Speaker 1 0:07

well, welcome to another edition of hold my cutter. As you can see, we're not tonight at burned by rocky patel. This episode a special treat. You know michael mckenry and I have always talked about especially the fort.

Speaker 2 0:18

He's mobile still even at this old age he's yeah, yeah, you get me all the time right off. Old, going to start right off.

Speaker 1 0:24

Old age. Yep, I cut you off at the fort Wow.

Speaker 2 0:29

That's usually my line.

Speaker 1 0:30

We're here at I know we're here at David Allen Clothing Showroom and our special guest is David Allen, who's been kind enough to let us barge in on his incredible showroom, this place is spectacular, his story is spectacular, and he's uh, and that jacket is spectacular made by david.

Speaker 2 0:52

Oh, this outfit, thank you krista.

Speaker 1 0:53

Thank you, david, yeah, I know we're gonna. We're gonna get you all fixed up. Yeah, well, but before you and I chat.

Speaker 2 0:59

Let's, let's go. Let's, then we will. We got a guy here, let's yeah david is here.

Speaker 1 1:03

David, thank you so much for letting us again barge in, and your story is absolutely incredible. You've become a friend to us, to the Pirates and certainly to Michael and me. Start out with growing up in Finleyville and going to high school and then going to Duquesne and what you thought you were going to do when you grew up.

Speaker 3 1:24

Yeah Well, first of all, I appreciate you guys having me and it's been a pleasure just becoming friendlier and friendlier with you guys and I just genuinely appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. That's the most important thing to me. So, and just having me on here. You know, I grew up in western Pennsylvania, about 30 minutes south of here in Finleyville, and you know, growing up it was kind of a blue collar household. There was no sleeping in during the week, during the weekends. My dad was a you know 435 am wake up person and what did he do, David, for a living?

Speaker 3 1:53

He throughout the 90s. He actually he had lost his job a handful of times throughout the 90s and then after that he ended up getting in the construction space and he ran construction on nuclear power plants on the.

Speaker 2 2:04

East Coast Nuclear. Hello yeah.

Speaker 3 2:07

So out in the Harrisburg area. He lived there for about 15 years, wow, and he would drive out there every week and come home every weekend and oftentimes one or two, three times per week. He would come back just to see sporting events or to see, you know, his dad was sick at the time my grandfather so he actually took care of him a ton, made sure he was, you know, going to his doctor's appointments and all that stuff. And it's pretty ironic because I think out of all the my you know he had a sister and a brother and my dad was was treated the most challenging out of the three and my dad was the one that really took care of my grandfather on his last couple of years. So it was really cool to see my dad and his mindset and his discipline of just being a great human being and just working his ass off in every aspect of life.

Speaker 2 2:49

You think he was challenged because they saw his potential. Is that what it is? Because, like sometimes you just see someone and you're like he's got more. I can push him a little bit further, because I know they influence you a ton, the hard work I mean just your story is amazing.

Speaker 3 3:07

I can't wait to get deeper into it. Yeah, no, I, you know I don't know the answer. I, my dad, ended up going to Oklahoma university. He actually hitchhiked to college um, just to get away as far away as possible from you know, from the situation he was in and um worked 60, 70 hours away managing a pizza shop while going to school and paying his way through school and everything. So I have a lot of admiration for my dad my mom as well, but my dad especially from a business standpoint. And I think a lot of my discipline and reason I've stuck with a lot of things was the way that my dad kind of raised me specifically on just getting things done and not making excuses for anything.

Speaker 1 3:40

But you've built this incredible business. It still continues to grow, but when you were growing up you had the work ethic but no disrespect. But were you a big fashion guy growing up in Pittsburgh?

Speaker 3 3:52

No, for school we got one pair of shoes a year. We didn't really have a ton of money. And then we got our sports cleats or whatever that was, and that was the extent of it, and we would shop at Gabriel Brothers because we didn't have a ton of money. So we of it, and we would shop at Gabriel brothers cause we didn't have a ton of money. So, um, we went to the discount store whatever we could buy for the year and that's what we had. So, um, I always appreciated um, fashion and you know, look good, feel good in sports was kind of my mom, my mindset. So I always had the wristbands and and the cool stuff from a sporting standpoint.

Speaker 3 4:19

Yeah, I tried to and it looks so stupid back then now that I look at it, but to, and it looks so stupid back then now that I look at it. But yeah, it was just I didn't have the means to really to go above and beyond from a fashion standpoint. So I certainly understand that, especially now with our business, that it's an expensive product and unfortunately not everybody can indulge in what we offer. So when people do support us, I genuinely it means a lot because I know there's a lot of options for other people to go and purchase from. But yeah, we didn't have a ton growing up and I felt like we were very wealthy by the love that we had for my family for sure.

Speaker 1 4:53

How you've grown so fast is unbelievable Feels like forever and the clients you have. I mean talk about some of the clients you have in the sports world and outside celebrities With you guys.

Speaker 3 5:05

you know, paul skeens is one of our bigger pittsburgh clients and he decked him out at the all-star gala so um you know, we've done, I was always wondering, until I found out like where do you get that stuff?

Speaker 1 5:15

where do you get these California kids? Right here in pittsburgh, right he?

Speaker 2 5:18

suits up every single start no so he's representing every single time he starts yeah, and krista, who works with me.

WWE Wrestler Suit Fitting Journey

Speaker 3 5:24

She's been the one that's been kind of designing and dressing him since we got connected. Derek Shelton kind of introduced us. I guess he was going to go to Men's Warehouse to buy something and Shelty just basically said, no, you're going to call Krista. And from then he's just been such a big proponent of supporting our business. That's awesome. We've done a ton for a lot of the Steelers. More in the previous years for the Steelers I did Ryan Shazier's wedding, stefan Tuitt when he played Roosevelt, nix Tyler Medekiewicz, terrell Edmonds we had a whole roster.

Speaker 2 5:52

Is that him.

Speaker 1 5:53

Yeah, right, right Hello.

Speaker 3 5:57

We've done stuff for Omar Khan and then Ryan Shaya, the Penguins, drew O'Connor, and then through ryan shay of the penguins, um drew o'connor, and then, through wrestling community, we just dressed, uh, the rock for wrestlemania.

Speaker 2 6:10

How did that happen? Because I mean, I'm walking the back, I'm looking at all the rocks photos yeah, like how did that happen? Yeah, john cena too, which you have a great story I want you to share yeah so.

Speaker 3 6:18

So the rock came up about a month before wrestlemania this this year and wwe called me and they just said, hey, it was about 30 days out and they said, david, we have a client that we want you to work with for WrestleMania and you know but why you?

Speaker 1 6:31

Yeah why WWE?

Speaker 2 6:32

contact you. That's a billion dollar brand.

Speaker 3 6:35

Yes, we that's awesome. Back in 2015, before I even had a clothing brand officially, I was kind of that was the 2014,. 2015 is when I started dabbling and trying to figure out can I make custom suits? And the purpose in the beginning was purely if I could sell a couple of suits a month to friends of mine, I can make enough money to buy free clothing.

Speaker 3 6:53

And that was all I really wanted to do was get my wardrobe paid for, and that was really the extent of it. Through that, I got connected with the gentleman in WWE, titus O'Neil. I got connected with the gentleman in WWE, titus O'Neil. Titus was the first WWE wrestler, first athlete or celebrity in any capacity that I had a chance to sit down with him, and I was actually introduced to him through a gentleman at Point Park University, justin Labar.

Speaker 3 7:16

Justin had a segment every Thursday called Chair Shot Reality, which was aired at Point Park University. I sent Justin a product that I had developed, which are interchangeable necktie knots. I did that before the suits, sent him those for a year. He would wear them every thursday on his show. One day he just said I'm good friends with one of the wrestlers I want to introduce you, and that was titus. So, october of 2015, I I met titus at the marriott next to the arena and I I show up at like nine 30 at night waiting for him to drive down from Buffalo, and I think he arrived at 1230, one o'clock in the morning. And so then walks this guy six foot six, six foot seven three, 280 pounds tiny.

Speaker 3 7:55

And at that time I had no idea how to do anything, but I had this, these books of fabric with me and I just played the game Like I knew what I was doing, and um build a good rapport with him.

Speaker 3 8:05

Yeah, it was. It was interesting. I my my mindset was this is the first celebrity or athlete I have a chance to work with. It's obviously the huge network through WWE. It could lead to a lot of things. I really want to make sure I build rapport and take care of this gentleman and I would do that for anybody but especially with this, it's like my mind started churning of the opportunity that could stem from this. So Titus ended up purchasing 10 suits off me the first night that I met him. I did all of those for him at cost, because I was just trying to get in and network with him. And a month later they come in and none of them fit. So it was a disastrous start, but it was a really good start from a relationship Right from the get-go.

