April 21, 2026 • 29 mins
Patricia Ermecheo always knew she would build something. She just didn’t know what — until she saw mountains of discarded clothing headed for landfills. When she couldn’t find a way to break textiles back down into usable fiber, she built one. That company became OSOMTEX. But building a solution no one else has figured out comes at a cost. The same drive that powered Patricia forward pushed her toward burnout, putting both her health and her company at risk.
In this episode, Ben and Kathleen talk with Patricia about the isolation of entrepreneurship, navigating partnerships with major brands as a small player and why sometimes going backward through the supply chain is the only way forward. These are The Unshakeables.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
There's an age old question what happens when an unstoppable
force meets an immovable object.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I've never been the one driving this thing. It's something greater and bigger than myself, and I just hear that voice and follow instructions just like I am a puppet of the universe.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Patricia Ermecheo, Founder and CEO of Osomtex and Osom Brands, is in my estimation the force in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
When you have had other lives in which you were
something else, you bring the knowledge in your new lives.
So that's the only explanation on how I can actually
build an entire facility from nothing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
She dreamed up a machine that didn't exist to solve a global problem for the fashion industry. Within days of launching a Kickstarter for socks, one of the biggest companies in the world reached out to partner with her. If she wants something, Patricia makes it happen, but sometimes, things in life happen you can't force your way out of. In her story and in the story of Osomtex today, the immovable object was completely out of her control, burnout and grief.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I have so much energy. I don't even know what you mean when you say burned out. I always knew where to go and what to do, and just having that lost feeling was the most horrible thing. When you're there, you think you're never coming back to who you were. It's like you got lost in a black hole.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Today, how she got through it. Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeart Media. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. There's nothing small about the impact small businesses have on America. They don't just drive our economy. They define our communities, create opportunities, and inspire the next generation of dreamers and builders. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. Kathleen, all right, man, good.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To see you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
In honor of sustainability, I'm in the most eco conscious outfit.
I have a green linen jumpsuit, which I just found
out linen is better than cotton apparently.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So here we are interesting. You're in La wearing linen.
I'm in New York wearing heavy layers.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, but this is cool.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
What an anomalous person to have on. I feel like her story is so antithetical to how we hear about most people building, and probably the first and last time we'll ever hear someone saying past life is what informed their invention. Right?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, We've had some forces of nature on the show,
but I'm not sure one quite like her.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's so true, Let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
OOn today's episode, Osomtex from Miami, Florida. Patricia Ermecheo grew up in Venezuela, but as an adult, Miami is the place she needed to be. She's an artist, a creator, and she loves the vibrancy of the city.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I explored pottery, I explored photography, industrial design, graphic design.
I'm very much of a learner, and I think that's
exactly what it was going through when I stumble upon
the situation that brought me here, which happened fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Fifteen years ago, as Patricia was living and working in Miami,
Venezuela was going through a major transition. She was sad
to see what was happening at home.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We wanted to help the country in any way, so we started to gather clothing and send a container full of clothing to help people in need. My job was to go to this sorting facility and look at the clothing, make sure it was in a good condition, and buy it and put it in a container and send it to Venezuela. When I first saw a sorting facility for used clothing waste, I realized they were throwing away a lot of the clothing because of the size and not because of the condition, just throwing to a big bin of waste management, clothing that it was in perfect condition just because it was 4XL. And when I asked why, they just said it was because of this size and nobody in those countries were going to be able to wear it. The used clothing business is very lucrative, so I don't think anyone in that business had any problem whatsoever with the environment. They were just thinking about the money.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
She didn't care as much about the money as she
did about the impact. To have all of this great
clothing get thrown into a landfill when people could really
use it back home was frustrating. But if people really
weren't going to wear those sizes, she had to find
another way to use the clothing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And for some reason, I had this crazy vision of
a blender, bringing back the clothing to the fiber form.
I didn't even think about the composition of the clothing
at that point. For me, it was everything needs to
go inside of a machine and come back to its
raw material.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And that may not sound radical, but believe me, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
The obvious idea that anyone could ever think about. Is
the deconstruction of the piece to turn it into a
new garment.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And that's very trendy right now. People often call it upcycling.
So if you get a blanket at a thrift store,
for example, and turn it into a sweater or something,
that's the deconstruction and reconstruction of the garment. You're not
fundamentally changing what the fabric or garment is.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But I had like a more extreme vision, and obviously
that's typical of me.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
According to Patricia, she's super extreme.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I used to be on extreme sports for a long
period of my life.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I was a skydiver, so having an extreme idea wasn't
unusual for her. She took to the Internet looking for
her magical clothing blender, and.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
When I did that, it didn't exist.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So did you have this machine custom designed? Yes, sir,
And did you design it. Yes, so you're not an engineer, right, No, but.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
You know, I was reading a book about reincarnation and
spirits and stuff, and apparently it's real that when you
have had other lives in which you were something else,
you bring the knowledge in your new lives. So that's
the only explanation on how I can actually build an
entire facility from nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
She did and she started blending up clothing. So what
was the concept that you would break down the clothing
and sell the yarn after it was broken down?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, for the concept, obviously I was advised. I met with professional engineers and they were like, "You were crazy enough to get to that type of fiber, but I'm telling you, you're not going to be able to go further than a non-woven product," which was insulation, carpet underlay, materials like more for construction.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, they use old denim for insulation, for example, or
whatever it is exactly. So the concept was unclear, but
at least for now Patricia had the non woven fibers
that could be reused. How did you raise the money?
