February 4, 2025 • 34 mins
George Esquivel started making shoes for himself and some friends, up-and-coming musicians in Southern California. Soon, Hollywood came calling. And it wasn’t just celebrities who took notice. A film financier did, too. He said he wanted to invest in the company, but George soon realized his intentions weren’t what they seemed.
Join Ben and special guest host Kathleen Griffith as they speak to George about the rise of Esquivel Designs. Hear what a meeting with Anna Wintour is really like, and what happens when you’re betrayed by someone inside your company. These are The Unshakeables.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ruby. Choosing the right business partner is like choosing a
life partner. A good match leads to years of happiness
and success. And to find this person it's a little
like dating. There's a wooing phase, if he will. In
twenty eighteen, George Esquivel was looking for an investment to
(00:24):
scale his company, Esquivel Designs. One of his friends set
him up with a guy let's call him Kyle. That
first meeting, they hit it off.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And he says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
I said, well, I want to grow the business. This
is what I'm thinking of doing. And he goes, all right, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In the next six months were a whirlwind affair, expensive dinners,
private planes, box seats at basketball games.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He was buying a lot of product for people. Then
he invites my family and I to this crazy, crazy
villa in Lake Cuomo Butler's.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The whole thing was weird, but just you know, normal
everyday la weird.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
He was an odd guy, another eccentric with money.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Right, things were going well. They even talked about getting
a retail space together. It would become George's showroom in
downtown Los Angeles. This was it the perfect fairy tale
until it.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Wasn't out of nowhere. They back out Like out of nowhere,
my life turns upside down. I had very little debt
up until this point, and now I have crazy amounts
of money that we're paying rent in LA We later
find out that they were running a Ponzi scheme to
(01:41):
the tune of two hundred and twenty million dollars. It
rocked my world.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of small business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. We have so many great stories for you this season and some incredible guest hosts who are bringing their business acumen and experience to the show. For today, I want to welcome back a guest you heard on the last episode - Kathleen Griffith, welcome back to The Unshakeables.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm so thrilled to be here with you, and especially
for this episode, We're.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So excited to have you here as someone who works
with small business owners and is also a master of
branding and marketing. I didn't have an opportunity to ask
you this last time, but can you talk to us
a little bit about why'd you agree to come on
the show, what was the hook, how'd we get you here.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I have a background in consulting for some of the biggest brands in the world, so I'm a huge believer in the power of brands and big businesses and how they can drive huge movements of people toward new products and services. That scale has always really interested me. But when I became a small business owner myself about a decade ago, my life looked very different. Internally I was bubblegum and scotch-taping my entire business together as a one-woman band, and so I just developed a tremendous amount of compassion for other small business owners like me. 70% of small businesses are owned and operated by a single person flexing in market, trying to pretend they're bigger and better and badder and braver than they are. And so I really wanted to take what I have learned in consulting and democratize that for more small business owners, really bring practical tools and resources and skillsets in addition to the right mindset to this community. I'm now glad and grateful to be part of it. I feel like I finally found my people. And honestly, Ben, I hadn't felt like I'd found my people before.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That's great. Well, we're thrilled to have you join for a few episodes this season. I'm excited for you to hear this one, it's quite a tale, so let's get rolling. On today's episode, Esquivel Designs from Buena Park, California.In so many ways, George's story is the classic American dream. It begins in sunny Orange County in southern California, the mid '90s. Let's set the scene. At the time, most Americans were hearing the likes of Montell Jordan, Mariah Carey, and Boys II Men on the radio. But in Southern California and for a young George Esquivel, the moment unequivocally belonged to ska and punk.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The whole Orange County punk rockabilly scene started happening, No Doubt and Lit and Social Distortion, all these cool bands, and that's who I just gravitated to. The style was vintage and kind of punk and kind of rockabilly, so I was going to vintage stores.
George was used to thrifting and vintage stores in high school.
(04:56):
In high school we were thrift shopping because we couldn't afford clothes, but then it became thrift store vintage because vintage got cool. My criminal father always had very good style. My mom would alter everything for him. It doesn't matter how expensive
or how inexpensive your clothes are. The tailoring just makes
them look so they fit you.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
George's father was a style role model, but not much else.
He dealt drugs and was in and out of prison.
He was, by Georgie's account, not a nice man.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I had all of these frustrations and all of this anger and whatever angst that every teenager has, and then you have a criminal father who's out dealing drugs and causing trouble. I loved fashion because it was a fantasy world and you get to dress the part and you get to be someone else. You just have angst and you want to express yourself.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
He kicked his father out of the house when he
was just nineteen, and right about that time he also
started going to punk shows. The energy of the music
it matched his mood.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
My escape from my life was going to concerts with
my girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And he was young and free and rocking the rockabilly.
The clothes he had down, but he could never figure
out what shoes to wear.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
At the time, everybody was wearing Doc Martens and Creepers. The Doc Martens I already had, but they were kind of basic. The Creepers were too... They were too much. I didn't want to wear a four-inch platform, that's just not who I am.
So on their way down to the shows, George and
his girlfriend would stop in shoe stores.
My girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, we
used to go to Baja, which was like Tijuana, ros
(06:33):
Rito and Sonata, and at the time we used to
go to concerts and I would buy vintage shoes, but
they never quite fit. And on one of these trips
to Baja, I saw a sign of said boot maker,
and I walked in and I said, Hey, can you
guys make me a pair of shoes if I give
you a quick sketch? And they made me a pair
(06:55):
of shoes and that was it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
He kept going to concerts. The scene was small, so
everyone got to know each other and people started noticing
his feet.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I just wear the shoes and people would ask what
are you wearing and I'd say, they're my shoes, and
how do I get a pair? And I wasn't about
to go all the way to Baja to make more shoes.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Concerts were George's hobby, but he had a day job.
He was a repairman for a chain of linen stores.
He drove up and down a two hundred mile stretch
of highway from San Diego to Bakersfield.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And I started realizing all of these shoe repairs that
I was noticing on my route, and I said to myself,
if they can fix them, they must know somebody who
could make them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Along the way, George stopped at repair shops searching for
a cobbler. He tried different shops along the route, but
it was always the same story. He'd commission a pair
of shoes and hate them. Then one day he stopped
in a dusty shop near Bakersfield to see if anything
would be different.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
If I show up and the shoes don't fit, they
don't look like anything I wanted, get in an argument,
gave my money back, the whole thing, storm out of there,
and there's this gentleman that follows me out and I
said something kind of rude, like, aren't you part of
that group of those clowns in there? You know, because
to me it was just wasting my time, wasting my energy.
He said, look, I'm not part of them. I'm a
retired shoemaker and for some reason, I'd like you to
(08:17):
come to my house and I want to show you
something in.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The shoemaker's garage. George finally struck gold.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh my gosh, there was all of these beautiful old
machines and the mold and the last to make shoes,
and instantly have transported me to that shop in Baja.
So he makes me a pair of shoes and I'm like, well,
so how am I going to sell them?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And it turns out he didn't have to try that hard.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Instantly, all of my friends want a pair of shoes.