Speaker 3 8:40

Just like entrepreneurship in general. It's super easy and everybody should do it. So that led to. So that led me to start working with WWE. Wait, how did you get the suits to fit? So what happened with that was I basically had to remake all of them.

Speaker 2 8:55

This is coming from a guy that has ripped a lot of pants.

Speaker 3 8:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:58

All right Used to.

Speaker 3 9:00

No, still do, Okay, so yeah. So the ten I had to remake because they weren't close enough to be altered, because there wasn't enough seam allowance inside each seam. So to open it up, there needed to be more fabric and there just wasn't. So I made 10 more suits and sent them to him, and then that didn't fit. So I wasted 20 suits right out of the gate, did 10 more suits that didn't fit and then all of a sudden I had a genius idea to make one see if it fits and then make the rest after that. So it was like a lot how we learn right.

Speaker 2 9:27

The trial and error is pretty crazy 31.

Speaker 3 9:32

You got it Nailed on that 31st. So I started out in the hole pretty, pretty aggressively and then basically we just throughout that time I just had a good rapport with him, spoke to him and was transparent about everything. He knew where I was at the time from a business standpoint. I kind of let him under the hood that I was just trying to build a business and grow, and he was very generous and courteous about that. And January of 16, he just called me one day and said David, I want you to book a flight and travel with WWE and I want to introduce you to everybody in the locker room. And that was kind of the start. So I always tell this story. It's hilarious.

Speaker 3 10:00

Um, so I was getting ready to fly to Orlando for the Royal Rumble and it was on a Sunday. Then Monday was in Miami for Monday Night Raw and then Tuesday was Tampa for Smackdown. So I booked my flight on Sunday to fly down there and this time I didn't have much money. I was blowing through it left and right. And so I book a flight and I'm flying out of La Trobe Airport and I'm like man, I can't wait to get there. It's going to be awesome, the best trip ever. And I get to the gate and I'm like there's no flight going to Orlando out of La.

Speaker 3 10:26

Trobe, I went to the wrong airport.

Speaker 1 10:28

No, get out of here. You're so geeked out, you're so ready. I was so pumped up.

Speaker 3 10:32

I actually hired a driver to take me out there because I'm like I'm on this business trip.

Speaker 1 10:46

then you got to La Trobe and realized yeah, there was no flight leaving for that, so it was pretty humiliating internally, but I didn't tell anybody until then, so fortunately he didn't leave.

WWE Suit Fitting and Financial Struggles

Speaker 3 10:51

The driver ended up driving me to Pittsburgh. I booked a flight, so I was like two hours late for Royal Rumble and on the flight down I was just so embarrassed and I was like, man, this is like an opportunity of a lifetime. And here I just messed everything up, like how crazy is that? Uh. And then it ended up going well. I sold 52 suits in three days, the nine different wrestlers. So that was the start of okay, I think I have something here. And then, um, I just came home one day and I said it's time to open up a bank account. And that was, uh, january 28th of 2016, and that's when david allen clothing was formed.

Speaker 1 11:25

So where were they getting fitted? Do you any idea? You? Know, I just like wonder like, so they weren't real thrilled with it. You knew you had to top whatever.

Speaker 3 11:34

Yeah, they were doing so a lot of at the time. It was actually great because wwe was trying to go through a transition where they were asking or requiring their, their, uh talent to start dressing a little bit better for appearances, and Titus was one of the best dressed and is one of the best dressed athletes there, so they kind of leaned on him heavily when it came to suggestions from that. So what I would do is I would just go set up in the catering area backstage and I would just set my fabric books up and one wrestler would walk by hey, what's this here? And I would explain what I was doing and, all right, cool, come measure me. And then someone else and someone else, and at that time I was only selling suits for $500 or $550. So sorry about your price that you paid on yours.

Speaker 1 12:14

Well worth it.

Speaker 3 12:17

The beginning was just selling whatever I could and I didn't have any threshold to go off of. So at the time the price warranted our product. Because threshold to go off of? So at the time the price warranted our product, cause I didn't know anything and the product wasn't that great then. Um, I was very proud of it at the time but I knew it had to get a lot better, um, you know. So that's kind of how the reputation with WWE started, leading up to them calling me and contacting me for WrestleMania this year. I've done business with a lot of the talent for seven years, a lot of the big projects. I did a couple Colonel Sanders, kfc projects with Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels where I had to turn them into Colonel.

Speaker 2 12:49

Sanders yeah, sorry, I couldn't help myself. No, that's all right.

Speaker 3 12:53

So there was a lot of experience with my name with WWE that they were comfortable that I could pull something off. And then John Cena is one of my biggest clients. He's definitely financially spent the most out of any client and I think he's purchased it has to be near 600 suits in the last seven or eight years. What, yeah, 600? Yeah, he usually gets 50 to 75 a year off of me.

Speaker 1 13:16

You've got to be kidding.

Speaker 3 13:17

So his name is gold obviously with WWE and you know, anytime they've suggested it to him. He's mentioned my name and he's gotten me into movies and doing a lot of big productions for him. So the reputation, thankfully we've we've we've earned the badge and the stripes of building a good reputation for our brand and our name, and that's why they contacted me for and after getting those guys fitted.

Speaker 2 13:39

Is everything else just so easy? I mean they're built. I mean they're just not built normal. Yeah, it's right, john cena. I mean he's yoked out of his mind, was he? He's not that tall, is he?

Speaker 3 13:48

he's a little bit. I'm 5, 11. He's probably two inches taller than me, so he's not a mass, but he's very broad shoulder and his hands are massive. So he's just a very, just, a, just a thick human being.

Speaker 3 13:59

Um, ironically, you know, shaking his hands versus shaking the rocks hands john's hand can consume my complete hand which is kind of crazy, but at the end of the day and I tell my team this all the time too is, if you take your time and you measure properly and you do what we've taught you, you can measure anybody. It's really not that difficult. When you break it down, there's a science to it and you learn more from postures. Learn more from postures Visually, you see certain things and you can make adjustments to it, but the foundation and the fundamentals of doing it really is not that different from one person to another.

Speaker 1 14:30

But, David, once you got into the ground floor with WWE and those guys, then everything took off right from there, essentially.

Speaker 3 14:38

Yeah, I mean it was. You know the beginning stages were just very challenging. My biggest holdup my business was always profitable. The biggest challenge I had in the beginning was I was in medical sales before I got into this was making great money, spent every dollar that I made at the time. So you know, it was kind of one of those things.

Speaker 3 14:54

But then when I lost my job, I paid off a student loan, I built a house and I lost my job all within probably 16 months or 18 months. So I had no liquid cash other than my 401k. So whenever I lost my job, my business was bleeding because I had to fund my lifestyle as I was downsizing. So I would sell rental properties, but I probably almost put my house on the market 15 times in a handful of three to four years because I was figuring out hey, the last thing I'm willing to do is get rid of my house, but if I have to, I'll do that and I'll live wherever I have to.

Speaker 3 15:28

So you know there was a lot of that that took place and when I had $180,000 saved in my 401k, called my financial advisor and I was like man, I want to drain this money. It's probably going to last me a couple of years and it lasted probably six months. So, um, because of all the mistakes that I made, not knowing, you know, rolling the dice on this or that and not having a mentor at the time really challenged my growth. So, you know, a lot of the times in the beginning was we just had to sell more so we could order clothing. And you know I had to pay employees and pay vendors. Never one time did we ever not pay anybody, not never one time did we not pay an employee. I suffered through all of that, but I was willing to do that and that was the way I wanted to conduct and grow the business, if that was going to be the case.

Speaker 2 16:10

Yeah, that oozes off of you.

Speaker 3 16:13

Thank you.

Speaker 2 16:13

Your humility and your want to help people that you really care about. You seem just like a loyal human being.

Speaker 3 16:19

Thank you.

Speaker 2 16:19

So yeah, that's cool to hear and not a surprise at all.

Speaker 3 16:22

That's important to me and I realize whether you spend $180 on a dress shirt, whether you spend $10,000 to $50,000 a year on suits, or whether you just compliment what we're doing as a business, it all means equally the same to me, because there's other options and there's a lot of other options and I don't believe I'm different than any other person out there. I just like to treat people well because I just enjoy people and I'm fascinated with people's stories, their backgrounds, what drives them, how they've gotten places, and then challenges and obstacles that they've overcome, and that gives me a lot of energy and joy to hear those things. And if I could talk to somebody and make somebody happy by treating them good, it's like what's the other option?

Speaker 2 17:02

Well, that's what makes you different. Everything you just said makes you different. I appreciate that it's not always like that.

Speaker 1 17:06

David, what about the tattoo? Well, I'm covered the original one, I guess it was right the bank account.

