Kendall & Bailey Beykirch, KenzKustomz

First few months. I already had like 10,000 followers.

As you were growing, there's a moment where your Instagram account got deleted.

I mean, I was distraught. Bailey went and created my new Instagram account and he is like, here, start posting it again.

What are you gonna do when custom bags stop selling because it's a trend?

And she's like, I'll find the next thing is that her

superpower, it literally

is,

if someone designs it and the designs aren't great, do you say, Hey, we're not confident. That'll, I mean, just kind of talk through that.

I feel like it has to be something that aligns with our brand while also like knowing that the influencer will post.

What would you tell somebody who has a side hustle right now?

I would say.

Guys, thanks for coming on. Really excited. Kendall and Bailey, um, with Ken's customs here, you know, it's, it's been exciting for us getting to see every different type of business, and this is like, once again, something really

unique here.

Yeah.

Um, in North Arkansas, in Fayetteville. Um, tell us like 30 seconds, what is Ken's customs so people can get a, uh, grip real fast.

Yeah. We're excited to be here. Um, so Ken's customs is an e-commerce brand and we specialize in travel accessories. So what started as just tote bags, makeup bags now has expanded into trucker hats, galore PJs, matching mommy and baby PJs. Um, and yeah,

yeah, I mean, you nailed it. Yeah. So

in, in that, I think one thing that.

If I was in your world that I would constantly fear it would be how do you, how does this, how is this business not a trend? Yeah. And how is it like. Long term. And y'all been in business for almost like five years, right? I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah.

Um, March will be almost five years. I, I definitely think this business is a trendy thing.

Um, and I think it's super important to just constantly be evolving

and testing the limits on like, okay, what's cool for next year? Like right now we're currently planning, um, a new mama baby line, a new summer line. We also have learned like what works over the years. Mm-hmm. Um, and also just like, how do we differentiate ourselves?

Um, but we also wholesale into tons and tons of boutiques into retail now. And so it kind of is fun as if like we can create the trend. Like, yeah, like right now we're working on some trucker hats that haven't been created. Mm-hmm. And I'm sure people will copy once they're out there, but it's just fun to get to create it first.

And why, so, yeah. Why go that route versus be like a retailer, like a, you know, like a, I mean. You know, riff raff or the other, the, all the, all the boutiques that we're like used to talking about here, which are great, great boutiques. Like why that route?

Yeah. I think there's just more room for growth, um, selling into retail.

Instead of selling like 20 units in a local storefront, you're selling thousands.

Same with selling into boutiques. Like why not sell to a thousand boutiques and sell to our online presence? Wow. And that's kind of just like how I started. And don't get me wrong, I've tried the brick and mortar and like, it's definitely great, but I feel like our customers have always just ordered online, came and done local pickup, and that's just how we've seen success.

And so, yeah. Talk about the beginning. What was the, both of y'all, you're from Arkansas? Yeah. You're from Kansas? Yeah. From Kansas, Pittsburgh, Kansas.

Um, so in the beginning, my mom has actually always done boutique stuff and she was selling the neoprene totes. I don't have them anymore, but um, that's how I started.

And a lot of our followers still are like, bring back the neoprene totes, but, um, I started and a lot of people were selling that tote at the time, but nobody was customizing them. Hence the name Ken's Customs, which I probably should have thought through a little bit more, but, um, we like

made that in like two hours I think, of Beach.

Yeah, I think I made it in like two

seconds. Like, oh,

Ken's customs. Sure. But it works. People

call you Kenzie.

Everyone calls me Kinzie actually. Yeah. Okay. We

get Kenzie Creations is like the business name a lot. Yeah, it's

so funny. But, um, I mean I took the neoprene tote and I actually had these patches, um, which made them custom and put them on my tote and I posted it on my Snapchat or something and everyone was like, oh my God, I want one.

Because everyone also wanted that tote, that specific tote at the time. Hmm. Um, and so I was like, okay. And I had extra patches 'cause I was making my friend a bride jacket. I've always been like, super crafty. Yeah. And making everything myself. Um, so was that with

your mom? Was that like with your mom growing up?

Is that where that started? Or just like, yeah, I

worked in, um, the boutiques that she was in growing up. I worked at the Boys and Girls Club. That was always just like doing stuff. Like even at the Boys and Girls Club, we were doing crafts nonstop with kids, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, but I was like, okay, like I'll take some orders and got my mom's supplier and instead of just like getting it from the US

I've immediately learned how to source outta China, which I think was a big advantage for me when starting this business.

And so I got like 20 totes and I had some letters and took some orders and I was like, oh, sold out. And, um, then I did it again and again and again. And, um, Bailey is like, all right, you need a website? And I was like, no. No, people will not order. Absolutely not.

Well, and and so just in, in that like, that moment, were you, you were working, doing something else that Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was just

doing this at nighttime. Um, and actually in this period, like this was like within one month that I'm talking about. Um, in this period I had also started Instagram. And I mean, it was growing fast. Like I, in the first year or first few months, I already had like 10,000 followers.

Wow.

So like, it grew like this.

And so that's when he was like, all right, you need a website?

Yeah. I just like, I mean she was like losing track of orders. 'cause we're trying to like write them down on a piece

of paper.

No, it's actually in my notes checking and I still have it in here. And it was the most

like unorganized, chaotic mess.

And like when you're doing things with no software involved, like you are having to go manually buy, you know, USPS labels. So like, you'd be at the post office for like 40 minutes, you know, just trying to like input addresses and stuff. But like. I mean, you could see like the most simple store ever with software.

Like, oh, it's more efficient. Like, well, no, duh. You know, like Shopify, Shopify done, like anybody can open up a website for literally a hundred dollars. So, um, we didn't even start with Shopify. We didn't know what we were doing. We just built some random website. It was junky, but like, it got the job done. It

was definitely junky, but it worked for the first year.

Yeah.

So you, Bailey you kinda helped with operations on the backend kind of from the get go. Yeah, it's like,

yeah, for sure. Uh, would see Kendall struggling with this. Um, Kendall is like super, super good at taking a picture of something, making it look cute, and then posting it online. Um, Kendall doesn't care much at all about how a website operates or like, I don't know how the books are structured or like

any of the, the, the financial information.

Um, so shout out to University of Arkansas for my finance degree that I've barely used, use more with her side hustle than, uh, hey, been used some my sales job, but. Was that? Yeah, just the more the visionary of like, let's get a website, even if it's clunky. Uh, let's get it started, get it rolling and see what we can do from here.

Talk a little bit more about the sourcing piece, because there's a lot of people who

Yeah.

I mean, they hear you say that. They're like, what?

Yeah, because I feel like a lot of people, and I mean, this is how we sell into our boutiques. Um, you just, you'll get on fair and you'll buy from another business. Um, I will say like when you do source out of China, you do have to buy a lot, and that was a risk that I, I took from the beginning.

Um, I actually, like in the beginning, didn't do anything, the start of business way, that route, we just went for it. And so I would take both mine and Bailey's credit cards. We had like six at the time, had so many credit cards and just max them out and buy inventory and just keep our house full. But it's because

I knew it was selling.

Like I never, like I. Did more than I knew I could pay off, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, but our family still laughs at that. They're like, why didn't you ask? I'm like, 'cause y'all would've said no. Yeah.

What, yeah. What was in your gut? Like, what why'd you

I just, and I say this all the time, I knew it was the right product, the right time.

And like, also, I'm missing a big part of this, but, um, like three months in, I worked with my first influencer, Amber Massey. And I still, to this day, I've done two, three collections with her. And she kept selling out my site like time after time. Like, I mean, even like the stuff I was like, Harvey will buying that.

Um, 'cause this was like after the site was built. That was actually when I quit my full-time job was that first time she sold out my website. And, um,

how did that happen? How'd y'all meet?

Um, one of my friends actually was her manager, just friend of friend through Instagram and I DMed and that was kind of like the start of it.

And then like, I feel like after one influencer posts,

all of them were like, Ooh, I wanna post that. Like they see that it's selling. This was also like when the influencer marketing world was kind of new. Yeah. And before they charged thousands just to share on a story. Yeah, yeah,

definitely. Like taking off.