And I go back to the shoemaker. I said, look,
I have an order of like twenty pairs of shoes.
So what we would do is I would give him
half of the money. And I think he was either
charging me three or four hundred for a pair of shoes.
I'd give him half up front, and when he delivers,
I would give him the second half. We ended up
(09:07):
selling like two five hundred pairs of shoes and two
years out of a garage.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Including selling shoes to some of his new friends who
were in bands, and some of those bands were starting
to get popular. I'll name one, Gwen Stefani. She needed
some boots to wear on stage at an upcoming show, and.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
She said, Hey, I have an idea for some boots,
and this brand won't make them for me. I'm like,
I'll make them for you. And one was a hot
pink combat boot. The other woman was a hot pink
kind of go god answer boot type of thing. One
of the things that I realized is throughout this whole process,
there was a lot of things that I couldn't do
that I would do it anyways. I knew that we
(09:48):
were going to fail, but I'm like, you know what,
I'm never going to get the opportunity again, I might
as well do it. For example, the Gwen Stefani boot,
I had never made anything like that, and I go
to fitter. The first time she goes it won't go
my leg. George, I'm like, all right, let me adjust it.
Then I saw her again, She's like those freaking boots.
I love so much, but there's such a pain to
put on. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Clearly not too much of a pain, because Gwen Stefani
wore them to the show anyway,
Speaker 2 (10:14):
She wore them to the Vogue VH1 Fashion Awards, and it just kept going from there.I don't remember when it became a hobby and when it became a job. I can't tell you like, "I stopped working." But the LA Times did a piece on me because I was selling to a vintage store. Then Hollywood came calling. And then the Drew Carey Show, I started making shoes for them. I made shoes for the cast of Friends. And then after that, athletes started calling because these people in the entertainment, whether it's athletes or musicians or actors, they all just like designers hang out, they all hang out. And by now it's kind of getting away from that whole rockabilly thing because I don't have that much angst anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Retailers started to notice as his style developed. He got
a collaboration with Fred Siegel, and through Fred Siegel, he
got even more clients.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I ended up getting Nicholas Cage as a client and
he says, Hey, I want to wear your shoes for
the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And I'm thinking, oh my.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Gosh, this is so silly, you know, because I want
my shoes to be seen on the red carpet. Right,
You're gonna get some press. But the thing is, there's
no red carpet that year.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
The Oscars were scheduled for September sixteenth, two thousand and one.
They didn't happen on that date. They were postponed because
of nine to eleven. They eventually happened though, and there
was no red carpet. But Nick Cage, Nick Cage always
finds a way.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They do a close up on him and he crosses his legs, and then there's the shoes. All the stylists started calling. Then we did Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester, just more and more people..
Speaker 1 (11:54):
That was a terrific story. George is a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It is it's the ultimate small business story. It's the
American dream of someone who comes from nothing and then
builds a business out of necessity.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What I thought was really interesting is that it was
the intersection of necessity and passion. Because you meet some
people who build something only out of necessity. Right. I
didn't know what else to do. I needed money. I
went and did it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
You meet some people who say, I just always had
a passion for whatever this thing is, and so I
went and built it. He actually found this intersection of
necessity and passion, Like I never heard of this kid
who grew up with no money who coveted these beautiful shoes.
You know that's a really unusual combination.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, he did. He had a glint in his eye
for perfectionism, coming from nothing. It was this aspirational place,
probably this dream land that he really escaped to. But
I know you and I share similar ethos around real
small business owners. And I think there's so much focus
on those IPO seekers, the unicorns of it all, and
(12:57):
there really is just something so earnest in someone who
wants to build a business, wants to make some money,
wants to do good, and wants to be part of
the fabric of what makes I think small business is great.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, and I think he, in particular, he does model
that form of entrepreneur. But I think he also models
the deep hunger and drive that comes from somewhere and
clearly for him. A big part of it was that necessity.
You talk to a lot of small business owners, you
work with small business owners, you help them build brands.
Do you see a difference in the ones who have
that sort of real drive versus the ones who don't.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
So I have a controversial point of view about this,
which is you're born with the hustle and with the grit.
Not everyone is a small business owner. And I think
there are rare instances in the entrepreneurs that I work
with where there's been this breakdown in their life, like
this cataclysmic life event that kind of blindsides them and
brings them to their knees and humbles them and then
(13:56):
gives them this hunger and this drive and this desire
to forcibly push some idea into the world. But for
the most part, I think you're born as a small
business owner. You're not. I'm curious to get your po.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You're generally nature.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, I sure am. I sure am.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I think you're probably right. I think most of the
business owners I talk to will tell me they were
hustling when they were in middle school.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
They just are like that doing candy arbitrage.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
YEA seven yeah, I think most of them are probably
like certainly the ones who have the grit to get through.
So let's talk a little bit about George's story because
unlike a lot of people we talked to on the show,
and it'd be good to hear about some of your
experiences with other business owners and maybe how it translates.
He didn't sort of get out there and like start
(14:42):
a business. And I don't mean that as an insult.
I mean that affectionately. But the business didn't so much
start and grow as it did evolve from an amorphous form.
Do you see other businesses that sort of evolve like that?
Are they typically more structured?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It was very organic, and I think a lot of
of the traditional business owners who have the MBA pedigree,
they're starting with a business plan and a co founder.
But that's not what we're talking about. I think the
lion's share of small business owners that I work with
really have a passion to create something and then are
(15:17):
figuring it out as they go. You know, they're really
figuring it out on the fly. One of the things
that I think he did particularly well though, is establish
those strategic partnerships at the onset and obviously that can
if you over rotate on those, they can also consume
and kind of subsume your business. But he was able
to align himself with interesting brands and people.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah. The other thing I was struck by is and
you know, you hear a lot of people talk about this,
and I think he would say it himself. It's a
little bit of grit and a little bit of luck.
And I think the harder you work, the luckier you get.
But you still need a little bit of both.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
George continued for the next few years running a made
to order customs shoe brand for the rich and famous.
His shoes would go from five hundred dollars to fifteen
hundred dollars a pair, and they took months to make.
The work was steady but unchanging.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I would basically just show up at your house and
what do you want, ben Well, I like that one
in brown, and that one in green, and that one
in Bordeaux.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Done.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That was kind of how I did my business. I
like to say the answer is, yes, what do you want? Right,
But that is not That's a different business than having
a collection and saying.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This is what you can't scale that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, you can't scale that. It wasn't evolving. I was
just the shoe guy. I wasn't evolving as a designer
because I didn't understand how to evolve. I didn't understand collections.
Then I wasn't really selling to stores. I wasn't connected
to that world. What I realized is a lot of people.