I mean, it couldn't have been cheap to build these
machines and get a warehouse.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
No, No, no. I pitched it to a very powerful
group in Central America, and they were going to get
a lot of benefit out of recycling clothing because they
were a secondhand clothing store. So they believed the idea
and pitched the money for the first machine. So my
first facility installed it in Central America, and that facility
(08:27):
it's making non-wovens till this day.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But that still wasn't Patricia's goal. She had a vision,
a vision of new clothing made from old clothing, and
that idea resurfaced in a.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Dream one morning. I remember sleeping and something woke me up, and I sat down on the bed and I'm like, "I need to make yarn out of this fiber." And not only that, but I knew exactly who to call.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
She called them up and at that moment, they were
at a textile fair in Milan. Call it coincidence, Patricia
calls it fate.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I've never been the one driving this thing. Is something
greater and bigger than myself, and I just hear that
voice and follow instructions like I am a puppet of
the universe.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The universe led Patricia to her fiber. Despite the detractors,
she did eventually get her hands on yarn that was
made from entirely recycled clothing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And when I had the yarn in my hand, I
was like, Okay, this is going to be very boring
to sell a cone of yarn. I am like, let's
make a collection of socks and launch the socks on Kickstarter.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Okay, and then what? raised.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Some money, launched the first batch of recycled socks, and
I got an email from Nike asking if I was
interested in working with them on a product that they
were designing with recycled materials and this recycled material. Did
you say yes, Yes, of course I moved.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
You moved.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I sold everything and moved to Oregon.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Patricia put a tiny house on a hazel nut farm
that her friends owned.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I didn't have any expenses, The house had solar panels,
and we were living on a huge piece of land.
I was just like a solo entrepreneur, funding everything by
myself and living on a tiny house on a farm,
completely of the greed.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
She lived there for five years.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We spent three years and a half creating and validating the material. So the amount of research that they put in the material and studies and design and different shapes, that kind of reassured me of how amazing this thing was.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Eventually, Nike launched a shoe with the material. That shoe
was called the Space Hippie.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
The upper of the shoe was made with my recycled yarn,
the same yarn that I was using on the socks.
Everything went crazy from there.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Two important things happened next. First, at the actual launch event in New York City, one of the Nike execs told Patricia how much they loved the shoe, but that they were worried about her ability to create material at the scale somewhere like Nike would need it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That common kind of set the path for my next move.
I always wanted to have the factory here since day one,
so I was like, Okay, you want more capacity, I'm
going to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
The second thing, and it happened a month later, was COVID.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It was like, oh my god, what are we going
to do now? Headquarters closed? And then I spent the
next year leaving at the farm with pretty much nothing
else to do. I kind of took the year to
relax a little bit and planted a lot of vegetables.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
She had an epiphany in the garden.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I realized that I can actually share this material and this solution and these processes and this recycling thing. I think for Nike, it was a very successful thing. It was amazing, the partnership for us, for that shoe. As far as money, we definitely went to the six figures there. But for me, this thing that I have put five years of my existence needed to be a long-term partnership.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Patricia wanted to be more than a shoe, drop, T
shirt collab or story in a magazine about sustainability. She
wanted to work with large companies like Nike to reuse
their own material for their own brand. In twenty twenty one,
she said goodbye to the tiny house in Oregon and
moved back to Miami to open up her own facility.
(13:01):
So you went from being basically a sort of retail
consumer brand to being a wholesale material supplier.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yes, I learned so much. That's why I am so grateful.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I wouldn't be here without that experience that created the
actual CEO that I am today.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Kathleen, what a crazy story.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I know, right, And to go from like you get
this email out of the blue, she packs up her
whole life leaves Miami moves to Oregon. That takes a
certain sort of person too, who's just ready to roll
the dice and like put it all on the line
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, even she had a degree in design and she
spun up this factory in Central America with these people
who had extra used clothing and was set.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I mean, we need to buy the movie rights to
this one.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think. So what did you think about her betting
the farm on Nike?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, this was so good because you know, I've done
business with Nike too, and like she went all in,
which I'm such a huge believer. I'm going to get
on my soapbox a little bit. But about big brand partnerships,
major partnerships when you are starting out, what that can
do for your business to align yourself with a brand
(14:18):
that is well known and really well established. It just
gives you instant credibility. It gives you audience at scale.
It is a massive unlock that a lot of small
businesses don't actively pursue. And I know in her case,
it was just a random email out of nowhere, so
that does not usually happen.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That woman's got some karma.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
She's got some karma, but it can go sideways, Like
I want to talk to you about that too, because
a lot of times when you're in business with these
big brands, it takes an inordinate amount of time and
energy to kind of navigate the huge matrix that is.