And Kendall was like a company that had a Instagram of 10,000 followers working with an influencer that has like 750,000 followers. Yeah. So like the scale that she was, you know, not big at all, but working with this like large to mega influencer was like, how is this possible? So Amber just was like, oh, cool product.

It's unique, it's customizable. Like, yeah, we'll take a shot on you and post you for free. Are you a women-owned business? I'm like, yes, I promise. She's like, are you actually a small business? Like trying to be, you're not like playing the card of like a small business. We're like, no, we just want some exposure.

And then, yeah, I mean we're forever grateful to Amber Massey because she's credible for tens of thousands of orders that have gone through this warehouse now.

Yeah. And she still posts still this day. So it's fun to just continue that relationship. And then over the years have done back to school collections

with her three times.

So it's been fun.

And for people who are listening, probably like myself. Yeah. When you say back to school collections, like did this line with her, what does that actually mean? Like talk about like the products? Yeah. How many products, how, how many of, of those skews, many units, how many are units ordering, how many units?

Yeah. I mean just like what's a, and obviously the scale back then was different than it is now. Yeah. And we can talk about that, but just dumb it down for someone who's not into like your world.

Yeah. So in the beginning I was just buying. Blank, ready to ship backpacks and adding my logo, like Ken's customs times influencer's name to the interior of the backpack.

And I'd say I'd probably buy like a hundred each color. Um, as in today, if we're doing an influencer collection, we will like, sit down with them. We will go through prints. All right. Like, what do you wanna bring to life? Um, we just have way more capabilities nowadays. And now we'll order a

toddler backpack, a standard backpack, a lunchbox, a pencil pouch, and probably like 12 different styles.

Um, I'd say like 250 each. Still not like insanely large numbers, but then they have to get embroidered in-house. And so like times that all up, it, it's usually a good launch.

Yeah. But it's fun for the influencer because not often do they get to help co-create and design the products that they're pushing and selling.

And half the time an influencer is pushing, you know, a an item from Amazon in which they're just linking up to their story and they probably have no significant attachment to the, to the Yeti Cup or the Cozi, which they're selling. Yeah. Um, but when they work with us, the cool thing is that we get to sit through like these designing sessions with the influencer.

We get to get their input on like what they like, what they don't like. Um, if influencers a nurse, maybe it's geared towards other nurses and stuff. They like have so much more like, I don't know, passion for mm-hmm. Yeah. Creating the products because it's their touch

on a custom product.

I'll also speak on one this year.

Um, this year we did one with Halle Ray Light McCollum and we actually use her personal branding. It's that right there with the cowboy hat and the boot and that one we launched in May and it's still to this day, just like sold out restocked, sold out restocked. People love that Western print.

And for people who don't know who she is, Parker's Parker, McCollum's wife.

Okay. Famous country singer. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, she's, uh, angel on Earth. She's so sweet.

And, and so talk about the process is who is leading the initiative of the design from? Is it like, is it truly like 50 50 or are y'all kind of pushing, saying, hey. Here's where we kind of see your, your brand. Like here's how we could elevate that or like help, help you.

I

think it totally depends on the influencer and like where they wanna go. Um, some big influencers just wanna do it, post it once and really never talk about it again. But with Halle, like since that was her personal branding, I feel like she's like continuously shared

and sold it out and that's why this collection's performed so well.

Same with another one. We did a teacher collection with a middle school teacher out of Chicago actually. And um, she created them all. It was crazy. And she's like, this is what I wanna do. This is the colors, this is the sayings. And that helped my designer, Sasha actually like bring it to life. She's like, this is the easiest collab we've ever done.

Why can't they all be like this? Being told what to do? Yeah.

And how does that work from balancing risk in your business? So is it a rev she type model or is it, I mean, 'cause y'all are, if someone designs it, yeah, let's, let's say, and the designs aren't great.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you say, Hey. We're not confident that'll set.

I mean, just kind of talk through that, like the actual implications of

it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm the one fronting the money on like all the inventory. So like I feel like it has to be something that aligns with our brand while also like knowing that the influencer will post. But it does go case by case

on the size of the influencer, what they'll agree to.

It's also, I always put it out there like we are a small business, like I don't have the Amazon budget that I can pay 25 grand for a story set on this. Like this is more of something like you want to do, and then we'll do like a commission share plus sometimes a flat fee. Hmm.

Cool. What's the definition?

Like, is there like a follower account or like. A, a brand way of like, what's the definition of an influencer today? Like how do you know, like that person has like enough people, like following them?

Yeah. I don't really look at the number. I mean, obviously like more of the better. Yeah. But, um, that doesn't always convert to sales.

We don't do, uh, collections with people unless like we've worked with them and they've posted us like several times in the past. Or like if they come to us and they wanna do a collection, I'm like, okay, well like. Let's do some organic sharing over the next six months. Let's really see if your audience

resonates with our brand and loves it.

They'll, and so we'll send 'em just like collections that we have coming up, like a Spring break collection, a Valentine Day collection, um, and kind of just see if they're converting before we'll ever commit to like a full blown collection.

Yeah, and I would also add onto that real quick, is that TikTok has completely changed the social media algorithm.

Like before TikTok, you would only see content from, you know, influencers that have a million plus followers Since TikTok came out, it's like anybody can go viral. You know, like they make this, like this randomized like gamified version of like posting content and going viral. So I think like since TikTok it doesn't really matter as much of like what your follower count is.

It's like how authentic are you, do you get on there? Any clip you post has a chance to go viral now.

Well, and now that we've done like quite a few influencer collections, uh. Sasha, who you'll probably hear me refer to a few times, she's like my right hand man. Um, we are like, do they really want to do this?

Like, do they love

their collection before? Like we fully commit to it too because it's like we don't wanna just bring it to life for them to post at once. You know?

Yeah.

We need it to really resonate and be something that'll continue selling.

Yeah. 'cause if they believe in it, they're gonna, like, they're po posting multiple times.

They're telling people

it's like, yeah, it's, yeah, it really does make a difference. So, so you're looking more for partnerships and, and less for transactions. Where would you argue the influencer space generally is very

transactional. Transactional, okay. Very, almost like 100%. It's cut and clear. Here's the contract, here's the, you know, the money.

I'll be paid upfront. I'll post four times and let's be done and be gone, you know, and shake each other's hand. Goodbye. We're more so like. I don't want to get in bed with you, but like, let's make, be friends. Let's have a partnership together and like, let's make this thing everlasting and maybe you'll come back the next year and the next year and it only gets stronger and stronger.

So yeah, taking more of a relaxed approach, I think, to the influencer marketplace. Yeah,

I definitely think like the less rules you give them, like rules as in, in the contract and you leave it more open-ended is like you'll

end up getting more and you'll get more shares. Uh, that's kind of just the approach I've taken.

I've definitely been burned by that, so

Yeah. Yeah. I mean's some risk. And if you wanna take, in the most part

it's worked out. So,

so this was a recent launch and just kind of walk through like how that, how does that come about? How do you get connected with her? How, how does, I mean, how long does that process take from.

Start to finish. Yeah,

so Hall's Collection, it's kind of unique, the partnership or how it started. We, my very first year, um, just by DMing her and before she had management or anything, I was like, let's do a quick collection together. So back in 2022 and we did three bags, like close to Christmas time. She shot them.

It was very simple, not like a whole production like it is now. And that did good. So then three years later I was like, let's do it again. And then this time, like with her manager and her new branding and all of that, it brought it all together and she came to Bentonville, we shot

it and

yeah,

actually.

Halle loves northwest Arkansas. Her sister loves lives here. Her sister lives here. Oh, cool. So she like, every time she hears about us, she's like, I'll come to Bentonville, you know, I'll come shoot with you guys, like, really nice. Don't come to Nashville. I wanna go to Northwest Arkansas. So she like really likes this area.

But, um, actually we did that one in May and then just for Christmas we'd added on a little mini drop and we'd added on, like, all I want for Christmas is a cowboy vibe to a Christmas mini drop. So it's been fun.

That's pretty cool. Well, so let's go back. I wanna get the story. Yeah. So the first month, holy cow.

Okay. We may, maybe we need a website. Like this is stuff, is selling fast, maxing out some credit cards. When, when does it feel like, okay, maybe this isn't, this isn't a side hustle, or like, or that, or it's like, I've gotta keep, I've gotta run really, really fast. Like I, I gotta keep pressing on the gas.