You go to school, and you make great contexts at school, right,
And if you're in school, you might go to school
with an editor or a friend of a friend. My
(16:49):
inner circle was LA. Now. I was very lucky that
the woman that wrote the first article about me in
the La Times went on to become a woman's wear daily,
the bureau chief of LA. Her name is Rose Apadaca,
so she would from time to time, Hey George, call
this person, Hey George, do this.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
One of the people Rose introduced him to was Lisa Love,
the West Coast director of Vogue magazine. They had a meeting.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Lisa Love says, I love what you're doing. Where have
you been? I'm like, what do you mean? How can
you not a part of fashion? I was like, I
don't know. How do you become a part of fashion?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I didn't understand that, and she goes, I love what
you're doing. You need to apply for the Vogue Fashion Fund.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund was established after nine to
eleven to help cultivate up and coming American designers. Some
household names have been through this fund, and in two
thousand and eight, so did George. They started with three
hundred applicants and from there fifty are selected. They keep
whittling down the group until they get to a top ten.
(17:51):
I was getting on the plane to go to New
York and I get the call from the CFDA Stephen Cole,
who was a CEO.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And he says, George, you're one of the ten finalists.
I'm like, what the heck? So my life completely changed
from the CFD of old Fashion Fund. They put you
through the paces, You have these contests, you meet all
kinds of people, and then there's a big photo shoot involved,
and you get to pick a muse.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
George had recently met an up and coming musician named
Janelle Monet. He loved her immediately.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
For Vogue. They said, who do you want is your muse?
I said, I want Janelle Monet and they're like who.
So they look her up and they're like, oh, she's cute.
I'm like, no, she's freaking cool. So I said, Janelle,
what shoes do you like? She's always in black and
white back at the time. She's changed now, but she
was very much into saddle shoes. And I have this
one shoe that I designed for Fred Siegel. It was
(18:45):
an asymmetrical stripe shoe, and she's all, George, I love
that shoe. I'm like, Okay, well, let's remake it for you.
I brought black and white, white and black. She put
on this insane white tuxedo. If you look up her
first major video, the Tight Wrote video, those are all
our shoes. And then she was nominated for a Grammy
with Bruno Mars and the Grammy Museum actually took the
(19:09):
entire outfit and it lives in the Grammy Museum. Our
shoes with her suit.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
But back to the Fashion Fund, George didn't win.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I'm like, man, this kind of sucks. The three winners
get money and they go to the front of the
line for mentorships. I didn't have an official mentor, but
I did have mentors, and he'd.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Gotten close to the accessories editor at Vogue.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
The accessories editor says to me, George, think about what
you learn from this experience and what do you want
And they said you can ask for anything. I'm like, okay,
I want to meet with Ana.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That's an a win tour by the way.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But they said, don't ask anything you're not willing to do.
And this is not about chit chat. This is about business.
And just like you see in the movie The Devil,
Wears Prada, she's asking questions and there's people taking notes.
And she said, so, what do you want to do next?
I said, I want to learn how to do international
business and grow my business. And then she says to me, well,
you need to go back to school and you also
(20:08):
need to consult internationally. Well, how am I going to
do that?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Again?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Not knowing who she is, they call her the fairy
Godmother for a reason. So we talked for a little while.
I leave her office and my BlackBerry's just blowing up.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
This happened instantly. As soon as I walk higher her office,
they were already contacting people.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I just heard that ring from devil wears probably like
it like the alarms go off all over Vogue and
everyone's calling it. After that meeting, the phone wouldn't stop ringing. He worked with Fratelli Rosetti, Ferragamo and even more European designers. He did a collection with Jenna Lyons and got those shoes into Bergdorfs. I should add as an aside while I'm sitting here in my standard issue middle-age quarter zip, that's the most designer names I've ever said in one go. Anyway, he was kissed into the major fashion shows by Anna Wintour and had showrooms in Paris, Berlin and Los Angeles with Tommy Hilfiger. The Vogue accessories editor that was his original champion called him back. She let him know that TUMI was looking for a new creative director.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
"We at Vogue think it should be you." And now my juices start flowing because I had a very small business in a very small world, and I'm thinking, "now that I have the juice of Fratelli Rossetti and Vogue and I'm being introduced," I'm like, "Oh, I can do anything I want." Not anything I want, but I can start thinking bigger.
(21:36):
He was with TUMI for two years, eventually leaving to
focus again on Esquivel. I have business partners and we
said I'm making a lot of money for a lot
of other people. I really wanted to push my brand
into that next level. I wanted to do something before
I turned fifty, like make a splash, right. That was
(21:58):
kind of my big deadline.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
George didn't want to sell Esquivel or partner with another brand.
He wanted to keep Esquivel Designs pure, so instead he
started looking for an investor. One day, one of his employees, Maria,
came in with a proposition. Her partner, Kyle, was in
film financing. He routinely raised large sums of money for
creative ventures and was interested in partnering with George.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
He says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
And I said, well, I want to grow the business.
This is what I'm thinking of doing. And he says, look,
I think I can really help you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Kyle brought George to private jet hangers. He took helicopters to meetings and sent him contacts who would buy thousands of dollars worth of shoes at a time. There were over-the-top dinners, a vacation to Lake Cuomo with a butler, the whole shebang. But the whole time, George was talking about the plan, the budget, and the business.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So we started down this path and we're trying to
grow it and along every step of the way. When
I would push him on something, he's like, hey, can
I meet so and so. I'm like, sure, but let's
figure this out. My organization is so small. When I'm
focusing on creating a business plan and a budget and
all this for him, my business kind of slows down
(23:16):
because my focus comes off of business. Right, Kyle started
pushing George to get a showroom in La George already
had a space in Orange County and a small location
to meet celebrities or stylists, but Kyle wanted something bigger.
Him and Maria would show up to the site, visits
with me, and they met the landlord. So the day
(23:36):
we were supposed to sign the lease, I remember we're
going to sign, we find a space, and he takes
a call and walks away and I don't see him again.
So I text him. I'm like, hey, where you at?
We gotta sign this. Oh, don't worry about it. I
got you covered. We'll figure it out. I'm like, okay,
keep in mind, Maria's still working for me. There's no
final resolution of the money. It's all in good faith,
(23:56):
but now I'm getting frustrated and getting annoyed because I'm
depleting my savings.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
While this was all going on, George applied for an
SBA loan, which is a loan from a bank that
can have attractive terms because it's partially backed by the
federal government.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Let's hedge your bets. Let's just see what happens. I
want to say it was probably like half a million.
We applied for the loan, but we get it. And
I said to him, I said, what is the deal
because I have this loan that I can take, or
are you coming on board? He goes, don't take the loan.
I got you, don't worry about it. We didn't take
the loan and it expired.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right, So how did this all come to ahead?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I remember calling him out in a meeting. I'm like, look,
we've now started construction. You owe need this much money.
This is time put up or shut up. This is
it the end of the line. We get a text
from Maria that she is resigning, she is no longer
part of this, and I said, Maria, what are you
talking about. You're my partner. I've been treating you as
a partner, I've been including you and everything.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
She resigns.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
He says he's not going to give me any money.
