Building in Public

My dad started this company in 1972 out of a 1963 Chevy station wagon. Twenty dollars in leather. Twenty dollars in tools. He drove to craft fairs and sold belts and wallets and figured it out as he went.

By the mid-1970s he had pivoted to hats. He met a talented hat maker who took him under his wing. Eventually he bought that business. He named the company Head N Home Hats. He built it one show at a time.

I grew up in that world. I was watching him set up booths before I could carry anything useful. I started selling hats at 15. Could not drive yet, so I hired my older brother to take me to the shows. He charged me half. Half of everything. I thought that was a fair deal at first because I was 15 and did not know anything. I figured it out pretty fast and I fired him. He was not happy about that.

By 16 I was doing it alone. This was 1990. No GPS, no cell phone, nobody to call if something went wrong. Just me and a van and the next city on the map. I'd drive cross-country, set up for three days, talk to thousands of people, and try to sell them something they didn't know they needed until they had it on their head.

That taught me something I still use every day. People do not buy hats. They buy the version of themselves wearing the hat. Your job is to help them see that version.

I joined my father as a partner in 2005. He has said that I have taken the company somewhere beyond what he imagined. I think about that a lot. Because what I built on is everything he built before I got there. The craft, the customers, the reputation. The willingness to figure it out.

The station wagon became a workshop. Over a million hats sold. Sixteen thousand five-star reviews. Exports to Japan and Southern China and markets I would not have guessed when I was 16 in a van with a stack of hats and a paper map.

My dad is still involved. He still designs. Some things are worth keeping exactly as they are.