Speaker 3 17:13

Yeah, so that one is right here 86-40.

Speaker 1 17:17

Negative 86-40. Minus 86-40. Overdraw. What's that mean?

Speaker 3 17:26

That was the most challenging part of my life, um, by far. Uh, that was back in 2017 and I was at giant Eagle getting groceries and I was going up to the register to pay my groceries and I got declined in front of a handful of people and I had to pull the whole. Um, so my, uh, my wallet's in the car, I'll go out and grab that. And and I had no money at that time. So we were at a point where we were growing as a business. Things were going well, made a lot of mistakes, so the cash flow wasn't there Again. Going back to paying people and making sure I never screwed anybody over, never hurt anybody. I was the one that sacrificed a lot of that stuff. So we were just at a crossroads of I'm not sure how to get through this stage.

Speaker 3 18:05

At that time, I had taken loans out from people. We had a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of debt on the business. All my personal credit cards were maxed out and I had to sign up with the program through National Debt Relief, and I always tell people I should be their spokesperson, but I didn't know who to call. I didn't know how to get through the process, but when I was building my business, I put everything on my personal credit cards and I think one card was maxed at $30,000. One card was maxed at $24,000. One was at $17,000. And, paying the minimum, you're never going to chip away at that card.

Speaker 3 18:35

So at that time I made a decision to basically default on all my credit cards. I just built a house and bought a car, so I wasn't going to have to. You know, those were the things that you can't do if you have bad credit. So I was like, okay, I'm safe from this standpoint, I'll just deal with whatever happens from my credit. And I know, five to seven years, if things go well, I'll be okay and and I'll be good. But, um, so I you know, we're completely maxed out financially and we were probably two weeks, three weeks, away from completely losing everything and me having to really just liquidate my house. And, um, it was just a, it was a dark point for me. You know, leading up to that, collections agencies are calling me, harassing me from eight o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. Um, you know, internally dealing with stuff, when my parents were like what are you doing? Why are you chasing this dream? You had this great job, go, stick with it go get your resume ready.

Speaker 3 19:28

I was in a very terrible relationship at that time, so I had a lot of chaos that I was dealing with and I just kept it internal because so many people did not believe in me in the beginning that I didn't want to ask for help from certain people, even though I probably could have got it and made my life a lot easier.

Speaker 3 19:41

I just wanted to figure out a way that I can kind of escape and get through this. And, um, you know, I took a life insurance policy out of myself and my thought was, if something happened to me, I didn't want to leave debt to my family or anybody else. And, um, I had some depressing thoughts at the time and, um, you know, am I going to eat pills? Am I going to shoot myself? Am I going to drive off a cliff? Um, you know, and going through that stuff alone is very, very challenging and it, you know, it's tough to talk about. Um, you know, but so that's why it's, you know, super meaningful for me. Um, but you know, we just kept fighting and fighting and we were owed a bunch of money by clients and, um, at that time, I was learning the process of make sure you get paid upfront. Where in that and that's where I learned now is in the beginning was oh, I trust that person.

Speaker 3 20:24

They're gonna pay, and then it's. You have to hound people to get paid and do all this other stuff, and at that stage we weren't a credible business. So what?

Speaker 2 20:31

does probably know your personality either. What? No at all.

Speaker 3 20:34

You don't want to help people no yeah especially because I'm trying to play this high-end game. I'm trying to.

Speaker 3 20:39

I don't want people to really know my financial situation because, I wanted to have credibility and and I wanted to be able to get through this mess that I've kind of put myself in. So it was kind of a fine line. Also, hey, this guy's working with all these celebrities and athletes, but why is he broke? So there was kind of that threshold that you re. And that's why my goal from the beginning was always be transparent about the story. And why I'm so open about the journey is because it's not easy and it's very hard. And you see all this stuff in today's world on social media, where all they do is talk about how easy it is and how cool it is and it's like that's the furthest thing. It's so hard, like it is so hard.

Speaker 1 21:12

David, how many years after you started the business did you have this, these, these moments where it was so bleak?

Speaker 3 21:20

I mean, it was pretty much right away it was right away. Yeah, I mean it was pretty much right away. It was right away, yeah, because again the big thing was my financial situation is what hurt me the most.

Speaker 2 21:27

And it looked different from the outside, for sure, every bit of it. And you're battling demons inside, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 21:33

I mean, I was making $250,000 a year selling medical equipment and I was spending $250,000 a year, being a 24 25-year-old, that got this big salary and commission and all that stuff. So I didn't know what to do with the money and my mindset has always been I can always make more money and I still live my life that way, but I'm living within means and I do things more responsible.

Speaker 2 21:56

You believe in yourself when it comes to work.

Speaker 3 21:58

Yeah, I just don't believe I'll ever be outworked or put myself in a situation where I can't be successful. So, as much as I made, I spent a lot of money and I was generous with a lot of people. I helped people out, I loaned a lot of money to people that I'd never got back and a lot of life lessons along the way, but my purely my financial situation made this ride a lot harder than it should have been.

Speaker 1 22:17

But how? What got you through the really really bleak dark times? What was it?

Speaker 3 22:25

Yeah, that turning point, I think for me. So from a mentality standpoint, I use this analogy that the light was always at the end of the tunnel when I started the business. How long the tunnel was was the challenge, and I would use things like hey, I bought a suit off you, I loved it and that was fuel for me in the beginning.

Speaker 2 22:41

My current was like a flash, yeah.

Entrepreneurial Growth and Resilience

Speaker 3 22:43

My currency was never money in the beginning and still isn't now. Currency was always weighed in from a standpoint of relationships, friendships, all those things and, um, you know, it was one of those situations where I just believe that if we kept going, we would continue to thrive, we would continue to grow and we would be in a good spot. Um so, just knowing that people were buying off of us, knowing that we were getting new clients on a monthly basis, knowing that new celebrities and athletes were reaching out to us, that was all stuff that said keep pushing, just keep. Whatever you got to do to get through this, keep pushing and be fine. And then to when all this stuff really took off for us.

Speaker 3 23:18

You know we got through that beginning stages 2017, 2018, 2019, and things started shifting in 2019 for us. I was like man, I'm okay, I think in 2018, I paid myself $7,000 or something like that. In 2019, $7,000. So then you get through all this stuff, you're finally okay, I feel like I'm making some money now, I'm able to live my life a little bit. And then comes 2020, the end of the world for everybody in the pandemic. So it's like you went from this ride of like it's going to. I'm going to lose everything to. I don't want to live anymore. To like, okay, we're okay. To Holy hell, this thing that came out of nowhere is going to wipe us out. We did, I think, $1,200 in sales of March of 2020. And that was when I was like, oh shit, we're in some trouble.

Speaker 1 24:02

But you you guys.

Speaker 2 24:06

It got dark and then came to light. It was not accidental.

Speaker 1 24:10

It was all part of the set.

Speaker 3 24:11

It is on a timer, but the ironic timing of the conversation happened.

Speaker 1 24:16

It happens intentionally.

Speaker 2 24:17

I love the fact that you use what you go through. Brene Brown talks about all the time. If you walk through the darkness, the light's always greater. On the other side, a lot of people aren't willing to walk far enough to see the light, and you just painted that perfect picture. So for Brene's Brown's book you should probably be able to, you know, be a spokesperson as well.

Speaker 1 24:36

No, I appreciate that For the tax creditors or whatever you're talking about.

Speaker 2 24:39

You got Brene Brown.

Speaker 3 24:41

Yeah, it's where we are now as a business. It's funny because the goal line always moves, like I feel like we're so far from where we should be and there's so much I want to accomplish and this team I'm trying to build and the great people that we have around us. I feel like we're so far still, but I'm so happy and thankful right now, and the people we meet along the way are just the most amazing human beings ever.

Speaker 1 25:03

Do you feel like? You'll always feel far.

Speaker 2 25:04

Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. He's the epitome of it. Like I don't think you'll ever be satisfied and I'm the same way. Do you feel like that goalpost will always be moving?

Speaker 3 25:12

For sure, do you feel like?

Speaker 2 25:13

it's kind of your purpose right.

Entrepreneurial Response to Pandemic

Speaker 3 25:15

Yeah, I mean, we've had people express interest in buying a piece of our business and figuring out the future of what we're going to do, and for me it's like there's nothing I would do. I'm doing what I'm doing, love it, nothing, I wouldn't change it, you couldn't pay me any. There's not a dollar in the world where I would stop doing this right now. But I'm trying to build this and do some stuff with our team make sure everybody's taken care of, and then family down the road and who knows what happens with it. But I now know like right, we had goals in, you know, 2016 that are different than 17 and 18 and 19 and so on. You know 2016 that are different than 17, then 18 and 19 and so on. And our goals in going into 2025 are just different than they were last year and we're getting ready to open up other locations and expand. So, as these ideas come to fruition, the goal line has to move in order to keep growing.