He's changed his mind, and it just turns into like
a total shit show. That same year is the year
Barney's file for bankruptcy. That's our largest retail partner, Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What a story. So you know, he had a couple
of sort of frightening moments in his journey, and I'd
like to talk about a couple of those. I think
we can start with the investors who stiffed him, so
to speak. We've had a lot of guests on the
show talk about these moments where someone wasn't who they
thought they were. And for small business owners who are
sort of desperate to get people to call them back,
(25:45):
which I get, I can understand how that also makes
them easy targets for people who are pretending to be
something they're not.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
The honest appraisal, I think is what needs to happen
first for an entrepreneur, like, do you have a business
that is legitimately needing capital? Are you a high potential,
high growth business that needs an infusion of capital so
you're basically pouring gasoline on a fire. What I heard
in this case was he had a maid to order business,
(26:16):
there was maybe a direct to consumer business, and he
didn't really actually have a plan for what he was
going to do with this capital except for building out
a brick and mortar brand experience essentially. So it feels
to me like he was looking for an investor to
come and transform his business, and I think that's traditionally
(26:39):
not a great recipe.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But then his other big one, and we've come across
this before, was heavy dependence on one distribution channel. Right,
So Barney's goes down and he's in a world hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
This is such a big area of caution, like throw
the red flags on the field. This is to me
deeply problematic when you have a business and you are
focused on one core buyer and you have one purchase
order that can make your business essentially sink or swim.
And so I think that's something most business owners need
(27:11):
to think about, like how do you diversify your sources
of revenue so you're not in that sort of predicament.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That's a hard thing, and it's a hard thing when
that relationship is always successful.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, you think it'll never happen to you, right, it's
just such a good thing.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Right, or they want more. It's hard not to give
more to your best client, even when you know you
need more clients more than you need more of your
best client. It's a hard thing. Let's find out how
Georgia's story ends. What happened? I mean, it sounds like
you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
How'd you get from A to B?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
The last I would say the last two or three years,
it's just been a really difficult like what are we
going to do?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Am I walking away? Am I going to get a job?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I would say a year and a half ago,
I met one of my clients who happens to be
an angel investor in a VC and I thought he
was just a gentleman who loved beautiful thing. Right. So
it turns out he wanted to invest and we put
a plan together.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
So we're still climbing out of it.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The last four or five years have been really hard.
It's been a learning experience. It's been a lot of reflection.
It's just you got to keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So you now have a new partner, You have a
new partnership. Where do you see your brand in five years?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I want to grow this as big as possible five
to seven years. It'd be nice if someone takes over
the Esquivel brand and grows it to whatever they want
to grow it to. And I just want to make shoes.
I love the aspect of meeting people and have a
space in LA or in New York or wherever we decide,
and have people come and visit and make beautiful products
for them.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Kathleen, I want to ask you about one more thing
before we go. You're an expert in brand building. You've
done that for a long time. I meet small business
owners all the time who say my brand is good
because I'm good. But when you start thinking about, okay,
I really want to build a brand that's more than
just the people who know me and know my product.
I want to build a brand that has equity that's
(29:04):
going to scale. What are some of the things that
small business owners need to think about upfront?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Brand building is one of the most important things in
the world, because otherwise you're a commodity, right and we
know this. You work for one of the most iconic
brands in the world. I consult for some of the
most iconic brands in the world, and it's something that
small business owners don't focus on enough. But you know
they're focused on growth hacks and performance marketing and social media,
and you know, to really build a brand earnestly, thoughtfully
(29:33):
is so mission critical to then be able to differentiate
and stand out from others. There are three things that
anyone should really do when they're thinking about building a brand.
I know you like threes. You can remember, we could
do too, but we'll do three. So what I like
to tell people to focus on is one having an enemy.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (29:52):
You've got to have an enemy in the world to
stand out something you're pushing up against, some wrong that
you are trying to make right as a business, Like
all great businesses have some sort of counter position to
something that exists in the world. You want to have.
Two is really a mission to X, Y and Z.
That's a great mission. You know, you're thinking about a legacy,
(30:14):
something that you're doing ten, twenty thirty years from now,
and then a big campaign idea would really be your
step three in building a brand like look, tone, feel.
Of course that's important and a lot of small business
owners can make very glossy, you know, sexy brands, but
beyond that, like, what does your brands stand for in
the world, and how is it going to flex? And
(30:35):
the greatest brands that we know, you know, the Apples
of the world, the Nikes of the world, the JP
Morgan Chases of the world. They maintain a consistent, persistent
position in the world, you know, just going to shoes.
I love Birkenstock as an analogy. They've just popped off,
like hugely.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
My kids love their birth.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
They've got them. Okay, oh yeah, and multiple.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Or yeah, And like I hadn't seen them, so you know, newsflash.
I went to college in the early nineties and they
were very popular in the early nineties and I hadn't
seen them since then until my kids came home.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Do you have a pair?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No? Why not? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
It's not my jam, open feet, not for you, not
my jam. But like they tapped into something, you know.
Their enemy was foot pain. It was like, why are
we cramping our feet? So that was their enemy, and
then their mission was really to create foot thealth for people,
to rid the world of these awful, compromising shoes. And
they've just maintained that positioning and they've exploded as a
(31:35):
result of it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah. I had a mentor in my career who said
to me once, you can't make up a brand. A
brand has to represent what you already do, and then
it gives you a megaphone to say it really loudly,
which I thought was really interesting. So good. Yeah that's
a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I think that's all good storytelling, you know. Going back
to elevator pitches, which I think is important. George was
a great storyteller. I'm curious to know what you think
about this, but you really want to be able to
stand for and this is kind of aligned with brand building.
I think good elevator pitches have three things. They tell
a big story about a problem that you're solving for
in the world. The second thing they do is they
(32:12):
have key trends or stats to kind of substantiate that
broader cultural problem. And then then and only then do
they introduce their solution, their product, their service, their differentiators,
their values. So all these things can be architected together,
and it's absolutely free to do the strategic work. That's
(32:34):
what always amazes me. Ben, Like everyone's just hustling, and
it's like if you took two minutes to just also
step out and craft some of these things that are
pretty simple. You have new tools in your toolbox.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
George, I want to end with a question that we
asked to all our guests on the show, which is,
if you could give one piece of advice to our listeners,
who are largely business owners and entrepreneurs, what would that
one piece of advice be.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I would say, treat your clients not as clients, but
as investors. And everybody who's bought shoes from us and
who sustained us through these hard times and even through
the good times. If I was just to look at
them as clients, I'd say, Oh, they're a pain in
the ass, they're difficult, they're all that. But when I
look at them and they're like, no, they've invested in
our brand, they've bought our product. They can afford all
(33:20):
these other beautiful things, but they buy ours, that's what
I would say. Treat them as investors because you're going
to look at them completely different, and they know when
you treat them differently, and that's what keeps them coming back.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
George, you have an amazing story and we are so
privileged that you were willing to share it with us.
Thank you for being here today on the show. Thank
you for having me. It was such an honor tell
the story and to talk with you. It's always fun
going down memory lane. Thank you to George Escavell for
speaking with us today. You can take a look at
some of his work at georgescavel dot com or if
(33:51):
you're in LA at the Grammy Museum. And Kathleen, we're
excited to have you joined for a few episodes this season.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it. We have so many more incredible small business stories coming to you this season and some amazing guest hosts. Kathleen will be back as well as some new people you haven't met yet. On our next episode, we'll meet a woman who
dreams of sustainable energy storage and built a business to
(34:22):
make it a reality.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
When you come across something that you just cannot let
it go, you want to read more about it, and
you want to understand more about it. Strangely enough, for me,
that was batteries.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I'm Ben Walter, and this is The Unshakeables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
back here soon.