I mean, you're at one of the biggest companies in
the world, right, Like you know, there's meetings upon meetings
upon meetings, yep. And a lot of times also the
(15:02):
contracts can be really I'm not saying a Nike's case,
but predatory and more one sided, and you have a
hard time kind of elbows out in that scenario.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I think it's even more than that. It's also working
with big brands requires capabilities that small companies don't have.
Especially in today's world. You can imagine there are a
lot of startup software brands, for example, that really want
to partner with big brands, but they don't have the
cyber capabilities. So they are insurance minimums. There are cyber
capability minimums, things that big companies will require, and they
require for good reason. Yeah, they don't do it just
(15:32):
for bureaucracy. They do it for real reasons, right, Because
if you're a big company and you're going to roll
out a product with a small supplier and suddenly that
small supplier goes gabluely, you now have a problem. You
can't fulfill your orders, and the brand itself is exposed.
So it's not like they're doing it for no reason.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, so what does someone do in that case?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Number One, there are resources out in the marketplace. There
are supplier education programs in different states with banks, with
lots of different places for how to do that. But
more importantly, talk to other entrepreneurs who have partnered with
big brands, even if it's not in your industry, because
they'll be able to tell you here are the kinds
of questions they're going to ask, here are the kind
of things you're going to need to have in place.
(16:10):
And you may not be able to do it all
right away, but at least if you can articulate a
path to it. Big companies do want to take a
chance on smaller brands, particularly if they innovate in a
way that a big company sometimes can't. So it's not
that they are averse to it. But you need to
figure out the sort of non core things that can
get the way, because if your core idea is good,
you're probably going to get some traction, but if you
can't do the other administrative and logistical things, you could
(16:33):
get tripped up.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, that's good and one of the things I know
I'm always harping on really great legal representation, but getting
that early redlining a lot of times. Again, a bigger brand,
you know, I've worked with some of the biggest brands,
and at the time, some of the exposure points and
liability requirements I just couldn't have, you know, the perpetuity
clauses I couldn't live up to. And so a good lawyer,
(16:57):
you know, sometimes they're willing to work with you too,
if you're comfortable pushing back and saying I'm a small
business and this is a bit too far relative from
where I'm comfortable during a line.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, I've told people before it's okay to about the
company on a deal. It's not okay to bet more
than the company on a deal.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Ooh, Yeah, that's not a place you want to find yourself,
not a.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Place you want to be. Luckily, Patricia was not there.
She was actually back in Miami. Why Miami, You'd been
up in Oregon for a long time.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Because I am really connected to South America and Central
America and Europe, so this was a lot closer to
my supply chain and transporting stuff from Oregon all the
way here to go to Central America. It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I can see that. My favorite line about Miami
is Miami is the Latin American city closest to the
United States exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
That was my second reason. I have always had family here my entire life. So since I am a little girl, I'm coming to Miami. So the closest to a family/friends network, I had it here. And then that was the first time that I went out and pitched for money. That went really well because I had the shoe in my hand. So people pitch ideas and they don't have anything to show. I had a Nike shoe.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
She got the money she needed to open the factory,
but keeping the doors open for good was another story.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
When I first installed the factory, because I had so much attention from the brands, I felt very supported and very sure that that was the next step. And when the whole thing was installed and running, yes, they came, yes, we did some pilots, but they never continued for a long-term partnership. So that was a struggle. We couldn't get stability to maintain such an expensive operation. That took me to that feeling, to that mindset. It was such an overwhelming feeling to be so exhausted for no reason.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
She didn't have a word for it at the time,
but she was suffering from what she now knows is burnout.
While she was in that phase, another tragedy, her father
sadly passed away in twenty twenty four. Now grief was
paired with her burnout, and the entire feeling was overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And when you're there, you think you're never coming back to who you were. I felt like an astronaut that got disattached from the space station and was floating in space in the vast of the blackness, just going like "hwooo," so lost. And that is super unlike myself. I've been very numb. I never thought that was going to affect me the way it did. And for the first time in my life, I got to know depression. Being depressed, being extremely sad, being exhausted, being disappointed at life, like losing completely the fire and the purpose. I started asking myself questions about, what's the purpose of this much sacrifice? I'm just having weird thoughts. I'm having thoughts that I am not very familiar with, like not wanting to be alive anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Patricia called all her friends and asked if they could
meet her for dinner at a restaurant they all loved
in Miami.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And I'm like, I am thinking these things and I
am telling you, guys, this is not normal, and I
don't like to think this way, and I think I
need help. And I just started crying in the middle
of the dinner.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And her friends were right there ready to jump in.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
They offered all their support. They were on top of
me every day, calling me, doing activities, inviting me to things,
checking on me. So I felt really really supported by them.