Yeah.

I would say Bailey was the one that was on me about push press on the gas. Like, this is,

these are really selling and this is doing really well. Uh, I had a full-time job and I, we were still working outta my house and I actually had full-time help before I quit my job. It was like my first job where I was like making a good salary, good commission, and I was working from home.

So half the time I was doing Kin's Custom. Yeah. But I was trying to juggle both until the point he was like, all right, we're young. We don't have kids yet. Just go for it.

Hmm.

And so I did.

Yeah. That's one of the things that I think is like if you, if if you're a listener and you have a big takeaway, um. We were together, I had the corporate, the study job, you know, all the benefits came through me.

And like, to minimize risk, it's like, Kendall, you should go try and run with this as fast as you can. Um, because we have the steady EDI paychecks coming from me if I have to float, you know, both of us for x amount of months. And it doesn't work out. Like no harm, no foul, right? Like, what are we gonna lose?

Like 5,000 bucks, 10,000 bucks? So grand picture was like, I'll continue to

work my path. Um, I'll help you from, you know, 5:00 PM to midnight or whatever every night, but go run at this full speed and like see what can happen. Just because going back to like good, the going viral moment when I'm seeing her, like do all the success.

That window of fame can be so short sometimes. So it's like you gotta take advantage of that window. But for us, we've been so fortunate, it seems like that window just keeps getting extended.

Yeah, and I would say the first year really did teach us the most. Like I also always speak on, like us being in Florida and like away from friends, away from family, literally all we did was work like till midnight till 2:00 AM mm-hmm.

Nonstop go. And so we grew it to where we had enough inventory that it took over our office took over our guest room, and then we got a storage unit, and then we got a second storage unit, we're still in Florida. And then it came time for his second rotation to be done. And I was like, we've got to move back.

Like, I need help.

Yeah. I think, uh, on top of that, you know, all those things are true.

The, the inventory was taken over our entire house, but, uh. I'll never forget, um, Kendall's help that she mentioned a few times. It was just a couple girls that lived in Florida and answering the door, you know, at like six 30 in the morning, seven in the morning.

Sometimes in my boxers, sometimes I just have a hoodie on and it's like somebody with their lunchbox, you know, Hey, I'm ready to work, is like the most humbling and rewarding thing ever. Uh, but yeah, having full-time employees in your, in your living room is strange. Definitely Experie, they're using your fridge, you know, as their like, place to put lunch and stuff, but it was like.

I don't know. That's just what we had to do. We would not spend money on anything when we started this business. Like,

yeah, well

Facebook, marketplace for shelves, Facebook for anything and everything, because like we just were like, we're not taking any money away from this. We're putting it all back in the business, so,

oh yeah.

I didn't pay myself

like three years. Yeah. Yeah.

And my comment was like, why did you do that? We

were like, well, we don't wanna spend the money these, that's like, I didn't

know that I could. Yeah. I didn't know. We had no

idea what we were doing.

Idea. Yeah.

But, uh, so we were probably nine, 10 months in when we moved back to Arkansas.

Yeah. Why'd you, why'd you come here?

We both went to college at the university and we had been gone to Florida for about two, three years. And I just thought this is a great place to move back to. You can get college employees great cheap labor. Um. And I just knew like, this is where like we need to come back to.

It was the middle of both of our parents and we were, we both just loved it when we lived here, but we were only 10 months into the business when I signed my first lease on like a 2,500 square feet. Yeah, I think so. Right.

Yeah.

And once again, e-commerce is still fairly new. Mm-hmm. Back in this time.

Mm-hmm. Both of our families were like, you did what? You signed a lease for your food. Yeah. They did not believe it. And I was like, yeah, I did. Yeah. And, but

that was also the nice thing about northwest Arkansas is like, it was big enough that like.

There's somebody connected and everything, but it was small enough to like, you could reach out to somebody that grew up here and they would know, you know, a commercial landlord guy.

They knew somebody with warehouses and stuff. And so, yeah, like just from the friends that we met in college that everybody was like, it's still small enough to like, you can get a handshake deal. And like we talked to our first landlord, you know, over the phone twice. Yeah. And like he didn't have ads and all this kind of stuff and it was like, okay, no, it was on

Craigslist.

Craigslist or whatever. Like, okay, sounds good. And there was air

conditioning. Yeah. No heat. Oh my gosh. But again, like we didn't wanna spend money. My employees complain in this place. I'm like, do y'all wanna go back to the shop? Yeah.

We refuse. This is luxury. Yeah. Yeah. So did y'all have, was there an advisor?

Was that your role? Like when you're looking at a lease, looking at, I mean, I'm sure your books too, at that time were a mess. Sounds like you had some Yeah. Credit cards. You're racking up, you're just probably trying to like grow. Mm-hmm. Who's like, Hey, you can afford to like. Sign a lease to do

this? Yeah, I, it was better.

It was, it was definitely me. But like, let, lemme paint the picture a little bit more like

to, so first year, I don't know, like probably did $400,000 in total sales. Um, and I was like, okay, cool with an LLC. So what do we do now? We talked to an accountant in Florida and he was like, yeah man, I can file your taxes and get your books accurate because they are a nightmare right now.

Um, and he is like, it's probably like 10,000 bucks. And we were like, there's no way. So, uh, we called 1-800-ACCOUNTANT. They did even a worse job than I did and was just like, file our taxes and hopefully it's right. So like, it was a mess from start to finish, but like we knew that we were making some money.

Um, but when it got into like strategizing and thinking about signing the lease, man, we were so worried about like getting the orders out from the day before and how we were gonna do it than like ever even thinking about is this a smart decision? Yeah. Um, because at that point we were drowning in work and it was still like four employees total.

Yeah. I think also in the beginning too though, we were making everything by hand. Like every single thing was customized with a first initial and a

last initial. And then as the year grew on, it's people started wanting to put travel on a bag. Yeah. People started wanting to put skin or their whole entire last name.

And like each letter was essentially glued down. So as we've evolved over the years, like we don't do the hand, hand as customization. Yeah. Um, we do embroidery on our bags. Mm-hmm. But it's not like one by one. So time consuming as it was in the beginning and

was at the beginning, it was all direct to consumer.

Right? Yeah. You a hundred percent.

Um, for sure. A hundred percent.

When did the wholesale business kick in?

Probably, I mean, people started like wanting it in the beginning and I would make occasional wholesale sales, but I just really didn't have any manpower to do it. Mm-hmm. Or inventory. 'cause every time I'd get it in, it was selling at full price.

So I was like, no, not right now. Uh, probably about. Two years in is when I hired my best friend, actually Jordan, and she has run our wholesale ever since. And, uh,

we started on Fair. We started, which is a wholesale B2B platform. Okay. Um, fair has grown so much too over the past few years. And then we started like direct to sales.

We started going to Dallas Market, we would go Dallas, Nashville. Mm-hmm. We went to Las Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and going to those just got us a lot of exposure and we still do that now.

Okay. Yeah. And what, when, what year was that? When did that.

That was 2023.

Yeah, 23. And going to those markets, you know, thing, it's like everybody recommends if you've been in this space, everybody kind of recommends, hey, go to the market show.

Go to the market show. And like there's no guarantee there. I mean, you could show up and sit at a table like this for six hours and just get people to smile and wave at you. I mean, and you don't like, you have no courage to go the next time.

A lot of people view like Dallas Market as like going and get rich quick scheme.

It definitely is not opposite of

that.

It's a great way to go and meet connections. Actually, the very first market we ever went to,

we met the buyer of Shields, which was our first big retail store that we got into. And it wasn't the right buyer though. She's like, I'm gonna pass your info along. But then I got on LinkedIn and I found her and I messaged her and I was like, please connect me to the right person.

And it eventually led us to getting set up as a vendor

Wow. In

our first po, which was a huge deal. So yeah,

talk about that. Talk about the first po, whether it's how many units it was or Yeah. Yeah. And what, what they ordered. Talk about that, what year it was.

So that was in 2023 as well. It, they wanted to do a line of custom bags.

