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 encapsulated in my medicine cabinet that I’m like, Dre, my wife, I’m like, Dre, someday I’m going to go walking on the land and I just don’t know where I am yet, but I’m going to go over. I’ve never done it. I’m I’m completely sober, but I’m I’m totally into it. I’m trying to convince my wife to do it. Dude, 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. I don’t think it would either cuz I’ve got a good brain, but if it did, I’d be very sad. Do you drink? No, I don’t drink. Never touched it. Well, fuck. I always thought like if I’m 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? So you you don’t have that. Wait, this this playbook feels made up on the spot. Did you No, that’s that’s science backed. Well, what is science? Yeah. No, I just thought like that’s like my that’s my parachute, you know, that’s my my my escape hatch. I was I was man, I I don’t I don’t know at 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? Yeah, no, a buddy of mine a buddy of mine is very he’s like, I’m good at onboarding people into psychedelics. I got you. And I’m like, all right. Have you ever done it? No, and I meet those people and they’re like, dude, it’ll be so great, so controlled, so safe. And I’m just like, uh He’s emotionally stable, though. Yeah, I’m like, I don’t need this. I’m like, you know, I’m happy. Well, do I need to get sad first? The interesting part, the interesting part is just like is just like the the guys are like, I have my greatest ideas in there and I’m like, can I just I just want to see what some of those ideas would be. Yeah. I don’t I don’t think I need the whole like I don’t need the trip. I just need like You’re only using 12% of your brain right now. But then then you got like your barber that’s like, I saw Jesus. Yeah. He was there, bro. And I’m like, ah, that could be cool, too. I mean, I all right. I don’t know. Well, dude, this is awesome. Uh, you came here not knowing anyone. We got you on the pod. This is pretty sick. You’re the most popular guy here. Did you enjoy meeting some of these people? Oh, this is a blast. This is a blast.