Ruby. Choosing the right business partner is like choosing a
life partner. A good match leads to years of happiness
and success. And to find this person it's a little
like dating. There's a wooing phase, if he will. In
twenty eighteen, George Esquivel was looking for an investment to
(00:24):
scale his company, Esquivel Designs. One of his friends set
him up with a guy let's call him Kyle. That
first meeting, they hit it off.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And he says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
I said, well, I want to grow the business. This
is what I'm thinking of doing. And he goes, all right, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In the next six months were a whirlwind affair, expensive dinners,
private planes, box seats at basketball games.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He was buying a lot of product for people. Then
he invites my family and I to this crazy, crazy
villa in Lake Cuomo Butler's.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The whole thing was weird, but just you know, normal
everyday la weird.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
He was an odd guy, another eccentric with money.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Right, things were going well. They even talked about getting
a retail space together. It would become George's showroom in
downtown Los Angeles. This was it the perfect fairy tale
until it.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Wasn't out of nowhere. They back out Like out of nowhere,
my life turns upside down. I had very little debt
up until this point, and now I have crazy amounts
of money that we're paying rent in LA We later
find out that they were running a Ponzi scheme to
(01:41):
the tune of two hundred and twenty million dollars. It
rocked my world.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of small business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. We have so many great stories for you this season and some incredible guest hosts who are bringing their business acumen and experience to the show. For today, I want to welcome back a guest you heard on the last episode - Kathleen Griffith, welcome back to The Unshakeables.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I'm so thrilled to be here with you, and especially
for this episode, We're.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So excited to have you here as someone who works
with small business owners and is also a master of
branding and marketing. I didn't have an opportunity to ask
you this last time, but can you talk to us
a little bit about why'd you agree to come on
the show, what was the hook, how'd we get you here.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I have a background in consulting for some of the biggest brands in the world, so I'm a huge believer in the power of brands and big businesses and how they can drive huge movements of people toward new products and services. That scale has always really interested me. But when I became a small business owner myself about a decade ago, my life looked very different. Internally I was bubblegum and scotch-taping my entire business together as a one-woman band, and so I just developed a tremendous amount of compassion for other small business owners like me. 70% of small businesses are owned and operated by a single person flexing in market, trying to pretend they're bigger and better and badder and braver than they are. And so I really wanted to take what I have learned in consulting and democratize that for more small business owners, really bring practical tools and resources and skillsets in addition to the right mindset to this community. I'm now glad and grateful to be part of it. I feel like I finally found my people. And honestly, Ben, I hadn't felt like I'd found my people before.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
That's great. Well, we're thrilled to have you join for a few episodes this season. I'm excited for you to hear this one, it's quite a tale, so let's get rolling. On today's episode, Esquivel Designs from Buena Park, California.In so many ways, George's story is the classic American dream. It begins in sunny Orange County in southern California, the mid '90s. Let's set the scene. At the time, most Americans were hearing the likes of Montell Jordan, Mariah Carey, and Boys II Men on the radio. But in Southern California and for a young George Esquivel, the moment unequivocally belonged to ska and punk.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The whole Orange County punk rockabilly scene started happening, No Doubt and Lit and Social Distortion, all these cool bands, and that's who I just gravitated to. The style was vintage and kind of punk and kind of rockabilly, so I was going to vintage stores.
George was used to thrifting and vintage stores in high school.
(04:56):
In high school we were thrift shopping because we couldn't afford clothes, but then it became thrift store vintage because vintage got cool. My criminal father always had very good style. My mom would alter everything for him. It doesn't matter how expensive
or how inexpensive your clothes are. The tailoring just makes
them look so they fit you.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
George's father was a style role model, but not much else.
He dealt drugs and was in and out of prison.
He was, by Georgie's account, not a nice man.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I had all of these frustrations and all of this anger and whatever angst that every teenager has, and then you have a criminal father who's out dealing drugs and causing trouble. I loved fashion because it was a fantasy world and you get to dress the part and you get to be someone else. You just have angst and you want to express yourself.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
He kicked his father out of the house when he
was just nineteen, and right about that time he also
started going to punk shows. The energy of the music
it matched his mood.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
My escape from my life was going to concerts with
my girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And he was young and free and rocking the rockabilly.
The clothes he had down, but he could never figure
out what shoes to wear.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
At the time, everybody was wearing Doc Martens and Creepers. The Doc Martens I already had, but they were kind of basic. The Creepers were too... They were too much. I didn't want to wear a four-inch platform, that's just not who I am.
So on their way down to the shows, George and
his girlfriend would stop in shoe stores.
My girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, we
used to go to Baja, which was like Tijuana, ros
(06:33):
Rito and Sonata, and at the time we used to
go to concerts and I would buy vintage shoes, but
they never quite fit. And on one of these trips
to Baja, I saw a sign of said boot maker,
and I walked in and I said, Hey, can you
guys make me a pair of shoes if I give
you a quick sketch? And they made me a pair
(06:55):
of shoes and that was it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
He kept going to concerts. The scene was small, so
everyone got to know each other and people started noticing
his feet.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I just wear the shoes and people would ask what
are you wearing and I'd say, they're my shoes, and
how do I get a pair? And I wasn't about
to go all the way to Baja to make more shoes.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Concerts were George's hobby, but he had a day job.
He was a repairman for a chain of linen stores.
He drove up and down a two hundred mile stretch
of highway from San Diego to Bakersfield.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And I started realizing all of these shoe repairs that
I was noticing on my route, and I said to myself,
if they can fix them, they must know somebody who
could make them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Along the way, George stopped at repair shops searching for
a cobbler. He tried different shops along the route, but
it was always the same story. He'd commission a pair
of shoes and hate them. Then one day he stopped
in a dusty shop near Bakersfield to see if anything
would be different.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
If I show up and the shoes don't fit, they
don't look like anything I wanted, get in an argument,
gave my money back, the whole thing, storm out of there,
and there's this gentleman that follows me out and I
said something kind of rude, like, aren't you part of
that group of those clowns in there? You know, because
to me it was just wasting my time, wasting my energy.
He said, look, I'm not part of them. I'm a
retired shoemaker and for some reason, I'd like you to
(08:17):
come to my house and I want to show you
something in.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The shoemaker's garage. George finally struck gold.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh my gosh, there was all of these beautiful old
machines and the mold and the last to make shoes,
and instantly have transported me to that shop in Baja.
So he makes me a pair of shoes and I'm like, well,
so how am I going to sell them?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And it turns out he didn't have to try that hard.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Instantly, all of my friends want a pair of shoes.
And I go back to the shoemaker. I said, look,
I have an order of like twenty pairs of shoes.
So what we would do is I would give him
half of the money. And I think he was either
charging me three or four hundred for a pair of shoes.
