September 18, 2025 • 32 mins
CEO & Co-Founder | R. RiveterLisa Bradley, a trailblazing entrepreneur and staunch advocate for military spouses, co-founded R. Riveter with a vision that transcends business success. Her journey epitomizes resilience, determination, and a profound commitment to service.Under her leadership, the brand has evolved from a small startup into a nationally recognized company that provides mobile, flexible income opportunities for military spouses — through assembly work, entrepreneurship grants, and community empowerment.Lisa has represented R. Riveter on national platforms, from Shark Tank to Good Morning America, championing employment opportunities for military spouses and shedding light on the challenges faced by working mothers. Her leadership has been recognized widely: she was named one of the 25 individuals reshaping the future of retail by the National Retail Federation and honored as one of Central Ohio’s remarkable women in 2023.Today, R. Riveter’s handbags and accessories — American assembled and often crafted from upcycled military materials — fuse fashion with purpose. Every bag tells the story of resilience and community, carrying forward Lisa’s unwavering belief that business can be a powerful force for good.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Columbus in Central Ohio have a rich history of companies
being headquartered here, everything from technology, manufacturing, retail, insurance, and more.
But what about the leaders behind these companies? What makes
them tick? How do they get their start? This is
where you get to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know and iHeartMedia Columbus Podcast.
(00:20):
Welcome back to another episode of CEOs You Should Know
and iHeart Media Columbus Podcast. I am Boxer and this
week's guest is someone who, well, let me just say,
I can always get behind because they have everything to
do with military. Military families are veterans, those who currently serve,
those who have served. I want to welcome the CEO
(00:41):
of Our Riveter and co founder, Lisa Bradley. Maddy would
call her a trailblazer. Maybe you saw her in the
past on Shark Tank, but she is in studio with
us today. Lisa, good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I'm so excited to tell more about our story and
really be able to tell more about what we do.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Absolutely, well, why don't we go there? Firstly, so what
is our Riveter?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So our Riveter is a handbag company on a mission.
We really started back really out of necessity to military
spouses couldn't find work, we moved. At that point, I
had moved four times with my husband, Wow, and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Know what it was going to be like to be
a military spouse. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In the first couple months of being married to him,
everybody kept calling me a dependent. I thought that was
really kind of a strange word that the military used
to refer to spouses and children, you know, But after
two more moves, I really did start to feel very
dependent because all the military moves, you really can get
lost in not having a community of your own and
(01:39):
moving frequently, and so we really set out to bring
independence back to military spouses.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You just brought up something that I had never thought
about before, and that is now, obviously, you know, the
spouse tends to be, you know, the the glue when
it comes to a military family. But something I didn't realize, Lisa, is,
you know, when it comes to just trying to get
a job, you're moving so often that's probably difficult to
get to obtain right.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Absolutely, every interview I went into, they could just see
my resume and it just screamed military spouse because it
was so fragmented and to be able to see them
kind of check you off the list because of your
multimilitary moves. Really, we said, enough is enough. Somebody needs
to do something about this because military spouses are resourceful
(02:26):
and they're tough, and they have such an amazing skill
set that they can bring to businesses. And so no
one at the time it was twenty eleven and there
wasn't a lot of work from home opportunities. Yeah, most
of them were direct sales and you really have to
leverage your friends and family, and so we wanted a
different type of work from home opportunity.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So that launched our Riveter.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
At least Bradley is with us. She's the co founder
and CEO of our Riveter. It's based in North Carolina, right,
but your store is actually in Granville that you have correct?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Correct? Yeah, so we don't really have a place where
a country.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Our military spouses, which I'll get into how the model works,
is across the country. And actually the first physical location
is now located near me in Granville, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
We have a shop and.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Shop concept and Cedar Thread and it's so amazing for
me who's moved thirteen times to finally have a little
piece of the company physically located near me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well, Lisa, let's go back in time the CEOs. You
should know time travel machine.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Here.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Where did you grow up? We're born raised.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, raised in Montana, which I think was a big
part of me becoming a CEO. I was raised by
entrepreneurs and knew the up and down lifestyle of having
your own business, and I always wanted to have my
own business. But as soon as I met my husband
and really married him in the Army, I quickly found
out that it was going to be very difficult to
have a business that moves with you. Yeah, a lot
(03:51):
of times you have a set group of customers that
follow your business. And I really started wondering, maybe I'm
not gonna be able to have my own dream of
having my own business. And so really that mentality of
growing up in a small location at rural location really
built that needed me to solve my own problems and
(04:12):
really became a problem solver. So in twenty eleven, after
four military moves and military spouses really struggling, every military
spouse I talked to said, you know, I applied for
this job.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I didn't get it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
My co founder, who ended up being my co funder,
was going through the same situation where we both had
degrees but no one would hire us. And so that's
really where we said, enough is enough. Let's create a
business model that supports and hires other military spouses. So
we didn't know what we wanted to make, we knew
our mission, we knew we wanted to hire other military spouses,
(04:46):
and so we came up with a distributed manufacturing line.