I don't think I would have been out of it
without them and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
All of that love. So when did you start to
feel like yourself again?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think probably this past month.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Oh wow, was it about a year?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It was about a year. I still feel the empty
piece of my heart. It's like an empty space. I
don't know if it's going to get replaced with something
else or to transform it.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So how do you stay motivated through that?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I have learned to separate business from personal. So the same sadness that I feel for that, I completely separate those feelings now that I've been learning how to manage the depression. And I know that I am a big force for my team as far as energy. That's kind of part of my job in this life. Not in this company, in this life. I am one of those people that gives. And because I am also getting a lot of love from my close friends and family because I asked for it, I'm able to keep giving.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That's amazing. So let's pivot back a little bit to the business and where you are now. So you had a partnership with Goodwill, right?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Last year?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
That was a really cool partnership, in which we were processing a lot of their used clothing that was actually not being sold in their stores, but we were able to create an entire sock collection for the Goodwill. So 50,000 pairs of socks were created, co-branded by the Goodwill and Osomtex. And for the first time, a Goodwill product is being sold in their stores.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And Patricia finally got a large enough contract to bring
stability to the factory and keep those doors open long term.
What changed, what finally broke through that.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
That this is not a fashion brand. This is not a Nike or an North Face. It's their nature to create collections and to live out of design and fashion, and this is not a fashion. I became a service. And that's kind of when the whole thing shifted from Osom Brand to Osomtex, which is the actual company that helps other companies to do the same that I did, to become circular, to use their waste, and to transform that waste into fiber and yarn for their own products.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So tell me what's the end goal with Awesome text
Where are you taking it? More funding, more people, more hiring.
Where are you going with it?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Definitely more hiring, more funding, more facilities, because with this new client, we got to sign only two locations. They have 400 locations and we are going to be at capacity with only two locations. It's morphing again. We are becoming a material recovery facility. Now we are not only getting or recycling textiles, we are now getting plastics, metals, electronics and other stuff, and redirecting those materials to very legit and specific recyclers. And we're only keeping textiles here, transforming those textiles into fiber and making more product for this same client. So, complete circular.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
You hope to change the whole textile industry, don't you?
What percent of clothing sold today is made with any
recycled materials?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Very little?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Like almost none, right, But if Patricia has a say
in it, I'm sure it'll be a lot more. Kathleen,
I'm curious because we talked about Patricia went through a
pretty rough period of depression which made her feel pretty
burned out.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
She had this unbelievable journey, but then really it almost came crashing down with the burnout that she experienced. It's one of those things we don't talk a lot about as founders and business owners. And you've got these big B breakdowns. I call them big B breakdowns and little B breakdowns. Big B breakdowns are these cataclysmic life events, like someone you love dying, that blindside you and bring you to your knees. Little B being more just lack of alignment or something not working, not liking your business partner, who you're in business with. But we have to have a strong hand in terms of how we also talk to our teams about that and really need transparency there.Of course, that was toward the end of her story, but I just think it's an interesting starting point. Because when you build with that foundation that bad stuff is going to happen to you along the way and you understand that's part of also the process and you can still keep going,
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It changes things.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And I love that she had so much honesty and
rawness and realness in talking about that process of even
going through depression as a founder.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah. We hear actually quite a bit from founders that
they go through periods of depression because it's so lonely,
because it's so different lonely. It's not that unusual. I mean,
hers clearly had a duration and a depth to it,
but it's not that unusual. And it's particularly acute in
a startup environment or small company environment where the CEO's personalities.
You know, you are your company and your company is
(26:32):
you to some degree. Yeah, that can be challenging for
a company like that. It's amazing she kept it going.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, the leader really does set the temperature for the
whole room.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And I give her a lot of credit for being
able to compartmentalize despite that. She was very clear she
said it was really tough, but I kept my work
at work and my home at home. That's difficult for
most people to do.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I don't know how she did that, but she managed to figure it out. And it's okay. Both ways are okay. You can keep your business afloat either way. I think for any leaders, as you think about burnout, one of the most important things you can do to set yourself up for when that inevitably happens is to have systems and processes that operate outside of you. So really making sure that you've codified all of your systems and operations as a company so things can continue on when there are periods that you're not as functional. I think the second is to then be transparent and honest with your team when it does happen, as it will, and delegate, ask for support. You've got to call in your crew when you're down and out.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
For me, the one I would add is you need
to find something in your life that can bring you
joy in small doses, because the grind is not going away,
and so you need that thing that you can do
for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that you know will bring
you some joy.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Ben, I love that you said that this was.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
A fun line. Kathleen. Thanks for joining us as always.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, we went on a roller coaster. I had a
great time. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Right next time, I'm going to ask you what you
did in a prior life. I want to close by
asking you a question I asked to every guest on
the show, which is, if you had one piece of
advice for an aspiring or current business owner, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Know your limits and don't kill yourself for a dream.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Why is that your advice?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Because I almost killed myself for this and I had
to learn how to balance Thanks. You know, I gave
it all. I went too far. And I think you
also have to learn how to respect yourself and when
you are creating something this big, because it depends also
(28:41):
in the size of things that you are working on
or your ambitions. But I think that's what I have
learned from my experience.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Excellent Patricia, This has been amazing. Thank you for sharing
your story with us.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables.