I'd give him half up front, and when he delivers,
I would give him the second half. We ended up
(09:07):
selling like two five hundred pairs of shoes and two
years out of a garage.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Including selling shoes to some of his new friends who
were in bands, and some of those bands were starting
to get popular. I'll name one, Gwen Stefani. She needed
some boots to wear on stage at an upcoming show, and.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
She said, Hey, I have an idea for some boots,
and this brand won't make them for me. I'm like,
I'll make them for you. And one was a hot
pink combat boot. The other woman was a hot pink
kind of go god answer boot type of thing. One
of the things that I realized is throughout this whole process,
there was a lot of things that I couldn't do
that I would do it anyways. I knew that we
(09:48):
were going to fail, but I'm like, you know what,
I'm never going to get the opportunity again, I might
as well do it. For example, the Gwen Stefani boot,
I had never made anything like that, and I go
to fitter. The first time she goes it won't go
my leg. George, I'm like, all right, let me adjust it.
Then I saw her again, She's like those freaking boots.
I love so much, but there's such a pain to
put on. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Clearly not too much of a pain, because Gwen Stefani
wore them to the show anyway,
Speaker 2 (10:14):
She wore them to the Vogue VH1 Fashion Awards, and it just kept going from there.I don't remember when it became a hobby and when it became a job. I can't tell you like, "I stopped working." But the LA Times did a piece on me because I was selling to a vintage store. Then Hollywood came calling. And then the Drew Carey Show, I started making shoes for them. I made shoes for the cast of Friends. And then after that, athletes started calling because these people in the entertainment, whether it's athletes or musicians or actors, they all just like designers hang out, they all hang out. And by now it's kind of getting away from that whole rockabilly thing because I don't have that much angst anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Retailers started to notice as his style developed. He got
a collaboration with Fred Siegel, and through Fred Siegel, he
got even more clients.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I ended up getting Nicholas Cage as a client and
he says, Hey, I want to wear your shoes for
the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And I'm thinking, oh my.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Gosh, this is so silly, you know, because I want
my shoes to be seen on the red carpet. Right,
You're gonna get some press. But the thing is, there's
no red carpet that year.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
The Oscars were scheduled for September sixteenth, two thousand and one.
They didn't happen on that date. They were postponed because
of nine to eleven. They eventually happened though, and there
was no red carpet. But Nick Cage, Nick Cage always
finds a way.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They do a close up on him and he crosses his legs, and then there's the shoes. All the stylists started calling. Then we did Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester, just more and more people..
Speaker 1 (11:54):
That was a terrific story. George is a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It is it's the ultimate small business story. It's the
American dream of someone who comes from nothing and then
builds a business out of necessity.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What I thought was really interesting is that it was
the intersection of necessity and passion. Because you meet some
people who build something only out of necessity. Right. I
didn't know what else to do. I needed money. I
went and did it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
You meet some people who say, I just always had
a passion for whatever this thing is, and so I
went and built it. He actually found this intersection of
necessity and passion, Like I never heard of this kid
who grew up with no money who coveted these beautiful shoes.
You know that's a really unusual combination.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, he did. He had a glint in his eye
for perfectionism, coming from nothing. It was this aspirational place,
probably this dream land that he really escaped to. But
I know you and I share similar ethos around real
small business owners. And I think there's so much focus
on those IPO seekers, the unicorns of it all, and
(12:57):
there really is just something so earnest in someone who
wants to build a business, wants to make some money,
wants to do good, and wants to be part of
the fabric of what makes I think small business is great.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, and I think he, in particular, he does model
that form of entrepreneur. But I think he also models
the deep hunger and drive that comes from somewhere and
clearly for him. A big part of it was that necessity.
You talk to a lot of small business owners, you
work with small business owners, you help them build brands.
Do you see a difference in the ones who have
that sort of real drive versus the ones who don't.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
So I have a controversial point of view about this,
which is you're born with the hustle and with the grit.
Not everyone is a small business owner. And I think
there are rare instances in the entrepreneurs that I work
with where there's been this breakdown in their life, like
this cataclysmic life event that kind of blindsides them and
brings them to their knees and humbles them and then
(13:56):
gives them this hunger and this drive and this desire
to forcibly push some idea into the world. But for
the most part, I think you're born as a small
business owner. You're not. I'm curious to get your po.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You're generally nature.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, I sure am. I sure am.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I think you're probably right. I think most of the
business owners I talk to will tell me they were
hustling when they were in middle school.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
They just are like that doing candy arbitrage.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
YEA seven yeah, I think most of them are probably
like certainly the ones who have the grit to get through.
So let's talk a little bit about George's story because
unlike a lot of people we talked to on the show,
and it'd be good to hear about some of your
experiences with other business owners and maybe how it translates.
He didn't sort of get out there and like start
(14:42):
a business. And I don't mean that as an insult.
I mean that affectionately. But the business didn't so much
start and grow as it did evolve from an amorphous form.
Do you see other businesses that sort of evolve like that?
Are they typically more structured?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It was very organic, and I think a lot of
of the traditional business owners who have the MBA pedigree,
they're starting with a business plan and a co founder.
But that's not what we're talking about. I think the
lion's share of small business owners that I work with
really have a passion to create something and then are
(15:17):
figuring it out as they go. You know, they're really
figuring it out on the fly. One of the things
that I think he did particularly well though, is establish
those strategic partnerships at the onset and obviously that can
if you over rotate on those, they can also consume
and kind of subsume your business. But he was able
to align himself with interesting brands and people.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah. The other thing I was struck by is and
you know, you hear a lot of people talk about this,
and I think he would say it himself. It's a
little bit of grit and a little bit of luck.
And I think the harder you work, the luckier you get.
But you still need a little bit of both.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
George continued for the next few years running a made
to order customs shoe brand for the rich and famous.
His shoes would go from five hundred dollars to fifteen
hundred dollars a pair, and they took months to make.
The work was steady but unchanging.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I would basically just show up at your house and
what do you want, ben Well, I like that one
in brown, and that one in green, and that one
in Bordeaux.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Done.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That was kind of how I did my business. I
like to say the answer is, yes, what do you want? Right,
But that is not That's a different business than having
a collection and saying.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This is what you can't scale that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, you can't scale that. It wasn't evolving. I was
just the shoe guy. I wasn't evolving as a designer
because I didn't understand how to evolve. I didn't understand collections.
Then I wasn't really selling to stores. I wasn't connected
to that world. What I realized is a lot of people.
You go to school, and you make great contexts at school, right,
And if you're in school, you might go to school
with an editor or a friend of a friend. My
(16:49):
inner circle was LA. Now. I was very lucky that
the woman that wrote the first article about me in
the La Times went on to become a woman's wear daily,
the bureau chief of LA. Her name is Rose Apadaca,
so she would from time to time, Hey George, call
this person, Hey George, do this.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
One of the people Rose introduced him to was Lisa Love,
the West Coast director of Vogue magazine. They had a meeting.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Lisa Love says, I love what you're doing. Where have
you been? I'm like, what do you mean? How can
you not a part of fashion? I was like, I
don't know. How do you become a part of fashion?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I didn't understand that, and she goes, I love what
you're doing. You need to apply for the Vogue Fashion Fund.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund was established after nine to
eleven to help cultivate up and coming American designers. Some
household names have been through this fund, and in two
thousand and eight, so did George. They started with three
hundred applicants and from there fifty are selected. They keep
whittling down the group until they get to a top ten.