I just read a book by Frederick Smith, the founder
of FedEx, and he had this idea in college where
he was going to ship things in the opposite direction
that they needed to go to in order to have
an efficient system. And I thought, you know, maybe sometimes
we just have to think outside of the box. And
so we actually are shipping parts and pieces to military
(05:07):
spouses wherever the military takes them as part of our handbags,
and then they ship it back to us where we assemble,
assemble them and then send them out to our customers.
So that idea from day one existed. The only place
that we could find a shop to open was in
her attic. And I tell the joke about low overhead,
but it really did have low overhead because it was
(05:27):
such a small space, and we started stitching handbags that day.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Amazing, Lisa, Yes, I'm hearing your story, which, by the way,
I knew it was going to be fascinating, and I
purposely didn't want to do too much research because I
wanted to be surprised by some of this stuff. So
in that retrospect when it comes to the beginning stages,
was there ever a doubt on getting other military spouses
(05:54):
on board with this with because that's one of the
keys to the secret sauce here.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Right, No, there was never a doubt, just because you know,
the first military meeting it's called Nefforgi, it's actually where
my co founder there was just the same story over
and over again about so excited to get their first
job in this duty station, and then the next time
I meet them, you know, just disappointment sets in where
there's just no way you're gonna be able to find
even a part time job. And so really the doubt was,
(06:22):
you know, our family members, our husbands were like, you
barely know this girl, you're going to start a business
with her, and we said, you know, we need to.
It's about solving a problem. And so the first day
we met each other, we said, hey, would you want
to start a business with me? And at the time,
Cameron Cruise co founder, she was she has a degree
in architecture, so she's very good at construction and she
(06:46):
was making baby booties at the time, and I was like, man,
baby booties don't have enough parts and pieces for us
to send across the country. So that's when the idea
of handbags came along. And I think that hanmdbags is
a woman's choice of what she's going to carry each
day to set out on her mission. And that's really
why we wanted to go with handbags, because you're really
picking up a whole entire story, a whole entire group
(07:08):
of women that you're supporting every time you pick up
an our Ritter handbag, and so it needed to carry
that mission. It needed to carry that story, which is
why we ultimately landed on handbags.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I have many questions about the pieces and the assembly.
We'll get to that in just a second. But what
came first the concept or the name.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Right, So the concept came first, and then I went
traveling for a week. I came back to Cameron with
a list of really awful names, but one of them
I still have the list. Yeah, Yellow Ribbon Majesty was
one of them, which is awful.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But she looked at our riveter.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And she said, what's that? And I said, you know,
I love the World War two generation. They are the
greatest generation, agree, you know, just the backbone of America.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I really wanted to be able to bridge the.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Generations in a way and be able to tell that story.
And Rosy's riveter, she didn't just stand on the sidelines.
She jumped in right the country needed her. And in fact,
you would say that women played a huge part in
winning that war. They absolutely the planes, the ammunition really
played a huge part in that war. And we kind
of felt that we were doing the same things we were,
(08:22):
although we weren't the ones that said the pledge to
fight for the country.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
We are serving in our own way. We're not wearing
the uniform.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The military spouses are really that unsung hero who keeps
everything going on the home front. And so we really
wanted to be able to honor military spouses and be
able to honor really the legacy of Rosie the Riter.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I love that. And by the way, side, note, I
think there needs to be more stories documentaries told about
what women did, especially in World War Two. We would
not be here without them and the backbone, whether it
was here or some of the special units overseas and
Germany or Germany, but obviously Europe. So it's fascinating to
(09:04):
learn all this. I'm a history geek, so just to.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Usually I've had the opportunity to meet original Rosie Riveters,
and I mean, we're wow, there's not very many left
obviously just the timetime, but to just hear some of
their stories and a lot of times they didn't even
know what they were going to be in the end
making and they just one step in front of the other,
just whatever they needed to do to help the country.