If you liked this episode, please rate and review it.
Next episode, we'll hear from a business owner whose family
legacy and main source of income rolled away. On a
flatbed truck and I was beside myself.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It seemed to be I was thrown out more wasted
pasta in order to make pasta.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It was, it was a nightmare. 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
There's an age old question what happens when an unstoppable
force meets an immovable object.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I've never been the one driving this thing. It's something greater and bigger than myself, and I just hear that voice and follow instructions just like I am a puppet of the universe.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Patricia Ermecheo, Founder and CEO of Osomtex and Osom Brands, is in my estimation the force in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
When you have had other lives in which you were
something else, you bring the knowledge in your new lives.
So that's the only explanation on how I can actually
build an entire facility from nothing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
She dreamed up a machine that didn't exist to solve a global problem for the fashion industry. Within days of launching a Kickstarter for socks, one of the biggest companies in the world reached out to partner with her. If she wants something, Patricia makes it happen, but sometimes, things in life happen you can't force your way out of. In her story and in the story of Osomtex today, the immovable object was completely out of her control, burnout and grief.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I have so much energy. I don't even know what you mean when you say burned out. I always knew where to go and what to do, and just having that lost feeling was the most horrible thing. When you're there, you think you're never coming back to who you were. It's like you got lost in a black hole.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Today, how she got through it. Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeart Media. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. There's nothing small about the impact small businesses have on America. They don't just drive our economy. They define our communities, create opportunities, and inspire the next generation of dreamers and builders. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. Kathleen, all right, man, good.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To see you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
In honor of sustainability, I'm in the most eco conscious outfit.
I have a green linen jumpsuit, which I just found
out linen is better than cotton apparently.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So here we are interesting. You're in La wearing linen.
I'm in New York wearing heavy layers.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, but this is cool.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
What an anomalous person to have on. I feel like her story is so antithetical to how we hear about most people building, and probably the first and last time we'll ever hear someone saying past life is what informed their invention. Right?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, We've had some forces of nature on the show,
but I'm not sure one quite like her.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's so true, Let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
OOn today's episode, Osomtex from Miami, Florida. Patricia Ermecheo grew up in Venezuela, but as an adult, Miami is the place she needed to be. She's an artist, a creator, and she loves the vibrancy of the city.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I explored pottery, I explored photography, industrial design, graphic design.
I'm very much of a learner, and I think that's
exactly what it was going through when I stumble upon
the situation that brought me here, which happened fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Fifteen years ago, as Patricia was living and working in Miami,
Venezuela was going through a major transition. She was sad
to see what was happening at home.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We wanted to help the country in any way, so we started to gather clothing and send a container full of clothing to help people in need. My job was to go to this sorting facility and look at the clothing, make sure it was in a good condition, and buy it and put it in a container and send it to Venezuela. When I first saw a sorting facility for used clothing waste, I realized they were throwing away a lot of the clothing because of the size and not because of the condition, just throwing to a big bin of waste management, clothing that it was in perfect condition just because it was 4XL. And when I asked why, they just said it was because of this size and nobody in those countries were going to be able to wear it. The used clothing business is very lucrative, so I don't think anyone in that business had any problem whatsoever with the environment. They were just thinking about the money.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
She didn't care as much about the money as she
did about the impact. To have all of this great
clothing get thrown into a landfill when people could really
use it back home was frustrating. But if people really
weren't going to wear those sizes, she had to find
another way to use the clothing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And for some reason, I had this crazy vision of
a blender, bringing back the clothing to the fiber form.
I didn't even think about the composition of the clothing
at that point. For me, it was everything needs to
go inside of a machine and come back to its
raw material.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And that may not sound radical, but believe me, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
The obvious idea that anyone could ever think about. Is
the deconstruction of the piece to turn it into a
new garment.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And that's very trendy right now. People often call it upcycling.
So if you get a blanket at a thrift store,
for example, and turn it into a sweater or something,
that's the deconstruction and reconstruction of the garment. You're not
fundamentally changing what the fabric or garment is.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But I had like a more extreme vision, and obviously
that's typical of me.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
According to Patricia, she's super extreme.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I used to be on extreme sports for a long
period of my life.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I was a skydiver, so having an extreme idea wasn't
unusual for her. She took to the Internet looking for
her magical clothing blender, and.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
When I did that, it didn't exist.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So did you have this machine custom designed? Yes, sir,
And did you design it. Yes, so you're not an engineer, right, No, but.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
You know, I was reading a book about reincarnation and
spirits and stuff, and apparently it's real that when you
have had other lives in which you were something else,
you bring the knowledge in your new lives. So that's
the only explanation on how I can actually build an
entire facility from nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
She did and she started blending up clothing. So what
was the concept that you would break down the clothing
and sell the yarn after it was broken down?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, for the concept, obviously I was advised. I met with professional engineers and they were like, "You were crazy enough to get to that type of fiber, but I'm telling you, you're not going to be able to go further than a non-woven product," which was insulation, carpet underlay, materials like more for construction.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, they use old denim for insulation, for example, or
whatever it is exactly. So the concept was unclear, but
at least for now Patricia had the non woven fibers
that could be reused. How did you raise the money?