(17:51):
I was getting on the plane to go to New
York and I get the call from the CFDA Stephen Cole,
who was a CEO.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And he says, George, you're one of the ten finalists.
I'm like, what the heck? So my life completely changed
from the CFD of old Fashion Fund. They put you
through the paces, You have these contests, you meet all
kinds of people, and then there's a big photo shoot involved,
and you get to pick a muse.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
George had recently met an up and coming musician named
Janelle Monet. He loved her immediately.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
For Vogue. They said, who do you want is your muse?
I said, I want Janelle Monet and they're like who.
So they look her up and they're like, oh, she's cute.
I'm like, no, she's freaking cool. So I said, Janelle,
what shoes do you like? She's always in black and
white back at the time. She's changed now, but she
was very much into saddle shoes. And I have this
one shoe that I designed for Fred Siegel. It was
(18:45):
an asymmetrical stripe shoe, and she's all, George, I love
that shoe. I'm like, Okay, well, let's remake it for you.
I brought black and white, white and black. She put
on this insane white tuxedo. If you look up her
first major video, the Tight Wrote video, those are all
our shoes. And then she was nominated for a Grammy
with Bruno Mars and the Grammy Museum actually took the
(19:09):
entire outfit and it lives in the Grammy Museum. Our
shoes with her suit.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
But back to the Fashion Fund, George didn't win.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I'm like, man, this kind of sucks. The three winners
get money and they go to the front of the
line for mentorships. I didn't have an official mentor, but
I did have mentors, and he'd.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Gotten close to the accessories editor at Vogue.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
The accessories editor says to me, George, think about what
you learn from this experience and what do you want
And they said you can ask for anything. I'm like, okay,
I want to meet with Ana.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That's an a win tour by the way.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But they said, don't ask anything you're not willing to do.
And this is not about chit chat. This is about business.
And just like you see in the movie The Devil,
Wears Prada, she's asking questions and there's people taking notes.
And she said, so, what do you want to do next?
I said, I want to learn how to do international
business and grow my business. And then she says to me, well,
you need to go back to school and you also
(20:08):
need to consult internationally. Well, how am I going to
do that?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Again?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Not knowing who she is, they call her the fairy
Godmother for a reason. So we talked for a little while.
I leave her office and my BlackBerry's just blowing up.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
This happened instantly. As soon as I walk higher her office,
they were already contacting people.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I just heard that ring from devil wears probably like
it like the alarms go off all over Vogue and
everyone's calling it. After that meeting, the phone wouldn't stop ringing. He worked with Fratelli Rosetti, Ferragamo and even more European designers. He did a collection with Jenna Lyons and got those shoes into Bergdorfs. I should add as an aside while I'm sitting here in my standard issue middle-age quarter zip, that's the most designer names I've ever said in one go. Anyway, he was kissed into the major fashion shows by Anna Wintour and had showrooms in Paris, Berlin and Los Angeles with Tommy Hilfiger. The Vogue accessories editor that was his original champion called him back. She let him know that TUMI was looking for a new creative director.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
"We at Vogue think it should be you." And now my juices start flowing because I had a very small business in a very small world, and I'm thinking, "now that I have the juice of Fratelli Rossetti and Vogue and I'm being introduced," I'm like, "Oh, I can do anything I want." Not anything I want, but I can start thinking bigger.
(21:36):
He was with TUMI for two years, eventually leaving to
focus again on Esquivel. I have business partners and we
said I'm making a lot of money for a lot
of other people. I really wanted to push my brand
into that next level. I wanted to do something before
I turned fifty, like make a splash, right. That was
(21:58):
kind of my big deadline.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
George didn't want to sell Esquivel or partner with another brand.
He wanted to keep Esquivel Designs pure, so instead he
started looking for an investor. One day, one of his employees, Maria,
came in with a proposition. Her partner, Kyle, was in
film financing. He routinely raised large sums of money for
creative ventures and was interested in partnering with George.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
He says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
And I said, well, I want to grow the business.
This is what I'm thinking of doing. And he says, look,
I think I can really help you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Kyle brought George to private jet hangers. He took helicopters to meetings and sent him contacts who would buy thousands of dollars worth of shoes at a time. There were over-the-top dinners, a vacation to Lake Cuomo with a butler, the whole shebang. But the whole time, George was talking about the plan, the budget, and the business.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So we started down this path and we're trying to
grow it and along every step of the way. When
I would push him on something, he's like, hey, can
I meet so and so. I'm like, sure, but let's
figure this out. My organization is so small. When I'm
focusing on creating a business plan and a budget and
all this for him, my business kind of slows down
(23:16):
because my focus comes off of business. Right, Kyle started
pushing George to get a showroom in La George already
had a space in Orange County and a small location
to meet celebrities or stylists, but Kyle wanted something bigger.
Him and Maria would show up to the site, visits
with me, and they met the landlord. So the day
(23:36):
we were supposed to sign the lease, I remember we're
going to sign, we find a space, and he takes
a call and walks away and I don't see him again.
So I text him. I'm like, hey, where you at?
We gotta sign this. Oh, don't worry about it. I
got you covered. We'll figure it out. I'm like, okay,
keep in mind, Maria's still working for me. There's no
final resolution of the money. It's all in good faith,
(23:56):
but now I'm getting frustrated and getting annoyed because I'm
depleting my savings.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
While this was all going on, George applied for an
SBA loan, which is a loan from a bank that
can have attractive terms because it's partially backed by the
federal government.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Let's hedge your bets. Let's just see what happens. I
want to say it was probably like half a million.
We applied for the loan, but we get it. And
I said to him, I said, what is the deal
because I have this loan that I can take, or
are you coming on board? He goes, don't take the loan.
I got you, don't worry about it. We didn't take
the loan and it expired.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right, So how did this all come to ahead?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I remember calling him out in a meeting. I'm like, look,
we've now started construction. You owe need this much money.
This is time put up or shut up. This is
it the end of the line. We get a text
from Maria that she is resigning, she is no longer
part of this, and I said, Maria, what are you
talking about. You're my partner. I've been treating you as
a partner, I've been including you and everything.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
She resigns.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
He says he's not going to give me any money.
He's changed his mind, and it just turns into like
a total shit show. That same year is the year
Barney's file for bankruptcy. That's our largest retail partner, Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What a story. So you know, he had a couple
of sort of frightening moments in his journey, and I'd
like to talk about a couple of those. I think
we can start with the investors who stiffed him, so
to speak. We've had a lot of guests on the
show talk about these moments where someone wasn't who they
thought they were. And for small business owners who are
sort of desperate to get people to call them back,
(25:45):
which I get, I can understand how that also makes
them easy targets for people who are pretending to be
something they're not.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
The honest appraisal, I think is what needs to happen
first for an entrepreneur, like, do you have a business
that is legitimately needing capital? Are you a high potential,
high growth business that needs an infusion of capital so
you're basically pouring gasoline on a fire. What I heard
in this case was he had a maid to order business,
(26:16):
there was maybe a direct to consumer business, and he
didn't really actually have a plan for what he was
going to do with this capital except for building out
a brick and mortar brand experience essentially. So it feels
to me like he was looking for an investor to
come and transform his business, and I think that's traditionally
(26:39):
not a great recipe.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But then his other big one, and we've come across
this before, was heavy dependence on one distribution channel. Right,
So Barney's goes down and he's in a world hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
This is such a big area of caution, like throw
the red flags on the field. This is to me
deeply problematic when you have a business and you are
focused on one core buyer and you have one purchase
order that can make your business essentially sink or swim.