Speaker 1 26:01

Well, what'd you do, though, with COVID? You spun it into a positive.

Speaker 3 26:04

Yes, we ended up. You know, I think we had purchased bolts and bolts of fabric for dress shirts at the time. And I remember calling Derek and Chris, who are my marketing business partners. You met them and at that time, you know, our marketing agency was so young and so new. I was always the crazy weirdo trying to throw ideas at them. Hey guys, I think we should do this, hey guys, I think we should do this. And I called them and you know, derek is on the other end of the equation, where I'm. I'm very much, we could figure it out, I know that. And um, derek's, on the other hand, is like no, you need to show me by numbers. You needed to prove this is going to work. And then Chris is the hybrid between both of us because he's a creative.

Speaker 3 26:44

And, um, I remember Chris had told me the one time when I reached out to him he was driving on 79. And I was like, hey, we need to have a call. And he actually pulled off the highway and typically, you know, chris and Derek are like I'm always throwing a curveball at them back in that time frame and basically, I just called him. I said, guys, I think the pandemic is going to be around for a lot longer than we think. We need to start making masks. And you know, I think the conversation was all right, maybe next week we'll get it going or whatever. It's like no, no, we need to do this now. And those guys pulled an all-nighter. We built a mask company in less than 24 hours and we launched one Facebook post at 12 noon on a Saturday and within 24 hours we sold $54,000, $55,000 worth of face masks. And then Sunday, in a 24-hour cycle, we sold about $110,000 worth of face masks.

Speaker 2 27:34

And then Sunday, uh, in a 24 hour cycle, we sold about $110,000 worth of face masks. Come on and at that point, like it was, it was pretty crazy. Like, what type of face mask? Um, did they shimmer in gold?

Speaker 3 27:40

The goal was like at that time, messaging was super important because nobody knew what the hell was going on, and it just it said on the side we're in this together, and it had David Allen underneath of it.

Speaker 2 27:50

Oh, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 27:51

It was a triple, it was a community thing For sure, and that was the big purpose of that was hey, like, let's at least get some exposure to the brand, but also the mentality of, like, we are in this together, like, truly, let's figure this out and try to have a solution to it. So you know, it got to a point where we were spending $10,000 a day on marketing and advertising and getting a 10 times return on our money, which was pretty crazy. And then I started looking back at things and, as business was unfolding, facebook would shut us down, google would shut us down, paypal would hold our money and at one point, paypal held about $90,000 of ours and wouldn't give it back to us. So I went on LinkedIn and was firing off every message to every executive I could find If you don't give me my money, we're going to sue you.

Speaker 3 28:32

And what happened was they flagged us because we were making money during a pandemic, so then we just had to submit our business information, tax ID, all that stuff, but it would take three or four days to get a new Facebook account up and running, so it just started driving me. That's unreal. It was crazy. And the biggest frustration about it is, every time we got back into business, our ROI went from 10X to 8X to 7X to 5X and so on and by that time you could get them at Giant Eagle, gecko, all those other places.

Speaker 3 29:00

So we just exited the business at that time. But it was really cool. I was able to pay off all my debt. So that was my saving grace. From being able to be debt-free, chris and Derek were both able to quit their jobs and dive into the marketing full-time and we donated a bunch of money and we donated thousands of masks to different hospital systems at the time across the country. They couldn't get any protection or anything throughout the government. So I mean, there was a handful of hospitals which I forgot about till now. They'd send us pictures with all the staff wearing our masks and whatnot. And then we donated $25,000 to Allegheny Health Network for women's behavioral studies and the goal was to be able to, in this transitional phase, buy a bunch of iPads and add technology to single mothers that were trying to take care of their kids and do some stuff with the hospital systems and whatnot. So it was pretty surreal to be-.

Speaker 2 29:53

Totally rewarding time. Once again dark time. You brought some light, that's incredible.

Speaker 3 29:57

Yeah, it was kind of crazy At that time. I wish COVID wasn't going to last forever because we were making a lot of money. But then I'd wake up at two or three in the morning and Chris and I joke about this all the time. But in the morning and Chris and I joke about this all the time, but on we would look at our app of Shopify, which is what we do our payment systems and uh, the cool thing is there's a map of the world on there and if somebody's on your website, it has a little flash like a little star on the map and it's just your phone's ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And it was just transaction after transaction, three in the morning or three in the afternoon, it didn't matter. People were buying from us and it was a very eye-opening experience for us.

Speaker 2 30:30

We really heard cha-ching cha-ching Every time. Yeah, that was crazy Wow.

Speaker 1 30:36

I still can't understand. You've got to explain this to me. You're growing up in Finleyville. Did you ever think that you would end up?

Speaker 2 30:42

doing something like this. Yeah, what did you want to do?

Speaker 3 30:54

Growing up as a kid you thought, thought, yeah, I kind of like what they're wearing In the back of your mind, did you kind of like clothing? I've always liked it but, like I said, I just never had the means for it. I always wanted to be like New York's Wall Street stockbroker or investment guy. You did, yeah, it was kind of my fascination. My cousin left Pittsburgh years ago, went to Manhattan and was on Wall Street. He's 15 years older than I am, or so 10 years older than I am. So I got to watch his journey kind of unfold.

Speaker 3 31:14

So you know, I didn't really know anything at that timeframe, didn't know what I wanted to do. But I like business, I like the sexiness of business and the uniqueness of it. So I thought I'd sell, you know, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and tried taking the test and failed two times. So I knew that wasn't going to be my path. So I never. Fashion was never a thing I wanted to make a career out of. It was never even in the radar, never in my sights down in the past. It just made sense as business kind of progressed.

Speaker 1 31:42

But don't you have to know I've talked to Krista about this and the folks that you have to have something inside you, that, that, that knowledge about what works right, or you don't learn that and almost you don't learn fashion. It's something, it's, it's given, it's for sure I.

Speaker 3 31:59

So I think I think I have a skill set of being able to see things from a combination colors, how it based off who they are, what their personality is. Um, like, I'm doing a um, a garment for next saturday for pat mcafee actually, and he just texted me and said, hey, I need a tuxedo and I need a touch of pink in it, and he doesn't like to decide anything and pat has a very strong personality. So, like I'm, I'm like man. I hope I really hit a home run and I've done something really crazy and unique for this that I've never done before. No, no idea what it's going to look like, but I believe it's going to look really, really good, is he?

Speaker 3 32:32

going to have the belt buckle on too.

Speaker 2 32:33

No, he may wear his own. Yeah, yeah, I like the belt buckle. It's cool to see. Yeah, those are sick For sure. I can't wait to see it.

Speaker 1 32:41

So anyway, that's an opportunity to help somebody who it's not really necessarily into clothing. I guess it just. Hey, you do it for me.

Speaker 3 32:49

You know my personality, I think I've just been able to put things together for people that don't have that skill set.

Speaker 1 32:55

Okay.

Speaker 3 32:56

And I do think it is unique, especially men. Some guys don't even want to deal with clothing or or go into a shop or do anything which I get that Hate it.

Speaker 3 33:04

And that's the fun part for us is like we. That's why we like building such good relationships with our clients, because A they become friends of ours, they're choosing to support us. And when I started the business was we need to be good enough to not advertise to be successful. And we didn't advertise for the first year or first five years. It was word of mouth. I wanted to be good enough that people.

Speaker 2 33:22

That's how you keep people right, for sure, yeah.

Speaker 3 33:33

The goal was just be good enough that people wanted to call us, to buy off of us and support us. And if we had to pay for advertising or marketing back then also, I didn't have the budget to do it too. But the goal was to truly just be good enough where we were first of thought when it came to clothing.

Speaker 2 33:40

And when you think about someone's personality, like, how do you piece that together? What's that process look like? Like I think about calling a game for a guy. You know leagues.

Speaker 1 33:48

I'm thinking about his personality what makes him tick and everything else. He's a catcher, as you know, former catcher, and he's trying to get into the pitcher's mindset, right? Yeah, yeah, the pitcher's personality is different.

Speaker 2 33:59

Yeah, trying to figure out how to flow a game and win no matter what, because they don't always have their good stuff. Those scouting reports are off to the side and I feel like you kind of have that ability. When it comes to people walking in, you kind of identify okay, talk about their posture, right. Same way, like I think, about the way they move, like how do you do that? You know, and you do it relatively quick For sure.

Speaker 3 34:20

Yeah, a lot of it is. That's why I tell our team it's like the importance of you got to ask questions and you got to get to know somebody, and if you don't ask questions and don't get to know them, you're never going to be able to service them the proper way that you need to. So for me, a lot of it comes Because we don't know what we're asking for right, correct, yeah.