It was probably around a 25, maybe 30 grand po. And. I would say probably like 500 units. Mm-hmm. Maybe 12 styles each. But I think a really big thing that I learned from this is when you sell into retail, you have to have enough stuff for replenishment or you get charged if you can't restock their stores.

Uh, well,

you never would've thought of. Yeah.

Yeah. I was like,

what? Talk. Talk about that. How did that play out?

Well, actually this was a really big learning lesson. This is first PO because I let them design their own custom bags, which I didn't love, and then they didn't end up selling that many. So then I'm stuck with all the replan inventory and I was like, okay, so in the future I need to only sell my bags that I'm passionate about.

Yeah, my designs. Hmm. Because then I ended up just having a clearance amount. Yeah. But really big learning lesson and it's taught me a lot in like that sector as we've grown into now 11 retail stores of if you're gonna do that, like, hey, it's final sell.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think a little bit on custom

designs for sure.

A little bit too

though, like Kendall's just built a lot more confidence. Like when you're first talking to these large retailers and these large buyers, you just want to be, you know, like bow down and be like, okay, whatever you say, you know, we'll do, we'll do, we'll do. But then it was like, Kendall, gain the confidence to push back a little bit to the buyer and your first time.

Like that's, that's pretty nerve wracking, you know? It's

terrifying.

It's like, no, I wanna be sold. How am I push back to

this buyer and say like, I think you're wrong. You should do this. But. Since you've had that confidence, you've grown your retail exposure side, you know exponentially since.

Yeah. And for a lot of stores we do do custom hats and they come to us of like, Hey, this is my vision.

This is our spring look book. Create me some hats. And that's actually what Sasha does, and she creates all these amazing hats for them, which are sold exclusive to the stores. And it's just super fun that they know they can come to us. Yeah. To like bring their vision to life.

Talk about some of the retail, other retailers you're in right now.

Yeah. We're sold in Buckle, which is a really big one. Buckle usually only creates all of their own designs, or they'll come to us to bring their vision to life as well.

Cool.

Wow. Anthropology is a really big one, which was one that we got into a year ago, but it was e-comm only. So only selling on their website and then.

They tested us for a year and then they came to us with their look

books. They were like, bring this vision to life. Wow. And so we got in stores, which was a huge deal, man, because anthropology is just like the store. Everyone wants to be in the girls dream, you know? And,

and now they're on the Ville home office.

Yeah. Someone said that the other day and I was like,

what do you mean? Like they're selling to Walmart, like everyday low price and

No, they're, no, they're no, we're a store. Yeah. Uh, was, yeah. So anthropology, like when, when a retailer like that comes to you, how many stores do you have to, are you trying to put product in them?

Yeah, I think they put us in around 200 doors, um, when they put us in stores finally. Mm-hmm. And that was super cool. We also just got into Tilly's. Mm-hmm. Which that was even bigger. They put us in around 400 doors. Geez. So that was super awesome. And they're like. West Coast Vibe. I was gonna ask

you what Tillies was like.

Surfer,

yeah. They're kinda like,

I think they're a brand maybe under even like the hot topic umbrella, like hot topic, pac Sun umbrella. Um,

pretty cool. But also with these large retailers, like it is fun. We didn't know anything about this space. Yeah. Um, and like learning to do like all the inner workings of accepting a purchase order and their own system, you know, like making comments on the purchase order.

Mm-hmm. It is not like a Shopify where an order comes through and you're like, okay cool. Pack it and ship it. Like, yeah, no, it's confusing. We have to hand tag all the stuff. Um, which is why, I don't know, like it's been nice to scale, but yeah. It's a lot of learning lessons

though, like, but something I've always told my team, 'cause Ella handles all of our bigger stores, is.

Always be a yes man. Like, we're not, let's sit down and learn it. Learn their system. Okay, we messed up this time. How are you gonna fix it for next time? Hmm. Uh, just not being scared of like, taking that next leap. And I feel like by doing that, and always just are, let's learn it. Let's get it down. Wow.

Let's sit down together. Uh, rather than just being terrified because a lot of that stuff is so terrifying. Um,

yeah.

Just to begin, yeah.

I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, can, you know, it's a bunch of, honestly, girls that work here that are like 25 to 28 years old and they're dealing with, you know, buyers of these large corporate companies that are 45 to 50 and, you know, they can push around, you know, small vendors and those stuff all the time.

So yeah, you gotta hold your, hold your ground a little bit. For sure.

What, so as, as far as holding inventory goes, what's the, what's the timeframe from when you buy like to, yeah. I mean, is are you holding it, is it six months or is it, like, is that, is. A nine month process? What's the,

I think it just depends on the product.

Uh, what would you say? I feel like, you know, that kind of stuff.

No. Yeah. I, I, I would know this pretty well. So when mostly of her inventory comes in, like a lot of, it's almost already spoken for a lot of, it's almost like sold. Uh, there's a small amount of our product that we, you say not our best sellers that we probably house for over six months, but she's in the business of fast fashion, so like.

Items come in, we sell through them pretty quick generally. Um, and then we have like new items, new sayings, new designs coming in to

replenish that shelf like a month thereafter. So we usually

drop anywhere from like two to four collections a month. Wow. I like to stay closer to two, but sometimes it's more and it's like, we're not gonna restock the summer stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. The summer bag that says beach, like, we're just gonna create a new one for next year. You know, if,

if you were on our email subscriber list, and I hope some of your listeners are, but like you, you just get new all the time. New collection. New collection. New collection, new collection. Because if you're not doing that, I mean, you just get like design fatigue from the customers.

Why would they want to come to the site and buy the same thing? Um, mm-hmm. So. To increase the hype a little bit. You've just been like, yeah. Pushing new products nonstop and people love it. Yeah.

Yeah. People love new, and I was saying not even just our direct to consumer customers love new, but our retail clients, they're always like, what's new?

What's new? Yeah. Yeah. So I, I think that pushes us too, to always be just like, all right, let's sit down. And it's me and Sasha that are always like, all right. What collection is next. And if you're, and if you're starting, like don't

be scared to sell out

too and actually like running a small quantity and you know, selling out and having that scarcity factor behind your brand or your idea, your product is like a good thing.

Honestly.

Yeah.

Sell out and then it, like the other people are like, dang, I didn't get it. I'll get it on the next time.

I wanted to speak on that too, of like all of my full-time staff that are here have been with me from the start, so. Wow. Sasha, Kay and Ella, they've been with me since the old warehouse where we first started.

So they've gotten to see the business grow and then move in their college students and then move into a full-time role. Mm-hmm. And then same with our new hires. She was part-time college student, and I moved into full-time. So I feel like that's how I've like kind of learned their work ethic. And I'm like, all right,

yeah, work.

Let's do an internship. You know? That's basically what corporate companies do too though. It's like, let's do an internship, get to know each other, and then things work out.

My mom is the only one that got to bypass the internship.

Shout out to Rebecca doing our customer service.

So talk about the transition into retail.

'cause most people would say like, that's

not a good idea. Yeah. Retail's really hard. Super complex. Margins are lower. Mm-hmm. Like talk about that. Why did you do that? Was it strategic? Was it you just kind of fall into it? Talk through that? Yeah.

I mean, it's definitely something we always wanted to do and a side of the business we wanted to grow.

I didn't wanna do it. And then. Take away from growing, still dropping new collections nonstop, and growing our direct to consumer. I wanted to do it as an add-on, another source of revenue to bring in. And as we've done it, yes, we've had to get more staff. I mean, our tagging table is fully staffed 40 hours a week.

Wow. Of just tagging and bagging, getting 'em out the door. It definitely is lower margins, but it's more volume. And for us it's, it's been very beneficial. I think also. It can be bad. Like if you do get into it and you don't stand your ground on pricing, you're gonna get beat down and make zero margin.

Mm-hmm. You know? But I think like standing behind your designs is kind of what we've done it. I'm like, no, like this is our price,

this is our design. And um, we've kind of just been that way the whole time and it doesn't work out for everyone, but it's worked out for our clients and they've been so happy with the sales that come out of it too.

Talk more about that. 'cause it doesn't matter what sort of business you own or run or you're in, there's a price associated with your product or service. Yeah. And. You'll want one day.

Yeah.

Run into a consumer or a client or a customer not believing that your price justifies Yeah. The, the value of, of the service or product.