And so I think that's something most business owners need
(27:11):
to think about, like how do you diversify your sources
of revenue so you're not in that sort of predicament.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That's a hard thing, and it's a hard thing when
that relationship is always successful.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, you think it'll never happen to you, right, it's
just such a good thing.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Right, or they want more. It's hard not to give
more to your best client, even when you know you
need more clients more than you need more of your
best client. It's a hard thing. Let's find out how
Georgia's story ends. What happened? I mean, it sounds like
you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
How'd you get from A to B?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
The last I would say the last two or three years,
it's just been a really difficult like what are we
going to do?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Am I walking away? Am I going to get a job?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I would say a year and a half ago,
I met one of my clients who happens to be
an angel investor in a VC and I thought he
was just a gentleman who loved beautiful thing. Right. So
it turns out he wanted to invest and we put
a plan together.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
So we're still climbing out of it.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The last four or five years have been really hard.
It's been a learning experience. It's been a lot of reflection.
It's just you got to keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So you now have a new partner, You have a
new partnership. Where do you see your brand in five years?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I want to grow this as big as possible five
to seven years. It'd be nice if someone takes over
the Esquivel brand and grows it to whatever they want
to grow it to. And I just want to make shoes.
I love the aspect of meeting people and have a
space in LA or in New York or wherever we decide,
and have people come and visit and make beautiful products
for them.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Kathleen, I want to ask you about one more thing
before we go. You're an expert in brand building. You've
done that for a long time. I meet small business
owners all the time who say my brand is good
because I'm good. But when you start thinking about, okay,
I really want to build a brand that's more than
just the people who know me and know my product.
I want to build a brand that has equity that's
(29:04):
going to scale. What are some of the things that
small business owners need to think about upfront?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Brand building is one of the most important things in
the world, because otherwise you're a commodity, right and we
know this. You work for one of the most iconic
brands in the world. I consult for some of the
most iconic brands in the world, and it's something that
small business owners don't focus on enough. But you know
they're focused on growth hacks and performance marketing and social media,
and you know, to really build a brand earnestly, thoughtfully
(29:33):
is so mission critical to then be able to differentiate
and stand out from others. There are three things that
anyone should really do when they're thinking about building a brand.
I know you like threes. You can remember, we could
do too, but we'll do three. So what I like
to tell people to focus on is one having an enemy.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (29:52):
You've got to have an enemy in the world to
stand out something you're pushing up against, some wrong that
you are trying to make right as a business, Like
all great businesses have some sort of counter position to
something that exists in the world. You want to have.
Two is really a mission to X, Y and Z.
That's a great mission. You know, you're thinking about a legacy,
(30:14):
something that you're doing ten, twenty thirty years from now,
and then a big campaign idea would really be your
step three in building a brand like look, tone, feel.
Of course that's important and a lot of small business
owners can make very glossy, you know, sexy brands, but
beyond that, like, what does your brands stand for in
the world, and how is it going to flex? And
(30:35):
the greatest brands that we know, you know, the Apples
of the world, the Nikes of the world, the JP
Morgan Chases of the world. They maintain a consistent, persistent
position in the world, you know, just going to shoes.
I love Birkenstock as an analogy. They've just popped off,
like hugely.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
My kids love their birth.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
They've got them. Okay, oh yeah, and multiple.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Or yeah, And like I hadn't seen them, so you know, newsflash.
I went to college in the early nineties and they
were very popular in the early nineties and I hadn't
seen them since then until my kids came home.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Do you have a pair?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No? Why not? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
It's not my jam, open feet, not for you, not
my jam. But like they tapped into something, you know.
Their enemy was foot pain. It was like, why are
we cramping our feet? So that was their enemy, and
then their mission was really to create foot thealth for people,
to rid the world of these awful, compromising shoes. And
they've just maintained that positioning and they've exploded as a
(31:35):
result of it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah. I had a mentor in my career who said
to me once, you can't make up a brand. A
brand has to represent what you already do, and then
it gives you a megaphone to say it really loudly,
which I thought was really interesting. So good. Yeah that's
a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I think that's all good storytelling, you know. Going back
to elevator pitches, which I think is important. George was
a great storyteller. I'm curious to know what you think
about this, but you really want to be able to
stand for and this is kind of aligned with brand building.
I think good elevator pitches have three things. They tell
a big story about a problem that you're solving for
in the world. The second thing they do is they
(32:12):
have key trends or stats to kind of substantiate that
broader cultural problem. And then then and only then do
they introduce their solution, their product, their service, their differentiators,
their values. So all these things can be architected together,
and it's absolutely free to do the strategic work. That's
(32:34):
what always amazes me. Ben, Like everyone's just hustling, and
it's like if you took two minutes to just also
step out and craft some of these things that are
pretty simple. You have new tools in your toolbox.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
George, I want to end with a question that we
asked to all our guests on the show, which is,
if you could give one piece of advice to our listeners,
who are largely business owners and entrepreneurs, what would that
one piece of advice be.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I would say, treat your clients not as clients, but
as investors. And everybody who's bought shoes from us and
who sustained us through these hard times and even through
the good times. If I was just to look at
them as clients, I'd say, Oh, they're a pain in
the ass, they're difficult, they're all that. But when I
look at them and they're like, no, they've invested in
our brand, they've bought our product. They can afford all
(33:20):
these other beautiful things, but they buy ours, that's what
I would say. Treat them as investors because you're going
to look at them completely different, and they know when
you treat them differently, and that's what keeps them coming back.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
George, you have an amazing story and we are so
privileged that you were willing to share it with us.
Thank you for being here today on the show. Thank
you for having me. It was such an honor tell
the story and to talk with you. It's always fun
going down memory lane. Thank you to George Escavell for
speaking with us today. You can take a look at
some of his work at georgescavel dot com or if
(33:51):
you're in LA at the Grammy Museum. And Kathleen, we're
excited to have you joined for a few episodes this season.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it. We have so many more incredible small business stories coming to you this season and some amazing guest hosts. Kathleen will be back as well as some new people you haven't met yet. On our next episode, we'll meet a woman who
dreams of sustainable energy storage and built a business to
(34:22):
make it a reality.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
When you come across something that you just cannot let
it go, you want to read more about it, and
you want to understand more about it. Strangely enough, for me,
that was batteries.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I'm Ben Walter, and this is The Unshakeables from Chase
for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
back here soon.
Hosts And Creators
Ben Walter
Kathleen Griffith
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