Speaker 3 34:37

So a lot of it comes down to who is the person. What type of communication style do they have? Are they reserved? Are they easy to talk to? Are they shy? All that stuff plays into it. What do they do for a career? Are they just more of a? Hey, I want the traditional stuff and it's for, you know, an accounting meeting or a legal meeting or whatever it is where I'm going to an event and I want to stand out, regardless of what you're doing or what event or what the purpose is.

Speaker 3 35:04

We can. We can make something that's so tasteful and so powerful that could build somebody's confidence and make them feel like a different person, man and woman. And that's the fun part about it is the amount of people that you know, and I use Krista as an example. She had a couple that the one gal her whole life didn't know what she was going to wear to her wedding. And you know she sent Krista this amazing message saying you've made me feel comfortable in my own wedding because I was fearful of getting married because I didn't know what I was going to wear. And you hear stuff like that all the time and you realize we're not just selling clothing we're changing people's lives. One suit at a time or one garment at a time, because if you have something on that's fitted right, looks good, feels good, you really become a different person and it can bring out some positivity and make you feel like a different person throughout.

Speaker 1 35:53

Paul Skeens. So what was it like fitting this pirate great a rookie of the year in 2024?

Speaker 3 36:00

So I did not do any of the fitting, so I can't take that credit. Krista did all that stuff.

Speaker 2 36:04

I feel like girls' mustaches would maybe collide a little. Well, this is a baby mustache right now, yeah, but I mean I I'm just saying he's young, yeah, maybe a little jealous, I'm not gonna lie, I trimmed mine down a little bit, so upper lip magic going on right there, just saying yeah, just saying yeah well, it's only it's gonna be here for another week or maybe, maybe tonight I'll it'll be gone because of this conversation. But no, I have a chance, I think I met him two or three times.

Speaker 3 36:29

um chris, that does all the business with him and he's been so supportive. And you know he said if, even if he does leave the Pirates, he's going to still stick with us. That's awesome and you know he's just leave, I know Right, but chatting with him was awesome because he's such a humble human being. He truly is appreciative of the opportunities and experiences that he has, and we love working with him and having him represent our brand because of who he is as a person Wow.

Speaker 1 36:56

When it comes to fitting guys like this, is the sports world different? Just because the athletes are different, right, Fitting them is. It's a different entity.

Speaker 3 37:07

Yeah, it's for sure. And also, though, just like sports, just the same thing in accounting, legal, anything else there's different personalities in every field yeah so, as much as you think sports are so different, there's a ton of attorneys or a ton of doctors or a ton of business people that like to dress different and be loud. From a fit standpoint, we may have a, you know, a client that's just a bodybuilder that has equally a most challenging body, just like a professional athlete.

Speaker 2 37:33

Oh man, that got to be tough because they go through waves yeah.

Sports Heroes, Entrepreneurial Success

Speaker 3 37:36

So for us it's people are people, regardless of what industry they're in or what profession they have. It's our job to adapt to that and be able to make sure we can kind of complete and make things happen that they want.

Speaker 1 37:50

How about your sports heroes growing up? Yes, All three sports. Big fan of the Penguins, Pirates and Steelers, I was yeah, I mean Pirates, you know.

Speaker 3 37:58

Unfortunately, it was one of those things like I remember J-Bell back in the day and the 90s guys and loved baseball, then Fell off a little bit when we had a big dip until he came on board and I became a huge fanatic.

Speaker 1 38:10

How fell off a little bit when we had a big dip until he came on board and I became a huge fanatic. How about that? And I was a catcher that was humbling. If you're not watching on YouTube, if you've got just the audio version. David Allen just pointed to Michael McHenry.

Speaker 2 38:20

Wow, that was humbling.

Speaker 1 38:22

I was a catcher too, and an all-star, by the way.

Speaker 2 38:25

Oh, I love it. Big fan of baseball.

Speaker 3 38:27

I could have guessed that Football was my sport growing up. I played, you know, 14 years. I played two years of college football at Duquesne University. So football was just always my passion. I was convinced I was going to play in the NFL when I was younger. And then when I got to college I really, you know, partied and drank and didn't do any of the football side of it and realized I wasn't going to ever make the NFL. So it was kind of a pipe dream. So I wanted to leave there and just be a college student and enjoy life and make the mistakes that a lot of college students do. But I was always a sports fan. Deion Sanders was one of my favorite athletes.

Speaker 2 39:03

What he's doing right now is incredible.

Speaker 3 39:05

It's incredible. Yeah, but from a fashion standpoint, he was always the flash guy. He was always the loud guy and I think I've gravitated towards him because that and he backed it up by playing on the field, which was important.

Speaker 1 39:17

Any favorite moments that you were either witness to in the arena, the ballpark.

Speaker 3 39:25

I'll be honest, I've been so fortunate to attend a lot of games, both locally, outside of Pittsburgh, so I just the experience of people that I go with, you know, as a kid, going with my dad and making the trek down to the Three Rivers Stadium at the time. And you know, when I got a little bit older he just really lost the appetite for going to games. So we didn't really do that at an older age. For me it wasn't really sports moments that did you know anytime've won, you know the super bowl or any big events obviously I was very thrilled, yeah um, but I just think it's the moments that I shared with the people for those events that were more important to me, um than the event itself.

Speaker 3 39:58

and then, as I got into business, I really lost interest in sports a lot because for the first five years I didn't have the time, I couldn't take the eye off the the of what I was doing, and I stopped watching sports for a couple of years because I couldn't spend an entire Sunday watching football or watching a Penguins or Pirates game. And then, not until about three years ago is when I started watching sports again.

Speaker 2 40:20

It feels good, doesn't it? It's awesome. Yeah, it feels good to be back and able to enjoy it. You need something to kind of get away from it all, absolutely. Yeah, that's really good to hear.

Speaker 3 40:27

And I like the business side of sports too, so I'm so fascinated with that side of things too, why teams or organizations make decisions and why they change things or hire people, fire people, and then even the economics of athletes and athletes being treated as pawns and stuff in the business game. And at the end of the day, they know. They know that signing up for it as well, and that's why you want to maximize the time you can play.

Speaker 2 40:54

And then business. Let's stay in that Like, do you study a lot of other industries? I think that's brilliant to do if you're in the clothing industry and that's all you're looking at, right. That's, that's your competitors looking outside. So what drew you to sports? And start looking at that? Because I mean, that's a different way to go. Right, you've got clothes, you've got sports. Right, they obviously combine, but the business side is completely different.

Speaker 3 41:18

Yeah, I've always looked at other. I don't look at a ton of actually don't look at anybody in the clothing space.

Speaker 2 41:21

I think that's brilliant.

Speaker 3 41:21

I don't care about anything in the clothing space. I just genuinely I'm focused on what we're doing. I love staying in our lane because what other people are doing doesn't matter to me you're nailing the people.

Speaker 2 41:32

That makes any business successful to that point.

Speaker 3 41:36

Whether it's a professional sports organization or a small business in Pittsburgh, everything's the same. It's people, it's the product, it's the process, it's how you treat people, it's how you execute. So the most successful franchises I talk to a lot of people specifically for the Steelers and a lot of those gentlemen when they go to other organizations and play for other teams. They really speak so highly of Pittsburgh and and what their experience is here. It's really cool to see that. And one one good friend of mine went to another team I think he went to the Colts for for a brief time and he was just he was just like it's so disappointed by the experience and how they treated their athletes the experience from a training standpoint, expectations from leadership there. So, hearing those things, you now see why there's the Walmarts of the world, the Amazons of the world, the Steelers of the world and so on, and it all comes down to the culture of the organization.

Speaker 2 42:25

You think it's the standard that's set by the leadership.

Speaker 3 42:29

It has to be. Yeah, even with our small organization, and that's why I'm so. To me, the people make this successful. It's not me. There's so many people around this business and this brand specifically that make us successful, and out of all the people here, I'm probably the least important. In reality, there's so many other people doing things Krista, dana, jesse, derek, matt, chris I mean, I could go on Rocco Stan, my accountant, like. There's so many people that are doing things. I get a lot of the credit, unfortunately, for that, but this doesn't happen without everybody else that's involved, and even the people that have not worked or that no longer work with us, that have come and gone. They've given me an opportunity to try to be here and try to build this.

Speaker 2 43:10

Great leaders always take the blame and never want the credit, but it's true though. I know, I'm just saying Right.

Speaker 1 43:16

I appreciate that. That defines you right there my friend.