So talk through, like, why do you believe that? How did you get there? How long did it take you to get there?

Yeah. Well, I've definitely had those thoughts before too, of like, Ooh, should I lower the price? But I feel like there's just a price to pay to sell the designs. I know that they're selling, I know that they'll sell in your store.

And I think just standing behind them and being confident. I mean, obviously if you wanna make the sale, make the sale, but, um, don't, don't lose money. You know, unless you're in a

situation where you have too much of this item and they wanna buy it and you need to clear out your warehouse, like that's a different story, you know?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would say that on top of that, we've always ran this brand as like a little bit more of an, an affordable gifting option. I mean, there's other brands out there that. Are are two, three times the amount of, you know, retail that we're charging. Yeah. Um, for very similar products, but I feel like, I don't know, it's just like the, the, the Arkansas, like native part of Kindle's.

Like do things cheap, do things cost effective and all that. I, I

wouldn't say cheap. I not like, I think, um,

not

ever pay.

Not ever pay. I mean, we're, we're not

overpriced because I am a cheap shopper.

Her, she's got a frugal mindset and I think we carried that a little bit. I'm very frugal

with everything.

Yeah. And I feel like that's also like how we've been able to grow and be a hundred percent self-funded is because I've been so frugal from the beginning. I can obvi, like we can let it go a little bit, but I'm still like, no, Bailey, we cannot afford that. Yeah. Like with everything, because

I'm like, we're a small business.

We cannot do that.

Do you, I mean, in your world though is like, is is taking on some investors or like, you know, I don't know, more, more bank debt or whatever like that may be like, is that in the future?

No, I don't think I ever wanna do that. I mean, unless I get into a situation where I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to produce 500,000 hats.

Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Yeah.

Force a number. That makes sense. Yeah. Um, but I think just always being a yes man and never turning down opportunities will really just help you grow in a lot of factors and they'll just keep coming towards you.

There's a, there's a couple. Go ahead.

I was gonna say on top of that, we were almost, uh, approached like what, later, earlier this year by somebody that was like, interested in investing in kin's customs.

Mm. Um, and maybe even taking a majority stake. And for a little bit, like we thought about the idea of like, to what you just proposed, right? Of like, would you take outside money? And this person was like, we can grow you through these channels, and I've got all these connections and I'd really

like to acquire, you know, some of Ken's customs.

And I feel like Ken and I talked about it, you know, at dinner, like once or twice. Uh, maybe three times, you know, had a coffee chat about it. And then Kendall called an industry peer that's in e-commerce as well, down in, down in Texas. And was just like, what do you think about this idea? And she like immediately backfired to Kendall and was like, dude, you're four years in business.

Like, you'd be undervaluing your company so much. Like you're not doing that right now. Like, you have so much more room to grow. Well, you've never mentioned this. Like, why would you do it? And we're like, oh, I guess, yeah, she's right. All right, let's think about the next thing. Yeah, I

was, I was never interested in it.

I was like, Hmm, I do wanna do what's getting proposed. Like I do wanna grow to those numbers.

Yeah. But,

but I was like, it sounds like I'll be doing all the work and

Yeah. It, it just

doesn't make sense. So I think really thinking things through

having a hundred percent ownership is, it is cool though. Yeah.

You know, like, we don't have to listen to anybody. We don't have to like. Tell, you know, be told that to go do this and that. I mean, there's a lot of things of

culture-wise that would change if we did take in some outside money and like I think our team absolutely freaking loves the culture that we have right now.

Yeah.

You know,

well talk about, there was a few things we kinda talked about previously leading up to recording, but there was, as you were growing, there was a moment where your Instagram account account got deleted.

Yeah. Right. So. Within the first year of business. I mean, I've talked on how quickly we were growing and having no help.

I wasn't collecting email addresses. I wasn't doing anything you should do when you start a business. And I was just putting all of my eggs into one basket, and that was Instagram and it was working for the first year. It was phenomenal. Mm. Um, but I think by me losing my Instagram account, it taught me a lot.

Like, Hey, quit relying on just this one platform. Because at the time it got deleted. It got deleted for absolutely no reason, like one of my pictures got flagged for copyright infringement. And I was like, I took the photo like, yeah. Wow. And there was really nothing you could do. It's like

Instagram had that power.

So by that happening though, I mean I was distraught, but Bailey went and created my new Instagram account and he is like, here, start posting again. And I was like, no, I gonna get it back. Yeah. It's like there's no other option, but like,

you've gotta get outta bed Kendall. Like you can not cry this one away or sleep the days, you know, like I wanna do, you still have a business to run, like you just gotta start again and just gotta don't want to.

And I'm like, well lesson learned, you know, like diversify your audience a little bit. Um, yeah,

well, and it, by doing that, don't just reli on that. And the Instagram, that's when I really started heavily pushing into wholesale. Okay. Really started collecting emails. I just cleaned a lot of things up that I'd been needing to do and was pushing off.

Yeah. And it opened my eyes of like, Hey, like you can't rely on just one platform. You need to have revenue coming in in several different directions instead of like just selling. But I was able to create a new one, sadly. And this new one has now grown to a hundred and almost 90,000

followers, which is insane.

And I'm super proud of it. And yeah, no regrets. I mean, it sucked during the time, but it did. It was a big learning lesson too.

Forced you to Yeah. To pivot. Yeah. To grow

it did. And

talk about Good Morning America.

Yeah. So we've been on Good Morning America's Deals and Steals. I didn't know I told you about that.

Um,

somebody did.

We've been on Good Morning America's deals and Steals twice now. They reached out like, we wanna feature your product. Um, it's just a quick way to make a ton of sales, which the product's half off and then they get to keep a revenue piece of it for being on the show. But it was super fun and just like good exposure too.

Uh, so that was about a year ago. We did it twice a year ago and then probably a year before that. But my very first year of business, um, I was on E-News Top 50 gift guide. And I

didn't even know.

Yeah. Somebody sent it to us like, this was like

six months in and one of my friends texted me like, oh, mg congrats my friend.

I'm so proud of you. And I was like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. Yeah.

She's like, you're on freaking E-news gift guide. And I was like, no

way.

Yeah. I mean, that's what I mean by like just right product, right time. Like it was just going viral. And to reach that I was like, wow, this is so exciting.

Wow. It proves that business is definitely a combination of hard work and luck.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's,

yeah. Yeah. I think, I think your instinct stands out though. Um, and, and kind of going into that more, so now you're in the NFL. Yeah. Talk, talk about that.

So we've worked with NFL teams, uh, to col. To bring to life some of their ideas for gifting purposes. Can't resell it because of licensing.

Mm-hmm. Like if they were to resell it, I would have to own the license, but they'll reach out to us for like gifts for the coaches',

wives, gifts for the suite holders. We actually flew out, the Vikings flew us to Vegas two years ago for a onsite activation event for their suite holders. No, it was the coolest popup I've ever done.

It was like surrounded by palm trees as a, it's definitely not Arkansas. Yeah. And we're like, dang, we are living lavish.

We gotta sell some hats. Yeah, we gotta sell some hats. Well, and they bought

everything like they bought the merch me. So we were just going to do the popup. That's amazing. Yeah. And flying us to stay at their Ritz, we're like, yes,

it is fun, but also like Kendall should be more like prideful about herself of.

When these, like larger companies think about corporate gifting, they're not thinking of like this women's fashion, you know, fashion brand. Like they're thinking of like traditional, like corporate gifts that are like backpacks and laptop bags and notepads and memo pads with, you know, branded pens and pay.

Like,

it's just not what she does. So I think like when she shows up in the room, it's like, Hey, here's our corporate gifting. And it's like, this is fun. Like, we've never done this before. Yeah, yeah. Well usually it's like the most basic, you know,

we've worked with North Face

Jacket with the team or company embroidered on it.

It's nothing like fun.

Yeah. We've worked with the Titans, we've worked with some NBA teams. Oh wow. Um, we've done like a sports fishing line for like 50 teams, like a tournament before. Um, but really just like showing that you can do custom stuff, I think really sets you apart. And that's why a lot of people come to you.

We've. Um, I also have my team reach out though, like we're emailing every buyer for every NBA team, every NFL team. We're like, you're on office, buy from us. Yeah. Yeah. We're relentless. Like what we can do, here's our portfolio. And I think really just like reaching out is super helpful too.

