Blue Delta's founders: "Starting a business is kind of like growing a garden: You can't trick it."

The first week of March, I went down to Mississippi to meet Josh West and Nick Weaver. They started a company that sells custom jeans. It’s called Blue Delta Jeans. Their customers are the kind of people who regularly pay $500 for their pants. A lot of professional athletes. Baseball players. Nicole Kidman has a pair. 

I wanted to talk to these guys because this kind of thing wouldn’t have been possible even a decade ago. They've managed to live and work and build something in a place they love, but sell to customers who live somewhere else. When I toured their factory outside of Tupelo, things were going great, and they knew it. Their problems, if they had any, were fun.

I visited on a Friday. We didn’t know it then, but it turned out to be one of the last days of life before the quarantine. By the time I got home to New York, LinkedIn had closed its offices. The economy shut down after that. And Josh and Nick had to scramble to react to the biggest challenge they’d ever faced.

That’s where their story gets *really* cool, and I hope you'll listen to hear what happens.

But it’s not where I want to start. I want to take you to Tupelo on that Friday morning. I want you to hear Josh and Nick talk with all of the conviction of two guys who--like all of us--had no idea that everything was about to change. You can download the episode to hear about it, or listen to it below. Then, please, share your own thoughts and tag them #HelloMonday so I can jump into the conversation.

Here are some highlights….

Nick on early global ambitions: "We'd never planned on being small. Josh and I may have always been "dreamers". We believed in each other."

Nick on the value of Tupelo: "It's a good workforce and the talent is here. You know, we have over 250 years of sewing experience in a company that's eight years old. So I'm not sure anybody's doing it better than this."

Josh on work/life balance: "Work's an important part of your life, but it's not your life."

Nick on starting a business in Tupelo: "You can still do things here without daddy's money. "

Josh on the relationship between product and marketing: "We have a great story. People like what we're doing, but if the product sucked, no one would buy it."

Josh on global ambitions: " If we would have started this company to open up a shop in Tupelo and just sell one product, we would never have made it. We didn't even really think that way because we grew up in the internet age where you can sell anything to anybody."

Nick on building a business: "There's no substitute between sacrifice and hard work. Starting a business is kind of like growing a garden. You can't trick it. You can't go through the motions. You, you have to do it."

Josh on the immediate impact of the pandemic: " We saw a half a million dollars in events evaporate and three or four days of cancellations. We really had to make some tough decisions at that point."

Josh on the quick pivot to manufacturing masks: "One of the hardest parts was learning how to make it in a safe way during a pandemic. We have more people in our factory today than we did pre-covid because the demand is so high."

Josh on the current business climate: "You know, we're not out of this thing yet either. We've stabilized. We've learned a lot about what our key team can do, but we still don't know what the future holds."

?? Office Hours

This week, we're talking about the importance of practicing self-care. There's a reason why airlines ask us to put our own oxygen masks on before helping others: we are of no use in our careers and in our lives, if we aren't caring for our emotional and mental health with the same attentiveness we pay to our physical health. So grab your coffee and us for our informal Wednesday gatherings with other Hello Monday listeners.

You can rsvp here, or just follow me on LinkedIn.