I mean, it couldn't have been cheap to build these
machines and get a warehouse.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
No, No, no. I pitched it to a very powerful
group in Central America, and they were going to get
a lot of benefit out of recycling clothing because they
were a secondhand clothing store. So they believed the idea
and pitched the money for the first machine. So my
first facility installed it in Central America, and that facility
(08:27):
it's making non-wovens till this day.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But that still wasn't Patricia's goal. She had a vision,
a vision of new clothing made from old clothing, and
that idea resurfaced in a.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Dream one morning. I remember sleeping and something woke me up, and I sat down on the bed and I'm like, "I need to make yarn out of this fiber." And not only that, but I knew exactly who to call.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
She called them up and at that moment, they were
at a textile fair in Milan. Call it coincidence, Patricia
calls it fate.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I've never been the one driving this thing. Is something
greater and bigger than myself, and I just hear that
voice and follow instructions like I am a puppet of
the universe.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The universe led Patricia to her fiber. Despite the detractors,
she did eventually get her hands on yarn that was
made from entirely recycled clothing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And when I had the yarn in my hand, I
was like, Okay, this is going to be very boring
to sell a cone of yarn. I am like, let's
make a collection of socks and launch the socks on Kickstarter.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Okay, and then what? raised.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Some money, launched the first batch of recycled socks, and
I got an email from Nike asking if I was
interested in working with them on a product that they
were designing with recycled materials and this recycled material. Did
you say yes, Yes, of course I moved.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
You moved.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I sold everything and moved to Oregon.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Patricia put a tiny house on a hazel nut farm
that her friends owned.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I didn't have any expenses, The house had solar panels,
and we were living on a huge piece of land.
I was just like a solo entrepreneur, funding everything by
myself and living on a tiny house on a farm,
completely of the greed.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
She lived there for five years.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We spent three years and a half creating and validating the material. So the amount of research that they put in the material and studies and design and different shapes, that kind of reassured me of how amazing this thing was.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Eventually, Nike launched a shoe with the material. That shoe
was called the Space Hippie.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
The upper of the shoe was made with my recycled yarn,
the same yarn that I was using on the socks.
Everything went crazy from there.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Two important things happened next. First, at the actual launch event in New York City, one of the Nike execs told Patricia how much they loved the shoe, but that they were worried about her ability to create material at the scale somewhere like Nike would need it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That common kind of set the path for my next move.
I always wanted to have the factory here since day one,
so I was like, Okay, you want more capacity, I'm
going to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
The second thing, and it happened a month later, was COVID.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It was like, oh my god, what are we going
to do now? Headquarters closed? And then I spent the
next year leaving at the farm with pretty much nothing
else to do. I kind of took the year to
relax a little bit and planted a lot of vegetables.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
She had an epiphany in the garden.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I realized that I can actually share this material and this solution and these processes and this recycling thing. I think for Nike, it was a very successful thing. It was amazing, the partnership for us, for that shoe. As far as money, we definitely went to the six figures there. But for me, this thing that I have put five years of my existence needed to be a long-term partnership.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Patricia wanted to be more than a shoe, drop, T
shirt collab or story in a magazine about sustainability. She
wanted to work with large companies like Nike to reuse
their own material for their own brand. In twenty twenty one,
she said goodbye to the tiny house in Oregon and
moved back to Miami to open up her own facility.
(13:01):
So you went from being basically a sort of retail
consumer brand to being a wholesale material supplier.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yes, I learned so much. That's why I am so grateful.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I wouldn't be here without that experience that created the
actual CEO that I am today.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Kathleen, what a crazy story.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I know, right, And to go from like you get
this email out of the blue, she packs up her
whole life leaves Miami moves to Oregon. That takes a
certain sort of person too, who's just ready to roll
the dice and like put it all on the line
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, even she had a degree in design and she
spun up this factory in Central America with these people
who had extra used clothing and was set.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I mean, we need to buy the movie rights to
this one.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think. So what did you think about her betting
the farm on Nike?
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, this was so good because you know, I've done
business with Nike too, and like she went all in,
which I'm such a huge believer. I'm going to get
on my soapbox a little bit. But about big brand partnerships,
major partnerships when you are starting out, what that can
do for your business to align yourself with a brand
(14:18):
that is well known and really well established. It just
gives you instant credibility. It gives you audience at scale.
It is a massive unlock that a lot of small
businesses don't actively pursue. And I know in her case,
it was just a random email out of nowhere, so
that does not usually happen.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That woman's got some karma.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
She's got some karma, but it can go sideways, Like
I want to talk to you about that too, because
a lot of times when you're in business with these
big brands, it takes an inordinate amount of time and
energy to kind of navigate the huge matrix that is.
I mean, you're at one of the biggest companies in
the world, right, Like you know, there's meetings upon meetings
upon meetings, yep. And a lot of times also the
(15:02):
contracts can be really I'm not saying a Nike's case,
but predatory and more one sided, and you have a
hard time kind of elbows out in that scenario.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I think it's even more than that. It's also working
with big brands requires capabilities that small companies don't have.