And I just think that that is such an amazing
thing that if we can tell those stories in a
(09:30):
way that the next generation can actually hear and resonate with, Yeah, like,
then I am doing one good thing for our country.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So, Lisa, you always had this entrepreneur spirit, but did
you know anything about assembling manufacturing? When you put this together?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Have no idea, And I think sometimes you have to
go in with ignorance to be able to really create
something outside of the box.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I actually got fired from sewing very early on.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
We were you know, we started were It took us
two weeks to handstitch a vegetan leather top kit, which
my husband still uses today. But I looked at Cameron
and I said, we can't do this. It takes us
way too long to make on one handbag. Sure, so
we went out and we bought a old sewing machine
that I'm pretty sure Roses Riveter probably used. It was
that old, but it was all we could afford, and
(10:19):
we did what all business books tell you not to do,
which is put it on a credit card, and so
we brought it home. Of course, our husbands were gone,
because that's you know, how the military works. But even
if they were home, I think that we went to
vask for their help because.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We were Hecker high Water. We were going to do
this ourselves.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And so of course the only place we could really
set up shop was her attic. So we went to
the corner of her garage and we saw some five
fifty cord. It's used in the military a lot, and
it's called five fifty cord because they can they can
buy weight carry five hundred and fifty pounds We're like, well, oh, okay, I.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Probably get it up into the attic.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So we rigged up a Pulley system and we brought
it that really old sewing machine up into the attic
and it was our first week at work. So like
just some amazing memories of just grit and making it
work with very little.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I want to talk about Shark Tank, but before we
get to that, Lisa, was before Shark Tank came along
and you were on the show. Where were you at?
Where were things right?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So I lived in the same town as Cameron for
nine months, and then my husband transitioned out to a
different location, and so we were really only together for
just a short amount of time. And she took on
production at that point, and then I moved and took
on all the other things from from the business standpoint,
which mentioned I sewed up pocket upside down, and she
(11:39):
looked at me and said, when the customer came in
and said, I love my handbag, but this pocket is
upside down, it doesn't really work all that well, she
looked at me and she said, you need to get
to your side of the business, which is marketing, you know,
all the accounting and really running the business. Which was
a really good division of task for us. But it
was about that timeframe where my family yet again at
(12:00):
another move. We're at thirteen total at this point, but
we just started growing the handbag business one handbag at
a time. So we made seven to make twenty. We
reinvested the profits of that to make thirty, and so
on and so forth, until it was really not a
hobby company anymore. We had military spouses that were joining
(12:20):
our team, and it really our mission was growing. And
that's about the time that the opportunity to go on
Chart take a rised.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Did you apply for that? To apply to be on
the show? How did that work?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
You know?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
We did a Kickstarter video and I believe that one
of the producers saw that, and so the opportunity just
kind of presented itself, and we kind of were at
this crossroads of do we do it or not? And
when you're growing a business, the last thing you say
is no, you know, you have to put yourself out there.
I had a huge public speaking fear.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Really you're so good?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
During college when I had a public speaking of course,
the professor literally suggested that I go on medication because exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Medication because what is that profession? Right now?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Look back, I like what I think, but that's just
I think that it's a good representation of the hurdles
that are in front of you and you have to
get through them in order to grow. So we said,
you know, we just have to confront whatever fears we
have in doing this.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I said, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
That's amazing. So you get the call to be on
Shark Tank. What was going through your mind? Were you
even thinking of saying no?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You know I when when the producer called and he
said I am from Shark Tank, I was like, yeah,
and I'm Bear Bradley right and about because truly, you know,
really a producers from Shark Tank's calling. And then when
it really came to like, wow, this really is a
producer from Shark Tank. Really tried to like sound like
I had all all the things together and that we
were ready to go. But we we really prepped for
(13:51):
a long time. You know, you don't go on national
television and in front of America's best business leaders and
not know all your numbers. So we took months and
months to prep. We did mock tanks with our accountants.
My husband just finished grad school and he was the
worst shark we ever went against.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He was brutal.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
He completely wrecked my co founder and I but I'm
so thankful for the effort that he took and helping
us for the tank. And then we did our final
mock tank with a group of investors amazing, and we
went in there. They asked us a ton of questions.