Talk about your team, like what's that look like now?

Um, what kinda different roles do you have? How big's the staff?

Yeah, so Jordan was my first hire and she runs our wholesale, but

wholesale as in like boutiques, so smaller stores. Mm-hmm. And then I, next I hired Kate and she is our warehouse manager and manages all of our college staff. I don't know how she does it.

Yeah, she's awesome. Then we have Sasha, who, she was actually my first college intern that I hired when I got the warehouse when we moved from Florida. So she's been with me the longest. Okay. And she helps me on all things marketing. She does our emails, our ads, and then. She goes, or she helps with me on all new collection creation.

And then I hired Ella, who she does all of our retail stores, her and Hagen kind of split off retail. Wow. And then my mom,

yeah,

she does customer service and total about, yeah, so be nice six, full

six I guess full-time. And then probably part-time re average depending on the season, because we are e-commerce, so we go through busy seasons and, and lower seasons.

Um. Anywhere from like 15 to

probably 20 part-time students. Yeah. Oh, wow. Geez. So now, I mean, take that with a grain of salt. Some of our part-timers may only work, you know, in between classes. They may only get 10 hours a week, but then we have some that are like, how are you part-time? You're here when the lights turn on and when they go off and they get like 50 hours a week.

So yeah, it depends a little bit on their class schedule. But the beauty, again, of Fayetteville Northwest Arkansas is we're like four minutes away from campus. So like when they have a two hour break between class, they can like come work for an hour and go back.

Yeah.

You know, like it's convenient for them and it's awesome for us.

What do you, and Bailey, what do you love most about the business?

Uh, man, most about the business is like seeing how, I don't know, like seeing how happy Kendall gets, uh, to like go to work. You know, it's, it's cool. Um, doing things like this is, is unique. It's almost like why us? You know, like, I don't know if we've struggled with imposter syndrome, but like being able to, I don't know, like be the reason that so many people are like coming back to work here every day and like.

Happy to go home. I mean, we're offering, you know, good

benefits for a small company and I would say our, you know, we pay our employees well and stuff. Like, it's just a such a cool thing to be able to help out others. Yeah. Yeah. I love the people side. That's awesome. Yeah.

Well talk through the growth that y'all have experienced, and you can quantify that however you want, but just so people get an idea of the scale of the business, where y'all are at, where you started, just, you know, talk through some of that.

Yeah. I mean, I, you want me to take this one? Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I think I said first year, like, you know, roughly did like $400,000 in sales and I'll mask it a little bit, do the math if you want, but since then, you know, we're five years in and we've been able to almost double, um, every year since in terms of top line growth, which has been awesome.

Uh, we started with, you know, trying to get a hundred orders out maybe a week, like, honestly, like maybe that would be like a very strong week for us. Um. We've slowly got that now to like, we can easily get, you know, 200 orders out a day. Um, how we have done that, I'm not sure,

but like the scale has been, you know, up into the right, if you're looking at a chart.

So far we haven't really experienced that pullback, um, yet. But when that does happen, because we are in this fast fashion, or if, you know, economy, like I feel like we've built up, you know, a nice now basket to where like we're fully prepared if that does come. And we're fully prepared on the opposite side if we want to continue to like, go up into the right.

So we're, we're flexible to go either

way for sure. It's cool. Yeah. And so talk about the segments of the business. If someone's listening, we've obviously kind of, we've jumped all over. You have retail. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's like big retailers. So anthropology, shields, that's how you would describe retail.

Yeah. Yeah. 30% of the business, 30% of business. Dick Sporting Goods, 30% of the business. Right. Um, which shields I just love, I love that store sense. That makes me happy that you walk in. I want one so bad here. We're, we're

going this weekend.

Yeah. Um, okay, so retail, 30% of the business, retail, 30% of the business

wholesale, which is like th a thousand boutiques kind of all over, probably about 20% of the

business.

Okay. And then D two C is the other 50%. 45%. Okay. Um, and then that remaining 5% is like our custom, custom options, you know, where somebody needs hats for their business or they're doing a wedding and. There's always the craziest weddings that we sponsor, but like they're doing a wedding in, you know, Nantucket and they need 300 hats for all their guests.

Like Yeah,

our custom hats have absolutely popped off. Yes. With bachelorette trips, weddings. 'cause having trucker hats on your dance floor the past couple years have just blown up, especially on TikTok and social media

and nobody else is doing it. Like, and to be honest, like, I mean

there's definitely some people

doing it, but there's de definitely some people doing it, but like, nobody's trying to like push it and run ads behind, like custom wedding hats.

Like we are like, it's not untapped, like it happens all the time, but like when we go to like run our Google ads on like custom wedding hats, like nobody's bidding against us. You know? It's almost like why is it worth it

though? It's how much are you selling a hat for? I mean, we sell 'em for what, on the dance floor for 15 bucks?

It depends on the quantity. I mean, if you're buying 25, they're gonna be like in the thirties. Yeah. If you're buying 200 it can go down. So, um,

I mean it's worth it for sure. Like our designers. They get to work, you know, similar to what we mentioned with the influencers and design own collection. They're working with a bride.

She's like, oh, I want my last name to look like this and have this. And we're like, okay, cool. Like it's fun. And then they fall in love with it. And then we're like, okay, buy a bunch, give 'em out to all the guests, not only just 50. And they're like, okay, sounds good. And then it's like, from there, you know, we, we order the hats or we do 'em Yeah.

In Sherwood, Arkansas, a lot of times. And now that

we've done that and like we've, every single order gets a picture taken of it, like every single order. So now we have just such a strong portfolio, like for our customers to choose from, of like, Ooh, recreate this with my last name.

Yeah.

Um, it makes it just so easy for them.

And if you're a celebrity that just got engaged, like. You know damn well Kendall's DMing

her immediately on Instagram saying like, we want to do your wedding hats. And yeah, she gets a lot of celebrities from that, you know, so it's like the constant wheel of like searching social media, oh, this person just got engaged.

Can we do your wedding hats for free? You know, it's like, well I'm not begging that much. Kendall's so good. But, but yeah, definitely the bigger ones. But you're

gritty. You're gritty. I On and phone and you talk about your team and they're like NFL and NBA.

Yeah.

Marketing people. I mean, that's hungry. Yeah.

No, yeah.

Oh yeah. You have to be something that I feel like we're missing out on. And this is like something really new that we've just started four months ago is our Hat of the Month Club. Cool. And it's like a monthly hat subscription box and it, the very first month that I launched it, we had like 650 subscribers.

Now we have over a thousand, which I think is really cool. Only four months in. But the women love this. So it's a new trucker hat delivered to your door every month. Um,

do you see it before it's delivered or is it just surprise? So I post

and it's in between four hats, so it's gonna be a surprise. Okay.

And people love a surprise. You dunno which one you're gonna get, but we also pack it in like a PR box, so it looks like you're getting sent like this cutesy box and for a deal. And it's been super fun to just add another source of revenue into just like another fun project for us to do too.

Mm-hmm. Who, who's the age range of like the, the, your, your most prominent customer?

Is it, is it like a,

do you know this? Yeah. I mean, mid twenties to mid thirties. Yeah. If you were look Yeah, I would say twenties to thirties. But then again, like we have, I feel like our age range goes up to the fifties.

Yeah. The, the dominant is definitely the, like the 25 to 35. Um. And I think that's why Kindle's been so good at this is because the girls that are designing, whether the product is a hat or a bag or pajama or whatever, is the same target market that's buying it.

And like that's just not the case. When you think of other retailers like you

traditionally have that, let's just just use Pax on it as an example. Like the person that's in the design team might be there for 15, 20 years, you know, but they're designing products to be sold to teenagers and college students.

We're like the opposite here. And I think that's why we've had good traction is like we have 25 to 35 year olds designing products for other 25 to 35 year olds. So like the alignment and the, the chemistry between those two things, I think have been like rocket fuel for some of our sales.

That's really cool.

So going back to the business, we kind of split up how big each portion of them are. Walk through some of these behind us. People can watch this like. What is D two C versus what is like going into a retailer? Just so people can really understand, like, okay, this is like when they, and I, and I sent Cameron, I was, my wife and I went to California a couple weeks ago and I, I was, we went to Anthropology of course.