Especially in today's world. You can imagine there are a
lot of startup software brands, for example, that really want
to partner with big brands, but they don't have the
cyber capabilities. So they are insurance minimums. There are cyber
capability minimums, things that big companies will require, and they
require for good reason. Yeah, they don't do it just
(15:32):
for bureaucracy. They do it for real reasons, right, Because
if you're a big company and you're going to roll
out a product with a small supplier and suddenly that
small supplier goes gabluely, you now have a problem. You
can't fulfill your orders, and the brand itself is exposed.
So it's not like they're doing it for no reason.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, so what does someone do in that case?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Number One, there are resources out in the marketplace. There
are supplier education programs in different states with banks, with
lots of different places for how to do that. But
more importantly, talk to other entrepreneurs who have partnered with
big brands, even if it's not in your industry, because
they'll be able to tell you here are the kinds
of questions they're going to ask, here are the kind
of things you're going to need to have in place.
(16:10):
And you may not be able to do it all
right away, but at least if you can articulate a
path to it. Big companies do want to take a
chance on smaller brands, particularly if they innovate in a
way that a big company sometimes can't. So it's not
that they are averse to it. But you need to
figure out the sort of non core things that can
get the way, because if your core idea is good,
you're probably going to get some traction, but if you
can't do the other administrative and logistical things, you could
(16:33):
get tripped up.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, that's good and one of the things I know
I'm always harping on really great legal representation, but getting
that early redlining a lot of times. Again, a bigger brand,
you know, I've worked with some of the biggest brands,
and at the time, some of the exposure points and
liability requirements I just couldn't have, you know, the perpetuity
clauses I couldn't live up to. And so a good lawyer,
(16:57):
you know, sometimes they're willing to work with you too,
if you're comfortable pushing back and saying I'm a small
business and this is a bit too far relative from
where I'm comfortable during a line.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, I've told people before it's okay to about the
company on a deal. It's not okay to bet more
than the company on a deal.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Ooh, Yeah, that's not a place you want to find yourself,
not a.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Place you want to be. Luckily, Patricia was not there.
She was actually back in Miami. Why Miami, You'd been
up in Oregon for a long time.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Because I am really connected to South America and Central
America and Europe, so this was a lot closer to
my supply chain and transporting stuff from Oregon all the
way here to go to Central America. It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I can see that. My favorite line about Miami
is Miami is the Latin American city closest to the
United States exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
That was my second reason. I have always had family here my entire life. So since I am a little girl, I'm coming to Miami. So the closest to a family/friends network, I had it here. And then that was the first time that I went out and pitched for money. That went really well because I had the shoe in my hand. So people pitch ideas and they don't have anything to show. I had a Nike shoe.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
She got the money she needed to open the factory,
but keeping the doors open for good was another story.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
When I first installed the factory, because I had so much attention from the brands, I felt very supported and very sure that that was the next step. And when the whole thing was installed and running, yes, they came, yes, we did some pilots, but they never continued for a long-term partnership. So that was a struggle. We couldn't get stability to maintain such an expensive operation. That took me to that feeling, to that mindset. It was such an overwhelming feeling to be so exhausted for no reason.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
She didn't have a word for it at the time,
but she was suffering from what she now knows is burnout.
While she was in that phase, another tragedy, her father
sadly passed away in twenty twenty four. Now grief was
paired with her burnout, and the entire feeling was overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And when you're there, you think you're never coming back to who you were. I felt like an astronaut that got disattached from the space station and was floating in space in the vast of the blackness, just going like "hwooo," so lost. And that is super unlike myself. I've been very numb. I never thought that was going to affect me the way it did. And for the first time in my life, I got to know depression. Being depressed, being extremely sad, being exhausted, being disappointed at life, like losing completely the fire and the purpose. I started asking myself questions about, what's the purpose of this much sacrifice? I'm just having weird thoughts. I'm having thoughts that I am not very familiar with, like not wanting to be alive anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Patricia called all her friends and asked if they could
meet her for dinner at a restaurant they all loved
in Miami.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And I'm like, I am thinking these things and I
am telling you, guys, this is not normal, and I
don't like to think this way, and I think I
need help. And I just started crying in the middle
of the dinner.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And her friends were right there ready to jump in.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
They offered all their support. They were on top of
me every day, calling me, doing activities, inviting me to things,
checking on me. So I felt really really supported by them.