We I mean, we knew everything down to what a
rivet cost and had all of our our scales of
(14:32):
how much of the company we would give away and
what we thought was completely prepped. And at the end
they said, well, anybody that would invest in this company,
please raise your hands, and no one raised their hand,
and we were about ready to go and film, and
we're like, dang, like, why wouldn't you invest in us?
And they're like, we don't really like your scaling plan.
(14:52):
And at the time, we were going to have retail
stores across the country and then the production was going
to be attached to each retail store, and they said,
there's no way that you'll be able to afford to
have that many production facilities and just the amount of
inventory that needs to be at each location. And now
looking back, they were completely right. We have one production
facility which is actually located in Florida where all the
(15:15):
parts and pieces up that the military spouses make, which
is textile pieces get sent to. But really what that
meant was that I had to re memorize all the numbers,
which was terrifying for me. So when kind of redid
everything and re memorized all of the scaling plans and
then we went and filmed in two weeks and we
(15:35):
completely knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's amazing. And for those that don't know, which celeb
investor that's on the show agreed to investigation.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, we got three offers, same offers, but we went
with Mark Cuban, and yeah, we're really glad that we did.
He is an amazing partner and I say that he's
the most efficient emailer ever, Like we email and he's
been just any time we have a question, he's the
one on the other side.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Just absolutely they're willing to help and advise.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mark himself very accessible, Yeah, very accessible. That is so
awesome to hear even to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, he's still an advisor to the company and he
I think he genuinely really cared about what we were
doing and how to grow, and it wasn't so much
about profits and really the what most investors really like,
push and a lot of stress.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
He was never like that as an investor.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
He just really truly cared about what we were doing
and how we were giving back to military spouses.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Can and I don't know if you can answer this,
but I've read that some that go on Shark Tank
have complained later on that they feel like they're shackled
down because of the show or because of who maybe
invested in them. Can you debunk that at all and
say that you've not had that?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Okay, it was one of the best things we ever did.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I mean really just from the standpoint of being able
to tell our story to an Asia that wanted to
good story. They wanted to know that you can still
do something from nothing in America, and you can have
a dream and you can really set out and change
people's lives. And that's exactly what that show did for us.
We were able to tell our story.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
That's amazing. So you wrap up a Shark Tank considering
remembering where you were before Shark Tank. Post Shark Tank,
how vacillated things change for you.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Unbelievably, we sold more in one night than we did
by double the whole previous year in sales.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So it was just an unbelievable story of growth and scaling.
And we were a team of military spouses that didn't
know anything about production, so we just a lot of
it was just grit and not giving up.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And America was great.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
They knew that they weren't just buying the traditional Shark
Tank product that's just bought overseas lands and gets shipped out.
They're buying a handmade product which is literally shipping across
the country and back to be able to eventually make
it to their door. And they were very patient and
they just knew what we were behind the scenes doing.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
There is there is something special there. First of all,
when when it is handmade, when when there are humans involved,
it makes it extra special. But then of course the story,
when you find the story behind our riveter makes it
even more special. So who wouldn't want to investor buy
product from that?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I think that in today's world, you just don't know
what's really behind products. Of course, you know, like now
we have our signature line which is still made the
exact same way that we took on Shark Tank where
the liners are made by military spouses and they sew
them on home sewing machines and then ship them back
to us.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And really not a category of American made.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is that we're just like our own category, because nobody
would do that and nobody would spend the money on
shipping like we do to be able to provide those jobs.
We also have a giveback model where we help military
spouses start and grow their own products, which we think
is the ultimate form of flexibility is really being your
own entrepreneur. Yeah, and so we we really found in
today's post twenty twenty world that military spouses need support
(19:11):
in a lot of different ways, and so we try
and do that through our different product lines.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Lis So what, I'm sure there are many things, but
what is one thing that stands out that you learn
from mister Cuban?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Hm?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
You know, I think that he really really pushed that
we can do it without a lot of help, and
that if we just keep looking inward and staying true
to what we were set out to do, that we
don't need help from a lot of different and different
advisors or groups. You know, I think when we signed
(19:45):
up for Shark Tank, we thought we were going to
get a lot of different entities kind of coming in
and helping us. And in the end, we said, you know,
we need to look inward and really stay true to
what is our mission and how do we want to grow?