Yeah. And I sent a picture to Cameron of one of y'alls hats in there. So that was, that was cool. Oh yeah. That's awesome. That, but walk through, so someone who's listening to this or watching it can see and

get an understanding of what your business is.

So just putting it out there. Easy retail, we've only gotten our hats into retail stores.

Um, and then for bags that is like basically all for our smaller boutiques or our direct to consumer. Our customer loves the bags for retail. They won't quite match my pricing and it just doesn't make sense. So that's the one I've held back on personally of like, no, I don't wanna lower my pricing. You know?

Mm-hmm. And then I don't want it to be sold in the store for cheaper than I'm selling it. Yeah. So, yeah, I would say definitely all hats are in retail. You can probably find them like in whatever city you're in now, and then all bags you can find on our website and, and probably a boutique near you. Yeah.

It's also just funny, uh, two years ago, I think we sold, I don't know, 500 hats this past year. I don't know, we might sell a million hats. You know, it's like, we didn't even do this two years ago. Like, I don't know, we've tripped and fell into it and it's been

working for her and she's been, you know, just getting better and better at it.

So it's like to the beginning we talked about is it a, is a fat or is it a trend? It's like, it's both, you know, like one thing dies and Kendall's so good at finding the next thing. And that's what's been cool is that her superpower, it literally is because I press her all the time, I'm like, what are you gonna do when.

Custom bags stop selling because it's a trend. And she's like, I'll find the next thing. And I'm like, yeah. Pressing her. Like, well, what is it? And she's like, Bailey, I'll, I'll just find the next thing. Like quit worrying about it. And then it's like two months later she's like, Hey, I ordered these and they've been selling well, and I'm like, did you find the next thing?

She's like, yeah, I think so. And like, yeah.

And if I was so, I get so

stressed about, and Kendall's just like, I know it'll die. Like this isn't gonna be forever, and I'll just find the next thing.

Well, if I was still selling the same neoprene totes I started with, I wouldn't still be in business. Yeah,

yeah.

You

know, like, I think just constantly evolving and growing and knowing what your customer wants and following the trends. I mean, yeah. It is trendy.

Yeah.

Um, but being the best wine at it, that's for sure. Superpower apart, you know? Mm-hmm.

And if, yeah, if you're just

listening, this is the coolest backdrop I think we've had in an episode.

Um,

yeah, turn on the video. You're definitely not getting to like, overview the production line or, you know, like see the, the coolest stuff. But these are the finished products and yeah, a lot of people have liked 'em and I think the quality's good. Our return rate is like super, super, super low. So when people get the stuff, they generally like 'em.

Um, so that's been cool.

So talk about what's next now on the, on the horizon. Y'all are moving into a new warehouse? Yes.

Yeah. So we're doubling our space, which is scary and exciting. I, I'm just focusing on the exciting part of it. Uh, 'cause I know we'll do great and just continue to grow and continue to push ourselves.

I know in 2026 we wanna focus on doing a few partnerships. And so what does that mean? So for example. Like if I wanted to partner with Onyx, I could have partnered with like my coffee pajama line.

Okay.

Like kind of just finding someone to co collab align with like another business, not an influencer.

Sure.

Um, obviously keep pushing the influencer lines out, keep growing our hat club and just keep doing what we're doing. We definitely have a few more retail stores in the pipeline that we're hoping to close up as well.

That's awesome. Yeah. It's also been fun because Kindle's also, and we've ran this business so frugal, I think we've mentioned that a million times, but like Kindle has gone without pay.

We've like been very reluctant to even turn ads on, you know, just like, oh, that'll be an expense. Um, but when you save all that money, like you can now get the bigger warehouse and you can scale it up faster. But you know, we can actually like aggressively run ads in the new warehouse and all that stuff.

Yeah. 'cause we can handle the volume and the demand. Like before that we've always just been like. Scared of growth, you know, like, oh, it's great, you know, but it's coming organically. And I think honestly, like this will allow us to like, uh, be a bit more aggressive in terms of like, oh, just organic growth.

Like, let's go out there, let's get some paid ads going, let's partner up with a digital marketing company and let's

Yeah.

Really turn on our

SMS and email chains. You know, like use all the resources that are out there.

Something I'm excited about too, which I kind of told you earlier, in the Warehouse, but we're gonna bring, hopefully, if not all, most of our custom hats in house to be produced.

So we just bought a machine, which embroidery

machine.

Yeah. It looks terrifying, but we'll figure it out. Yeah. It's like so many

heads and it runs, you know, a thousand stitches per minute. So, and we're like, I don't know how to, I mean, I don't even know how to turn the machine on. None of us do. Yeah. Uh, but like, what's the quest?

Just like, oh, we'll just figure it out. You know, like, I don't, I mean, we just have always said, I don't know, just figure it out, you know, like. We're not really scared by anything nowadays. Um, but also we bought the machine off Facebook, you know, 'cause we won't spend full retail. That's awesome.

So right now y'all buy these hats from another manufacturer?

Yes. Mm-hmm. And then does someone else put the stuff on it? And you're saying y'all are about to start doing that part yourself? No. Um,

so we do get these manufactured in China, all of our

hats. But I'm talking about the custom piece of it. So that

5% where we mentioned like the weddings and all this. Got it.

Yeah. Weddings, batch

hats, businesses, the smaller scale. 'cause when you're ordering smaller scale, it doesn't make sense to go to China or you're just paying double for the, for the low amount, you know. Sure,

yeah.

But

yeah, there's a, right now, I mean, we'll be able to do like more hats in house, which will be fun.

Um, we just don't have the space, you know, and it's a good problem to have. We just ran outta space in here. Yeah, it usually looks like a hot mess. It's actually cleaned up in there quite a bit today. I

think the hat thing's really interesting. So the Hat club

Yeah. Is,

do you have a price on it?

So it's $25 a month.

Okay. And we actually retail our hats at 38 each. So you're already like discount? Yeah. Getting a deal. You're getting a surprise. It's free shipping and you get a hat surprise, deliver it to your door every month. Super exciting. And they're usually gonna be seasonal, so like January's is the Valentine's Day hot

vibe.

Hmm. That's cool. That's cool. And as you look forward, I know you talked about partnerships and some of that stuff. Is there a part of your business that you're the most excited about? Whether it's retail, whether it's wholesale, whether it's D two C?

Honestly, I, I get excited about all of it and I oversee every single part of it.

Um, I'm still on every single retail email chain that goes through, but I also am the one. With Sasha co-creating every new arrival, all of the newness. So I get excited. We get to go on marketing trips and go shoot it all at the beach or wherever, and honestly, I'm just lucky this is my job and we get to have fun every day at it.

Has there been a pinch me moment this past year where something happened or you were somewhere and you were just like, I can't believe that. I can't believe that just happened.

I mean, I feel like this year I, I just go so fast and I feel like most entrepreneurs are this

way where you're just going so fast, like you forget to slow down and like even celebrate the big things.

I think being on the cover of this magazine was definitely a Peach Tree moment, a Fayetteville City lifestyle.

Yep.

But really just like getting into all of these stores, like Dream stores that I grew up shopping at. I was like, I cannot believe my products are sold there. And my mom would be like sitting there crying when we're like shipping to a store and I'm like, what are you doing?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty cool. And

it's just like we grew up going there and shopping and now I have products being sold to them. It's absolutely insane. So

it's also a pinch me moment. Um. I feel like it happens multiple times a week. But Nick, to what you just mentioned of like, you were in California and you walked into a store and saw the hat, um, the most random people, you know, that we haven't talked to in years will be like, somewhere in Wisconsin.

They'll walk into a boutique and send us a picture and like, no way. I found Ken's customs in a boutique and I'm like, they make us smile every time. Yeah. And it happens so often. Yeah. Like we do know that we're servicing, you know, a

lot of boutiques across the United States, so Good chances you walk in one, you're gonna find maybe a, a couple of our products.

Mm-hmm. But like to get the, the person you haven't talked to in years to be like, Hey, I found this, it's so cool. I'm like, oh yeah, it is cool. Thanks for being a cheerleader. So, yeah. Um, definitely there's like, you know, small pinch me moments for sure. Obviously there's big ones, you know, like signing a, a lease on a warehouse that's 11,000 square feet, that's like.