I don't think I would have been out of it
without them and.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
All of that love. So when did you start to
feel like yourself again?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think probably this past month.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Oh wow, was it about a year?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It was about a year. I still feel the empty
piece of my heart. It's like an empty space. I
don't know if it's going to get replaced with something
else or to transform it.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
So how do you stay motivated through that?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I have learned to separate business from personal. So the same sadness that I feel for that, I completely separate those feelings now that I've been learning how to manage the depression. And I know that I am a big force for my team as far as energy. That's kind of part of my job in this life. Not in this company, in this life. I am one of those people that gives. And because I am also getting a lot of love from my close friends and family because I asked for it, I'm able to keep giving.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That's amazing. So let's pivot back a little bit to the business and where you are now. So you had a partnership with Goodwill, right?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Last year?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
That was a really cool partnership, in which we were processing a lot of their used clothing that was actually not being sold in their stores, but we were able to create an entire sock collection for the Goodwill. So 50,000 pairs of socks were created, co-branded by the Goodwill and Osomtex. And for the first time, a Goodwill product is being sold in their stores.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And Patricia finally got a large enough contract to bring
stability to the factory and keep those doors open long term.
What changed, what finally broke through that.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
That this is not a fashion brand. This is not a Nike or an North Face. It's their nature to create collections and to live out of design and fashion, and this is not a fashion. I became a service. And that's kind of when the whole thing shifted from Osom Brand to Osomtex, which is the actual company that helps other companies to do the same that I did, to become circular, to use their waste, and to transform that waste into fiber and yarn for their own products.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So tell me what's the end goal with Awesome text
Where are you taking it? More funding, more people, more hiring.
Where are you going with it?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Definitely more hiring, more funding, more facilities, because with this new client, we got to sign only two locations. They have 400 locations and we are going to be at capacity with only two locations. It's morphing again. We are becoming a material recovery facility. Now we are not only getting or recycling textiles, we are now getting plastics, metals, electronics and other stuff, and redirecting those materials to very legit and specific recyclers. And we're only keeping textiles here, transforming those textiles into fiber and making more product for this same client. So, complete circular.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
You hope to change the whole textile industry, don't you?
What percent of clothing sold today is made with any
recycled materials?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Very little?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Like almost none, right, But if Patricia has a say
in it, I'm sure it'll be a lot more. Kathleen,
I'm curious because we talked about Patricia went through a
pretty rough period of depression which made her feel pretty
burned out.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
She had this unbelievable journey, but then really it almost came crashing down with the burnout that she experienced. It's one of those things we don't talk a lot about as founders and business owners. And you've got these big B breakdowns. I call them big B breakdowns and little B breakdowns. Big B breakdowns are these cataclysmic life events, like someone you love dying, that blindside you and bring you to your knees. Little B being more just lack of alignment or something not working, not liking your business partner, who you're in business with. But we have to have a strong hand in terms of how we also talk to our teams about that and really need transparency there.Of course, that was toward the end of her story, but I just think it's an interesting starting point. Because when you build with that foundation that bad stuff is going to happen to you along the way and you understand that's part of also the process and you can still keep going,
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It changes things.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And I love that she had so much honesty and
rawness and realness in talking about that process of even
going through depression as a founder.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah. We hear actually quite a bit from founders that
they go through periods of depression because it's so lonely,
because it's so different lonely. It's not that unusual. I mean,
hers clearly had a duration and a depth to it,
but it's not that unusual. And it's particularly acute in
a startup environment or small company environment where the CEO's personalities.
You know, you are your company and your company is
(26:32):
you to some degree. Yeah, that can be challenging for
a company like that. It's amazing she kept it going.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, the leader really does set the temperature for the
whole room.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
And I give her a lot of credit for being
able to compartmentalize despite that. She was very clear she
said it was really tough, but I kept my work
at work and my home at home. That's difficult for
most people to do.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I don't know how she did that, but she managed to figure it out. And it's okay. Both ways are okay. You can keep your business afloat either way. I think for any leaders, as you think about burnout, one of the most important things you can do to set yourself up for when that inevitably happens is to have systems and processes that operate outside of you. So really making sure that you've codified all of your systems and operations as a company so things can continue on when there are periods that you're not as functional. I think the second is to then be transparent and honest with your team when it does happen, as it will, and delegate, ask for support. You've got to call in your crew when you're down and out.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
For me, the one I would add is you need
to find something in your life that can bring you
joy in small doses, because the grind is not going away,
and so you need that thing that you can do
for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that you know will bring
you some joy.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Ben, I love that you said that this was.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
A fun line. Kathleen. Thanks for joining us as always.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, we went on a roller coaster. I had a
great time. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Right next time, I'm going to ask you what you
did in a prior life. I want to close by
asking you a question I asked to every guest on
the show, which is, if you had one piece of
advice for an aspiring or current business owner, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Know your limits and don't kill yourself for a dream.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Why is that your advice?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Because I almost killed myself for this and I had
to learn how to balance Thanks. You know, I gave
it all. I went too far. And I think you
also have to learn how to respect yourself and when
you are creating something this big, because it depends also
(28:41):
in the size of things that you are working on
or your ambitions. But I think that's what I have
learned from my experience.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Excellent Patricia, This has been amazing. Thank you for sharing
your story with us.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables.
If you liked this episode, please rate and review it.
Next episode, we'll hear from a business owner whose family
legacy and main source of income rolled away. On a
flatbed truck and I was beside myself.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
It seemed to be I was thrown out more wasted
pasta in order to make pasta.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It was, it was a nightmare. 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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