And we over the years we've really just kept that
very focused view of.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Where we're going and how we're going to grow.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, tell us paint a picture for us about how
this works with the process of let's just take a
handbag for example, because I want to get to the
products that you have and something very special that I
know you have coming up with one of your new
collection coming. But how does it work with you have
(20:27):
military spouses from all over the country. Is that right? Assembling?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Correct? Yep?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
So we actually have multiple product lines. Okay, one of
them we still make out of recycled military materials. So
that's what we took on Shark Tank.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so's it's a really really amazing part of bridging
the generation. So we'll take an era of the military
and those uniforms from that era and then we make
a it's called Limit Edition if.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You search for it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And so those are actually from upcycle materials and we
actually just did a collaboration with the Women's Marine Corps
where we took thirty uniforms that were thirty women that
actually served in World War Two and we.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Actually had all thirty uniforms, which.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Was just an amazing piece of history, and where to
turn those into handbags. So that's our limited edition line,
our signature line if you search. That is where the
parts and pieces go out to military spouses across the country.
So we send kits out to them where they're able
to make essentially a liner bucket and then it drops
inside the handbag that we assemble in Florida, and that's
(21:26):
where you can see all the riveter numbers of the
individual that stamps each piece that they make.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So starts out on.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
All four corners of our country, huh on military near
military bases wherever the military spouses are located. And then
those are added to stamps of our employees who are
assembling the products. And so it's a really amazing kind
of second wave of a modern Rosy the Riveter.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, all coming together of.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Parts and pieces coming in and then coming into a
factory where we're still assembling here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So Lisa, everything, if I'm hearing your right, every gets
assembled in Florida the end resulted and finished it. How
did geographically speaking, how did you decide on Florida? How
did you decide that should be where everything gets assembled?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That was kind of just a by happen chance.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We were assembling everything in North Carolina and then during
COVID we had a massive PO with QBC and the
state of North Carolina was shutting down. Oh, we had
a PO that was half made and we didn't think
we were going to get to finish it. So we
found a company that we bought all their machinery and
moved down to Florida during that timeframe. So wow, literally
(22:33):
just by happen chance that we ended up down there.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's amazing. So you you owned this plant in Florida,
then you yep, Wow, that's that's incredible. In this day
and age of brick and mortar versus e commerce, I
mean clearly, places like Amazon of course, have shown us
that e commerce can be very successful. You kind of
did the same thing, didn't you. You started with e
(22:57):
commerce and started.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
With e commerce, and then eventually the retail store really
happened again out of chance where we needed a place
out of Cameron's attic essentially women or mintary spaces were
picking up pieces and her husband's like, we've got to
get a physical location for our roter and so, you know,
it's a scary I'm sure a lot of business owners
(23:20):
go through that, where like you've got to put the
money into a brick and mortar and really taking the
chance of that cash flow going towards that. And it
was one of the best things we ever did, was
that first retail store. And it's still in Southern Pines,
North Carolina today and where brick and mortar might be
really a thing of the past for a lot of companies,
for us, it's just growing because to be able to
(23:42):
come in physically and be able to hear how the
company is changing and helping lives, and then see the
products in person. It's just it's an experience that they
really helps you walk in and it smells like leather,
like that experience that you still you still want to have,
You still want to have that tangible experience.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Do you think it depends on the business when first
of all, so refreshing to hear that you believe in
brick and mortar, But does it depend on the product
and the business on who should be in brick and
mortar still or.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I think so it's.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
You know, for us, it's that story that goes along
with it, and so being able to have that human
interaction where we're all looking at our phones and this
is a product that out really starts conversations. And that's
what that brick and mortar experience does, is you're you're
actually living it and you're not just reading it online.
(24:40):
And so I think it does really matter about what
the product is and if it can grow in brick
and mortar versus just an e comm Can.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I ask you, Lisa, this is coming from a guy
who knows nothing about retail, but just out of curiosity,
is what's easier to maintain or run? Is it e
commerce or is it the the brick and mortar?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Maybe there's no easier I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I think just doing one or the other, okay, you know,
Like for us, and I think a lot of people
don't understand, is we are essentially running three separate businesses
at any one time. We have an entire manufacturing division
of the company, which is very you know, having not
done it before and learning potentially sometimes all the wrong
ways to do things before the right way. It was
(25:23):
definitely a trial and air that is like a whole
entire division of the company, and then brick and mortar
and e comm and then we also saw wholesale. So
all of those different entities essentially have a different set
of what makes them tick.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And so I would say.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
One or the other, but like a lot of companies
are really growing with both because they really they help
each other grow. For instance, all of our retail stores,
you see a halo effect that really happens.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
We're the omni channel.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They're actually going online and purchasing for a second time.