Geez. Are we in even our right mind? You know? Are we crazy? What are we doing? Yeah.

Yeah. Are we crazy? We don't know. Are we crazy? Yeah. No, it'll be, we'll find out. Great.

Yeah, we're about to find out.

It'll be great to have like a shelf to put a box on. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We haven't had that in a while. Yeah. Not breaking

fire

code.

Shut up Fayetteville pd. Yeah. Um, that's a, I mean, yeah, this, this whole story is just, is just amazing. Um, kind of before we start to wrap up, what would you tell somebody who has a, has a side hustle right now?

I would say be consistent. That's like my biggest thing that I preach nonstop to anyone on my social media.

Be consistent. Show

up, show them who you are. Show the behind the scenes. I feel like that's like, definitely what's gotten us further is just like showing everything. Like even when I lost my Instagram, I was like, yeah, this sucks. But like people were there and they're like, I'm so sorry that happened.

Like, we're resharing this now. And like people know me and be the face of your business too. Sometimes it gets annoying when I'm like having to go to every single photo shoot, but I'm like, okay, familiar faces on social media, you know? Yeah.

So you're not advocating for a set it and forget it. Business.

You're very involved.

I'm very involved. Um, and that's something I preach too. I, I've hired people to run my social media. I personally run it still to this day. I've hired them and it's like we're hiring random models to come be in the photo shoots and like that just, that doesn't work with my audience.

Mm-hmm. And I feel like if you grow a brand and like they know who you are, that's when it sets in, you know? Yeah. And that's when it works

so good.

They connect with it on a personal level.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, this has been amazing, um, really inspiring the couple questions here at the end. You moved back here to have the business here.

What would you tell someone why build a business in northwest Arkansas?

Yeah, I'll let you answer. Yeah.

I think, uh, you know, the better question being almost like why not? Um, it's had everything that we've needed and more, um. I would like to say relative to other parts of the country, you still can get some, um, pretty cheap, you know, commercial spaces to run a business.

Um, they may not be the, you know, the sexiest buildings like you see, you know, portrayed in, in other, there might not be air conditioning, might not be air conditioning, but you can find some relatively cheap places. Um, when we moved out of ours, I think another e-commerce company moved like right in, after we moved in out of our first ones.

Yeah, the shoelace company. He went viral on TikTok for selling shoelaces. So I mean, like you can do those things here. You can't do them as easy in other parts of the country. Um, we also

just considered the proximity to, you know, the University of Arkansas and how much good talent comes from there. Um, that we've like immediately been pulling talent, like left and right from, from the university.

Um, and then I think like sharing a little bit earlier about like the connections that you have in northwest Arkansas. It's, it's small, but it like, it's big at the same time. And, and vice versa. Like when we need something we can text somebody and figure out who does, you know, screen printing or heat pressing and stuff in two seconds and like, I just don't think you'd get that with a bigger city.

Um, you still get a lot of like the scratch my back, I'll scratch yours mentality here, which has been helpful and kind of powered some of our growth for sure. Yeah. That's amazing.

Um, so Kendall, for you on this one, how do you define success?

I'd find success not even by the numbers, but just by like your happiness level.

Like, I truly love coming to work. Like when I'm not at work, I have fomo, fear of missing out if you don't know what that

means. Um, but I would say. Loving your job and loving the people you work with and creating a happy environment for the rest of your team to come to is definitely like what I would subscribe or describe success as, you know.

That's amazing. I think y'all are an awesome example too, of just like marry the right person and like, and do things you enjoy together. Yeah. We've uh,

we've definitely broken a couple of the rules. You know, like a lot of people say like, don't uh, ever get in business with your spouse. You know, we broke that rule.

Um, people say, don't hire your best friends. Kendall broke that rule with like her first hire. So we've gone against the grain in a lot of things, but I think, you know, you know, being, uh, faithful to each other and, and

yeah.

Supporting each other, you know, kind of like erases that fear. I would say

it's definitely not always easy.

Definitely have to set some boundaries. No. Talking about work after 6:00 PM they Oh yeah.

We've got strict rules, so

we just both listen to him and he sometimes follows and he's sometimes doesn't like everything else. Yeah.

Be each other's biggest like role

model and supporter because I don't know. I couldn't do it without her.

She couldn't probably do it without me. I won't make her say that, but no,

every hard project I'm like, Bailey, do it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Taxes, like, so online, you have to set up for taxes in each state once you hit Nexus or whatever. I'm like, I, I'm not doing that. There's parts of the business that also, like I work

on.

I would never even like think about sharing with Kendall because it would be terribly boring to her. So,

yeah, we're a good tag

team.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Uh, well, one of the things we do at the end of every episode is kind of capture what we learned from y'all today and then what we think people who are listening are gonna learn from y'all.

Yeah. And, um, please do, I think the first part that was like very apparent from the beginning is like this idea of having a gut, like having a gut feeling, having conviction would be probably a more professional word to use. Um, but like you walk in here and you look at what you've created, what y'all have built, and like you can tell like, some of it's just like gut, it's, it's like what I wear

this and like.

Maybe some people would say that's not good business advice. Like, yeah. Mm-hmm. Don't make stuff that only you would wear, but clearly it's worked out. Yeah. And you followed that conviction and you followed that gut. And I think there's a lot that people can learn if you're working in a business, if you're trying to start a business, if you've already founded a business, like you have to trust your gut.

If you don't trust your gut, how are you gonna sit across the table from a buyer at anthropology and get them to trust your gut? Mm-hmm. And so really, really cool to see that. And I think it's very, it's apparent in your product and the way that you guys talk today. Like it's very apparent that's one of your gifts.

So, um, big learning. I think the next one is vision. And Bailey, I think you highlighted that really well about Kendall, like that as her superpower. Yeah. Having vision and everybody has different gifts and your ability to execute the vision and her ability to have the vision, especially in the business that you're in of like, okay.

When this one dies, we've gotta start a new one. When this one dies, we've gotta start a new one. That's exhausting.

It's, it is tiring. It's definitely pretty sure exhaust exhausting and somehow she knocks outta the

park with each one. And I'm almost like, I wish one would fail. So Kendall could be like, oh, I didn't have a success rate of 100.

But like, it honestly hasn't happened yet. So yeah, some haven't done, keep watching as

well as others, but we learn from it every time. Selling

candle is probably not the best idea, but good thing we only got like 500 to start with or whatever, so we did not, we got like 50.

Okay. But yes, the superpower of having vision and like just continuing, right, like to just keep moving and keep going and keep setting that vision, I think it's just really, really neat.

Um, and then I think the last piece, uh, would be perseverance and. I mean, doubling every year for the last five years is wild. And it's, I'm sure there have been nights where y'all have sat down at the dinner table and said like, what are we doing? Yeah. This is insane. We should quit. Like, why are we doing this?

Mm-hmm.

Um, whether it's pos having to clearance out and probably losing money on a deal like that or Yeah. I mean, having boxes everywhere and just

like, I don't know where this order is. I mean, all the things that y'all have, have done and, and I think even just kind of hearing you talk about like learning the new machine and cold emailing or cold DMing people like that takes perseverance.

And if you are going to grow a business, if you're going to found a business, if you're gonna start a business, if you're going to own a business, you have to be willing to do those things. Yeah. And it's very clear that y'all have, and you've done it together. And so I think as we think through what we learn and what we can apply and what our learn, our listeners are gonna learn and apply, those would kind of be the, the three biggest things.

So.

So how can people join the The Hat Club?

Yeah, definitely. Just go to kens customs.com. Yeah, and hit Hot of the Month Club and definitely join. It's a great gift for your wife, your bestie, whoever.

Yeah.

You want to join our hat club?

That's, that's amazing. And, um, I'm glad we had both y'all on here. This was, this was really,

uh, special.

Like you're hearing all sides of the story. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, we're definitely rooting for you guys here to continue to succeed. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks so much for having us on NWA Founders. Yeah, it's been awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of NWA Founders, where we sit down with founders, owners and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas.

For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving a rating, a review, and sending it to someone who you think would benefit from it. We'll see you in the next episode.