Speaker 3 43:18

Yeah, I just it's enjoyable to. I've realized that doing what I do now I wake up every day doing what I love, I come and go as I please. I work very, very hard at what we do, but being able to control my life and be able to control the decisions of my time is the most rewarding thing. All I want is other people to be able to experience that and hopefully money comes along the way so they can, you know, go on vacations with their families or treat people with the holidays, or help people who are less fortunate, and I hope that's the case, and, and our I know, with our team that's the case, but for me that's the reward for this is I.

Speaker 2 43:54

I how's that?

Speaker 3 43:55

feel.

Speaker 2 43:56

Right, Like when that. When that happens, one of your employees get to do something they've never done and you get to be just that little piece of it, Does that make you just bounce off the walls a little?

Speaker 3 44:08

Yeah, it makes me want to do more, it makes me want to help more, and my life has completely changed. I live a dream. I truly mean that. I'm very thankful for everything that everybody's done, but seeing other people be able to experience this is the coolest thing in the world, especially from. This just started from an idea, and I go back to being a child. In first grade I got in trouble for selling candy at school.

Speaker 2 44:34

It started early, huh, slanging the candy yeah.

Speaker 3 44:37

I went to Gabriel Brothers when we would buy our clothes and every time we would check out they'd have all the candy stacked there and you'd get a box of Skittles for $1, $2, and I would go and sell this pack for 50 cents in school.

Speaker 2 44:49

Oh, you'd just turn it around, yeah, so I just always had a knack for kind of understanding that.

Speaker 3 44:52

And then you grow up to an adult and it's like— you, yeah, big time, I just I don't know. I just enjoy hustling, I enjoy people, I enjoy earning things.

Speaker 2 45:01

And I think Sounds like you love the grind.

Speaker 3 45:03

More than anything.

Speaker 2 45:03

Yeah that's my favorite part. Yeah, that's what I miss the most about playing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 45:06

Yeah, because it's when you get somewhere you're chasing this thing. And then you get there and then it moves. So you realize the goal lines, like from the time I'm born to the time I die, and what type of reputation can I leave behind, how many people can I help along the way, how many people can I impact? And you know, especially this tight-knit family that we have here is just it's awesome. It's just it's really, really rewarding.

Speaker 1 45:32

Are you looking to change Pittsburgh in terms of? I mean, I know your goal is to expand this business, but when it comes to Pittsburgh fashion, again, we don't want to disrespect Pittsburgh, but it's true, it's fact. It's not known as the hub of fashion, right? So do you think you could kind of help change that?

Speaker 3 45:51

Yeah, I think we slowly are changing that Really, and I mean that from a standpoint.

Speaker 3 45:56

I see the clients that walk through our door and have conversations with them and just as my team does, and, um, there a lot of our clients, obviously other people that wear suiting on a regular basis, professional wear on a regular basis but we have a substantial amount of clients who are like I just want to wear something one time or I have this unique event coming out.

Speaker 3 46:15

So it's people that typically wouldn't dress up or committing to dressing up and changing their attire. You know, Pittsburgh is also a very blue collar town, so to be able to spend a significant amount of money on a wardrobe is not an easy task when you have inflation, all this other stuff happening in the world, families that take care of schools, and there's a lot of variables to choose where you spend your money. So I realize we're not an attainable product for a lot of people and that's why we're trying to come out with other solutions to be able to include other people into our product. But we also have a very high experience that I demand and require our team to have to validate and warrant the prices that we charge for things, because experience is everything to us.

Speaker 1 47:07

Wow, what about the work that you've done? The fashion?

Speaker 3 47:08

shows and charity work. You also think that's important, don't you? Yeah, we've done seven fashion shows. Two we did not do due to COVID. I think we're about $550,000 raised to charities throughout the seven that we've done. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

Speaker 3 47:22

It's something that we did. The first one we did was 2016, and we did it in the Strip District and I was doing something for the American Cancer Society called Real Men Wear Pink, and we were raising money for breast cancer awareness. And that was my first thing of like, hey, I got to raise money and I don't know how to raise money, so maybe we should have a fashion show.

Speaker 2 47:43

It's a common theme, right? Yeah, I don't know how to do this, but I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it.

Speaker 3 47:48

And I remember my parents whenever they were driving down for our first event. I had no idea who was going to show up. I had no idea we were going to that time. I invited them to come in. So were these people that are super busy going to even make their flights, or they can all stand me up and you know my I remember my mom always tells me my dad was like I like nervous, Cause he's like I hope people show up so he's not embarrassed. And when he pulled up, pulled up to the fat first event I mean there was a line out the door, we had 300, some people show up and I think the first event we raised, I would guess, 16,000. So it wasn't anything crazy 14,000, something like that, cause we didn't know how to raise money either at the event. We had auction items and things of that nature, but we're so green 14,000 is a long way from zero.

Speaker 2 48:35

For sure, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 48:36

It's pretty good. Feet, no, I appreciate that, yeah. So every year we pick a different charity. We fly in 40 to 50 celebrities from across the country, we dress six, seven, ten kids from Children's Hospital, we let them walk in the show and we let them kind of be the stars of the show. And we just pick different charities. And next year we're doing it for Sean Casey. His charity Casey's Clubhouse Too cool, yeah. So we're excited to bring him in and he's been a great supporter of our business and our brand for years and this is kind of our way to pay back for all the support is try to raise a boatload of money for his charity, david you said earlier that when you were going through the tough times it was really doubly difficult because you didn't have really a mentor.

Speaker 1 49:18

Did you ever really have one?

Speaker 3 49:27

You've kind of done this on your own, haven't you my?

Speaker 1 49:28

mentors were podcasts. That was back in 2000. Preach, yeah, yeah, it's honestly this before Hold my Cutter. Too bad, because it could have really helped you. This would have changed my life if this was a little sooner.

Speaker 3 49:34

So whenever I was in medical sales, I covered Western New York, harrisburg, all of West Virginia. So I had a ton of windshield time and I just got tired of listening to music and I just wanted to be more productive. And there was a podcast called the Founder Podcast, f-o-u-n-d-r, and a gentleman named Nathan Chan and that's about when podcasts really started catching a little bit of wind and he just interviewed he was an Asian-Australian gentleman, would interview people from all over the world and it was just all business stuff. And the one thing that just resonated to me from every person that he brought on there was there's nothing different from anybody of these people. They all just work their asses off to be successful.

Speaker 3 50:14

And then, as I started, you know getting the knack, so it made you not feel alone, right For sure. So it made me realize, like, this person went through something and they were able to get it. Okay, cool. So what? I'm struggling right now financier, this is happening, or you know, I'm having an issue with my family over this or that. Like cool, other people go through it.

Speaker 3 50:34

And somebody told me a long time ago if everybody put all their problems together in a hat, you would reach in and take your own problems out, and that kind of stuck with me and I was like, okay, cool, we're onto something, because life to me is about perspective, and perspective changed my life and perspective is the key to being successful and happy. Um, there's a million reasons we can complain about a lot of things, um, but also, when you look around the world and, um, people in general, there's a lot of people going through a lot worse things than we are, and you're always going to be able to say that, just like you're always going to be able to say there are people doing a lot better than I am. So, for me, perspective is what keeps me grounded and keeps me staying focused and staying strong as we continue to pursue.

Speaker 2 51:10

Did you feel like, when you were looking for that podcast, the right one would show up at the right time? Yeah, isn't that crazy?

Wardrobe Malfunction in Hollywood

Speaker 3 51:15

Yeah, I was, and at that time I mean they weren't everywhere, so there was a lot of. You know, his was the main one that I would listen to. And then you try to find a couple others, but Flo, the host, how they kind of run the show is all very important. So the experience that you have as a listener is top notch. So it was tough to find ones at that time frame because I was looking for specific ones business people, people who have done stuff directly from the voice of the person. In my position At that stage I didn't care about a CEO of a company, I cared about the founder of a company and who was building the business.

Speaker 2 51:50

You're looking for a mentor, correct Right. Yeah, and you got that, that's so cool. You just pieced it together as you went along.

Speaker 3 51:55

For sure, yeah, I didn't have a friend or a business person. I wasn't connected like that. Back then, A lot of it was people that I met that did sales or did things that, so it was vice presidents of companies, presidents of companies, but it wasn't anybody who was a true entrepreneur. So for me, the advice that they were going to give me wasn't going to be the advice that they understood that I needed.

Speaker 2 52:15

Well, I have the same story when it comes to business. I dove directly into podcasts and it changed everything yeah it can get really weird and dark and everything else. And I was just getting done playing and I was I was searching yeah, and it was tough. What's really cool to hear?

Speaker 3 52:29

it's hard, man, and especially when you go from one thing and you're used to it and you're you're comfortable with it to to the unknown, is is devastating and um, it's not for everybody, cause it is hard, but um, I think there's the one thing I really get frustrated with people is is hearing I don't know, or I'm not sure, or I can't do this cause it's just a matter of like, the resources for everybody are out there and I truly don't care where you start. Everybody starts at a different spot. Fully understand that. But move forward, just just move forward.