So our core customers are really omni channel. They're going
to both locations.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Have their thoughts and maybe you have Sorry if I
missed this, but do you have thoughts on like QVC
and going on those type of shows the Home Shopping Network?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Would you do that?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, we do it again. It was a great way
for us to be able to tell our story. I
think that the QBC really emphasized value, and we have
a American assemble product, so sometimes a lot of people
resonate with it and sometimes people don't.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
And that's I think the nice thing.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
About our company is there's a little bit of something
for everybody. Our primary mission is supporting military spouses, and
so we really believe in how we can do that,
whether it's a give back model and being able to
give back to them.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Starting their own business. We give a grant twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
To multiple times a year to be able to help
a military spouse start their own business. That was the
same amount that Cameron and I put on a credit
card in order to start ours. We have someone who
had done that back in those days. Then we went
to broken all the business roles of putting things on credit,
so we would just want to give back and.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Be able to help. We're at one point we would have, yeah,
needed it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Can I just add that some of the most successful
people I know, and now you I can add to
that list, knew nothing about the business they were getting
it at all, especially the manufacturing. But yet somehow they're
just so successful now. And I guess I have to
ask you how did you do it?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Did you just did you learn as you go? Are
you a research person? I'm just fascinated by the manufacturing part,
especially you knew nothing in it.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Nothing, Yeah, Google, I googled the business is essentially what happened.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
But before AI could suggest to you, yeah, a list.
I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, but you know, eventually you reach a point where
we're bringing in industry professionals like really helps the company grow.
So if you can survive and you can grow and
cash flow off of your your lack of knowledge and something,
but you have you have a purpose, you have a
marketable product, and then you can get through those early
stages and then bring in those those industry experts. That's
(28:00):
really where the lightning can be let out of the bottle.
And that's really what happened for us. We were growing
for ten years. We used essentially the infrastructure that I
put into place, and then we brought in actually in
twenty twenty three, an expert through a company called Florida Makes.
It's a grant that we actually received, and they came
(28:20):
in and completely overhauled how we were doing our manufacturing
and it just really helped us with how we were
investing our cash into things. How throughout the year our
cash into inventory was just more useful and more efficient,
and it was really such a fascinating thing to go through.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So you did you just open your store in Granville then,
or is it officially opened.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Now, we did our soft opening earlier this month and
we actually have our grand opening and it's a very
exciting actually launch as well with a really special foundation.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Well please tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, So we are doing a collaboration with the night
Bird Foundation. Jane went on America's Got Talent and she
was such a phenomenal individual that really just had such
an inspirational message. Actually when she was on the show,
they just talk so much about her authenticity and we
really believe that doing this collaboration with our riveter really
(29:17):
was able to really honor her authenticity because we're both
out there really trying to help women in today's age.
And so we have a product line that is giving
back to her foundation and it's just a beautiful product
with edge paint that's pink and then also her logo
which is a night bird and so just a beautiful
product collaboration that we're launching on September twenty fifth at
(29:40):
Cedar and Thread in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
That's amazing, By the way, how did that start? Did
you did you just reach out to the foundation and say, hey,
we'd love to do something with you, or how did
that work?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And I think that's the beauty of being part of
a small community.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Is Actually her foundation is near us in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
She's originally from Sainesville, and so just by the.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Threads of life we get stitched together and be able
to do amazing things together.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
By the way, saw the Instagram posts that you have made.
It looks like it looks like a fun place to
be as far as product goes, got a lot of
product in there. We walk into our riveter, what are
we going to see?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
So walk in again. That smell of leather just hits you.
And then just being able to tell stories. You know,
it's not uncommon to go down there and people are crying,
which I think is it's a great way to be
able to remember.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
People in our family that have served and I'm so
proud of them.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And no matter like what you believe, there's this an
amazing group of people that have to support the ones
that go and sometimes don't come home.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And yeah, that's really what we're honoring at our river.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I love that. By the way, a friend of mine
showed me some of your first responder shirts. Do you
still have those?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Okay, I need to buy one of those.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So do you know we really believe in service.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, so first responders and we actually just launched those
on September eleventh.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Oh great, great, great, I will be looking at those.