Speaker 2 53:00

I always say fail forward. You have to, that's so good.

Speaker 1 53:03

But because of what you've been through. Whenever you have an issue. Is it okay to talk about the Thailand story? Yeah, for sure Okay, take us through that yeah so we did a movie.

Speaker 3 53:17

This was pretty brutal. This was spring of 2023. It was the last year A movie was pretty brutal.

Speaker 3 53:24

this was, uh, spring of 2023 the last year and, um, it was a fitting, fitting actors. Yeah, so it was for john cena. Um, a movie called I think it was called jackpot or lotto, or it just came out this year in august. And um, what happened was the the costume department came to me and they said hey, we have a hundred meters of fabric left. There's no other fabric in the world like this. It was a Brown Tweed ish fabric with a like a cream pinstripe in it. So he needed a handful of suits for John. They needed a handful of suits for a stunt double a and then a handful for stunt double B, all different sizes and everything. And this was a pretty substantial transaction for me, the biggest one to date.

Speaker 3 53:58

So it was a pretty big deal and I transaction, for me the biggest one to date. So it was a pretty big deal and, um, and you had how many?

Speaker 2 54:05

meters A hundred, so um, you know, and it takes. I don't know what that means.

Speaker 3 54:12

It takes like four to five for a garment. Um and I we needed, you know, 50 some or 40 some garments. So pants are a little bit less, 1.5 or so. So the mathematics worked out to they gobbled up 100. And everything we were putting together was maxed out at 100. So we needed every bit of yardage or meters yardage that we got.

Speaker 2 54:31

This makes this even more intense.

Speaker 3 54:33

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. So do the deal. And then all of a sudden, at that time I had probably made 250 suits for John. So I knew we were dialed in. We never had a problem, never had a hiccup. So I'm cool, I feel pretty confident in it. And then, um so, uh, they were supposed to start shooting on a monday. The monday before was supposed to be his try on for those suits, to make sure it was good. And um, I, he couldn't make monday, couldn't make tuesday, schedule was crazy. So Schedule was crazy. So Wednesday morning he was like hey, this is the only time I could try it on. So I'm anxiously just sitting there having my coffee and I get a text from John expecting hey, thanks so much, suits are perfect. Well, so the text comes in and essentially it's John trying on the suit and he tells me he's like you can see that the suit's a little short.

Speaker 1 55:21

It's like a video. Yeah, he sent me a video. Yeah, a minute 30 video, because we got a chance to see it and, honest to God, until you told the story, I thought it was like a joke.

Speaker 2 55:34

I thought he was kidding with you.

Speaker 3 55:35

Yeah, but he really wasn't. He was not kidding, and that's the one thing he appreciates working with me is. He made me feel like the joking manner, but I also knew how serious it was for him.

Speaker 3 55:46

My reputation was completely on the line for a lot of reasons moving forward, but I did not want to let him down after all the business he had given me and all the support that he had given me. So it was a very ultra powerful experience and feeling to go through. So as he sends me this video and I'm watching it, he starts lifting his arms up and he's like already you could tell the jacket's too short, the sleeves are super tight, you could pull this, the left sleeve in. And then he just crunches his arms forward and turns to the side and the jacket just busts open. Oh, it's like a Pringles can.

Speaker 2 56:16

Yeah, and just completely splits open, just pops it, yeah, and just completely splits open, just pops. It was my heart sank. Yeah, what did you think when?

Speaker 3 56:25

you're watching this. I'm sure I bet you turned white as well. I cried oh my gosh. I cried For 10 minutes. I was just like holy hell, I'm in some serious trouble, because the big issue we run into now is there's no time.

Speaker 1 56:35

So literally how much time now when you get this text and this video time now, when you get this text and this video by the time I got it and everything was about 10 30 on a wednesday morning, okay, they they needed to wear it on for on monday.

Speaker 3 56:46

So five, six days, right. The problem was we the. The good thing was we still had some garments that were supposed to ship that night. So basically I put a kibosh on that, stopped that right out of the gate and just said whatever we do, just stop making these suits, uh, pants, v vests, whatever, so just hold off production. Then at this point, um, to get the garments from our facility in Thailand to the States takes about five days. So there was no remakes.

Speaker 3 57:12

Making it and then getting on a plane and shipping it through DHL to land on the doorstep by Monday, that was out of the question. So at that point I didn't have a solution. I just had a first priority is figure this out, figure out how we can rectify this and make it work. So we basically had our team deconstruct everything that was made and reconstruct it. What happened was, for the first time ever, we had a software glitch where they made his suit jackets out of my size. I was the sales rep quote that designed the order so that for some reason, when I put it in, it transferred it over to my profile, sized my garments and made it for him and obviously I don't have the body of John Cena, so it made it very, very challenging.

Speaker 3 57:56

Um, so you know, I talked to our manufacturing partner about everything and we jumped on an hour call and then we had to get on the phone with the costume department, which was very intimidating. Um, you have the head of these movie studios and the costume department head, that's uh, and all the seamstress and tailors all in one room on a video conference and I have to be composed and, um, you know, the reputation was on the line again and, um, so we kind of came up with a plan and then at that point the only way to get it here was jump on a plane. So my two options were option one which I was going to do was I buy a flight to Thailand, I fly there, pick up the package and get on a plane and fly right back, which all in all is 30 some hours to get there. And so then the coordination of can that even happen?

Speaker 2 58:41

It's like the movie Transporter. Yeah right, it's crazy.

Speaker 3 58:44

Yeah and then? So what we kind of? The conclusion we ended up coming to was we hired a gentleman from Thailand to jump on an airplane and smuggle 30-some suits in the suitcase, hoping that customs would not stop him and say what are these?

Speaker 2 58:56

for and ask him to try it on. Yeah, yeah, that's a problem.

Speaker 3 58:58

Yeah, he was not going to fit those ones either.

Speaker 2 59:00

He looked like a little boy yeah.

Speaker 3 59:02

So I remember me and I can't remember if it was Krista, chris, derek or whoever were watching the flight trackers, the gentlemen leaving Thailand and delays and a million other things that could potentially happen that could throw a wrench in it. And so when he landed stateside, I could breathe a little bit. But then that whole having to get through customs costume uh, the lead costume department lady was at the atlanta airport, which is where he had to fly to to drop everything off. Um, that's where they shot the movie. And um, he it was just he's texting as he's getting through the airport, made it through customs, made it through this, made it through that. And then, once he said he made it through costumes, I was like holy crap, we pulled this off and it was the most surreal, incredible, um, but still I felt like my reputation was was damaged a little bit, but it went really well and it ended up being a home run and couldn't be more happy with the uh execution of everything how much sleep did you get from wednesday to monday?

Speaker 2 59:58

I was terrible. It was so, so bad, did you?

Speaker 3 1:00:00

get any, very little, because at that time there's other stuff we're doing business-wise.

Speaker 2 1:00:04

Yeah, everything else doesn't stop. A lot of times we think about a story and we just think we're in golf, like a movie, but it's not.

Speaker 3 1:00:09

Everything else in life is still going For sure, and we were growing so much still at that time, and so it's and trying to figure out and make happen. So for us it was a million things. And then I have to with my team. I have to keep my positivity and stay focused and be there and help them and all our clients that we're dealing with at the same time being able to service them properly. Where in the back of my mind, I'm like man, what is going on? This is awful.

Speaker 1 1:00:38

What a great story, though. Again, just add it to the list of stories.

Speaker 3 1:00:42

Yeah, it's been. I mean I had an issue with we did the Colonel Sanders project I talked to you about with turning Ric Flair into Colonel Sanders and Woo.

Speaker 1 1:00:53

There you go, waiting for it.

Speaker 3 1:00:56

That was a nightmare. I'll give you the brief story on that. That was 2017. And broke throw broke into the mix too, so that didn't help at all. Well, wrestlemania it was one of the WWE events for KFC, for WWE Can't remember what it was. It was in Brooklyn, new York, and I had to deliver the suit on a Friday, so suit arrives Thursday. I fly to deliver the suit on a Friday, so suit arrives.

Speaker 2 1:01:25

Thursday I fly to.

Speaker 3 1:01:25

Brooklyn Friday Pristine white. It was a white vest. Well, in my mind it was supposed to be pristine white.

Speaker 2 1:01:30

Okay, so I thought it was. So I get the garment I grew up in the.

WWE Suit Alteration Adventure

Speaker 3 1:01:36

South. So I know Colonel Sanders, so I get everything. Get to Brooklyn, talk to the wardrobe department and I go to the arena the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and it was for the try on and they're like this isn't the right color. We can't use you, and I was like it's white-ish, because I didn't know, what they wanted and it was like an eggshell off-white a little bit.

Speaker 2 1:02:00

And they wanted true colonel sanders chicken grease.

Speaker 3 1:02:02

Yeah, right, right yeah, so um, yeah, this was, this was a nightmare. So no, this is friday night at six o'clock. By the time I got back to my hotel, they're like, hey, we're just gonna go somewhere else. I was like, no, I was like you're not I was like I promise you I can make this work.

Speaker 2 1:02:17

It's all always gonna be good, so and you really had no idea what I was going to do?

Speaker 3 1:02:21

we'll figure it out I start the uh journey and I go to target right across from the barclay center and I buy a bucket, rubber gloves and bleach and I'm like I feel like if I bleach the suit it's going to work perfectly, because that makes sense. And so I basically went to my hotel room. For some reason I said just try a small piece of the suit before you do anything. So I dipped about four inches of the, the the left leg, into the bucket and let it sit there, went downstairs, came back and I was like well, this started to deteriorate and and nothing changed with the color. So I'm like, okay, this really sucks.

Speaker 3 1:02:53

So now you're pushing six, 37 o'clock in Manhattan on a Friday and a lot of stores close earlier on Friday. So, um, I called a craft store, michael's, or one of those craft stores in Manhattan, and um, I was like, hey guys, like here's my story, here's my situation, I'm not sure if you could help. And somebody suggested to me there's a fabric dye called RIT fabric dye. Um, so I was like, all right, cool, you guys have any of this? Like no, so call another Michaels.

Speaker 2 1:03:19

No, call another Michaels.

Speaker 3 1:03:26

None of them had the fabric dye so, okay, my other option was completely gone. Um, so then I was just like, let me at least go to a craft store and be there and be present, versus trying to talk again. Financially, an Uber trip there's 70 to $80 running around having to buy all this money. I didn't have any of that at that time. So I get to this, uh, to one Michaels in Manhattan and, uh, the one lady that was there there was a spray can of like a shimmery, shine white, and she's like she was an eight, 17, 16 year old high school student just working there and I was just talking. She was such a sweetheart, helped me and she's like this is probably what I recommend. It's probably the only thing that's going to work. Well, they only had one can, so I needed probably 12 or 15 cans of that.

Speaker 3 1:04:03

So she went back, looked at the computer. There's three cans here, at this Michael's. There's two cans at this Michael's.

Speaker 2 1:04:07

Oh, so here you are just Ubering everywhere. Yes, no way. So now?

Speaker 3 1:04:10

I had to go on this hunt of trying to find this.

Speaker 1 1:04:20

Well now it's'd called no Right, it was a completely different. This is a true paint, unbelievable. This is paint.

Speaker 3 1:04:25

Yeah, wow. So then it's now approaching 7.30, 8 o'clock, 8.30, and I think a lot of the stores close at 9, 9.30 on a Friday. So now my back's up against the wall, timing-wise. So I think I ended up getting about eight cans or so. So, all right, cool, let's go back to the hotel room. So I go back to the hotel room and now I have rubber gloves in there, I have bleach, I have a red bucket there for the bleach that I was using, and now I have a bunch of spray cans. So I go in the bathroom and I'm just spray painting.

Speaker 2 1:04:53

Then the FBI shows up. Yeah, right, right, is that the?

Speaker 3 1:04:55

truth. So I'm just in the hotel room spraying this. Meanwhile on social media I'm posting that I'm in Brooklyn WWE event. So people think I'm just going partying hanging out drinking and I don't drink or anything.

Speaker 3 1:05:07

So it was like I'm there working every time I go and so I'm spray painting this. I'm like, oh man, there's some sparkles on this, there's some shine, and then it starts to dry a little bit, so it gets super thick. I eye a little bit, so it gets super thick. I'm like, oh, this is bad. So I just paint the rest of it and I go to sleep in the hotel room, wake up and as high as a kite from glue and Clorox.

Speaker 1 1:05:28

Yeah really.

Speaker 2 1:05:28

Did you float while you're sleeping? That was awful.

Speaker 3 1:05:31

And then I got super sick that morning and so I grabbed, I hung the garment in the bathroom over the in the shower area, just so it was kind of private, took it out and then there was a ray of sun coming in from the window and I held it up against this, against it. I'm like I think this is good, I think we're going to be able to pull this off, and I, I basically would take the garment. I would just like kind of like a pillow, I'd smash it off the bed to try to soften it as much as I could from the spray paint that kind of molded on there and got a little bit too firm, so that broke it up enough where it was a little bit nimble. But then I was kind of like. It kind of looked good because it had more of a thicker look to it, so it had more of a quality structure.

Speaker 3 1:06:08

So it actually made it enhance it a little bit as well. So now it's like okay, call time's at 1 o'clock, so I go there and I'm supposed to meet him at this time frame. And I was supposed to meet him at this time frame and then this was actually excuse me, this was supposed to be for Ric Flair for the first one. That was when he got really ill and almost passed away. So we had to make it for Shawn Michaels on the first one, that's who this was for.

Speaker 3 1:06:30

So I go and I'm texting with them like, hey, shawn will be at the arena at 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, they needed to start filming at 6. For the event. Well, for the event. Well, I go there to show up. He was a little bit late, tries it on. And then it was too big. So not only did we not try it on the night before, it's now too big. So the lady's like you know, hey, did you bring your sewing machine out there? And I'm like, yeah, I brought it out. Just telling them that I brought it out.

Speaker 1 1:06:52

Sure.

Speaker 3 1:06:53

So I'm like, don't worry, I'll figure this out, let me go back to my hotel room and we'll be good. So I go back to my hotel room, which was like two, three blocks away, and I'm Googling every tailor I possibly can find in Brooklyn. Nobody wanted to work on it because it wasn't their product and everybody was closed. And a lot of people were closed in Brooklyn Sunday, you know one, two o'clock of just the culture of Brooklyn, and so I was just like I just have to go to Manhattan and try to figure this out. So there's another hundred $150 Uber ride. So I go to Manhattan and right across the bridge there's one gentleman open and I just said, hey, I have this project, I need this done as fast as you can. He's like no problem, I'll help you out. I'm like great, he goes, how's Tuesday? And I said you don't understand and he was foreign hell now oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 1:07:40

He didn't understand the significance of wwe or what he was doing. So I was just like, look, I really, really need this as soon as I possibly can. Is there any way you could do this within the next hour? And um, I, I, he said, just hang out outside for a little bit. And I went and got food next door and I came back and garment was done. Take it to the event and a home run.

Speaker 1 1:08:02

A home run.

Speaker 3 1:08:03

It looked great, looked great, fit perfectly.

Speaker 2 1:08:04

How'd you get the smell to go?

Speaker 3 1:08:06

away. It had a little bit of an odor but it wasn't terrible, you could tell that there was some paint or something on it.

Fashion Marketing Success and Gratitude

Speaker 2 1:08:11

They probably just thought, man, what a creative way to go.

Speaker 3 1:08:14

For sure, and I used the whole pizzazz of the lights, the cameras, the lights, the cameras, the little bit of sparkle to it that I knew the cameras would pick up on.

Speaker 2 1:08:23

And it really changed the integrity of it. So the sales background really played out big time right there For sure.

Speaker 1 1:08:27

You told them hey look, how nice that is, the sparkle and stuff.

Speaker 2 1:08:30

It's kind of like the chicken and the material.

Speaker 1 1:08:32

The light hits that chicken, it sparkles.

Speaker 3 1:08:34

That's right, Unbelievable. That was super challenging because at that time I had nothing, was broke, didn't have resources, didn't have any knowledge to do anything.

Speaker 2 1:08:42

You probably spent $1,000 plus on Ubers. For sure, probably an Uber one now. Yeah, it just killed you right away.

Speaker 1 1:08:49

David Alan, thank you so much for joining us on Hold my Cut, actually letting us join you here.

Speaker 2 1:08:55

We didn't even get into his marketing. Yeah, it blew your mind, it did blow my. Yeah, it blew your mind, it did it absolutely blew my mind.

Speaker 1 1:09:03

I told you, brownie, it is deep and thanks, by the way, thanks for letting us smoke here we didn't do that, but we will. This summer, though, we'll be back.

Speaker 3 1:09:12

Thanks a million. Thank you, guys, for everything I appreciate what you do.

Speaker 2 1:09:14

Yeah, I look up to you a lot so keep it up.

Speaker 1 1:09:16

Awesome stuff. I'm going to have to get one of those jackets. All right, that's fine, we'll be doing that.

Speaker 2 1:09:20

Chris, he's ready now. Oh, john's seen it, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 1:09:23

He will Home by Cutter.