I will definitely get one. By the way, so with
Cedar and Thread is above you? Is that right in
the same building?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Correct? Yep? Out in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I heard that woman runs a tight ship.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So no, it's really amazing to be with another woman
owned company. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, like be able to I went in there and
got closed for a business event.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
It's nice to be able to to.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Pop in there and know that what you need is
there and someone's already done the work, which is really
just making women's lives easier.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
That's what we're all setting out to do.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. Well, look before, because
I don't want to forget this again. The very special event,
the grand opening. When is that again?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
September twenty fifth, that's next Thursday in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Okay, Thread oh open all day the hours, do you know?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
The all day? And then the event is later in
the evening at six o'clock.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Okay. And website for our riveter.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Our riveter dot com. Remember Rosie the.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Riveter, super super easy. Lisa Bradley, thank you so much
for your time. Big thanks, mad respect for you military
spouses everywhere who are a part of our riveter and
of course your husband as well. Is he still serving
by the way.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
He's actually a transitioned out and it's a veteran now.
So I get to have the honor being a veteran
military spouse and thank you for having me. You know,
it's amazing to be able to have the forum, to
be able to tell our story and really support military
families through this.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I just think he was, Oh my gosh, it's it's
our pleasure and congratulations on all your success. Great story.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
CEOs You Should Know is hosted and produced by Brandon Boxer,
a production of iHeartMedia Columbus
Columbus in Central Ohio have a rich history of companies
being headquartered here, everything from technology, manufacturing, retail, insurance, and more.
But what about the leaders behind these companies? What makes
them tick? How do they get their start? This is
where you get to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know and iHeartMedia Columbus Podcast.
(00:20):
Welcome back to another episode of CEOs You Should Know
and iHeart Media Columbus Podcast. I am Boxer and this
week's guest is someone who, well, let me just say,
I can always get behind because they have everything to
do with military. Military families are veterans, those who currently serve,
those who have served. I want to welcome the CEO
(00:41):
of Our Riveter and co founder, Lisa Bradley. Maddy would
call her a trailblazer. Maybe you saw her in the
past on Shark Tank, but she is in studio with
us today. Lisa, good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I'm so excited to tell more about our story and
really be able to tell more about what we do.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Absolutely, well, why don't we go there? Firstly, so what
is our Riveter?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So our Riveter is a handbag company on a mission.
We really started back really out of necessity to military
spouses couldn't find work, we moved. At that point, I
had moved four times with my husband, Wow, and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Know what it was going to be like to be
a military spouse. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In the first couple months of being married to him,
everybody kept calling me a dependent. I thought that was
really kind of a strange word that the military used
to refer to spouses and children, you know, But after
two more moves, I really did start to feel very
dependent because all the military moves, you really can get
lost in not having a community of your own and
(01:39):
moving frequently, and so we really set out to bring
independence back to military spouses.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You just brought up something that I had never thought
about before, and that is now, obviously, you know, the
spouse tends to be, you know, the the glue when
it comes to a military family. But something I didn't realize, Lisa, is,
you know, when it comes to just trying to get
a job, you're moving so often that's probably difficult to
get to obtain right.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Absolutely, every interview I went into, they could just see
my resume and it just screamed military spouse because it
was so fragmented and to be able to see them
kind of check you off the list because of your
multimilitary moves. Really, we said, enough is enough. Somebody needs
to do something about this because military spouses are resourceful
(02:26):
and they're tough, and they have such an amazing skill
set that they can bring to businesses. And so no
one at the time it was twenty eleven and there
wasn't a lot of work from home opportunities. Yeah, most
of them were direct sales and you really have to
leverage your friends and family, and so we wanted a
different type of work from home opportunity.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So that launched our Riveter.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
At least Bradley is with us. She's the co founder
and CEO of our Riveter. It's based in North Carolina, right,
but your store is actually in Granville that you have correct?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Correct? Yeah, so we don't really have a place where
a country.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Our military spouses, which I'll get into how the model works,
is across the country. And actually the first physical location
is now located near me in Granville, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
We have a shop and.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Shop concept and Cedar Thread and it's so amazing for
me who's moved thirteen times to finally have a little
piece of the company physically located near me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well, Lisa, let's go back in time the CEOs. You
should know time travel machine.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Here.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Where did you grow up? We're born raised.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, raised in Montana, which I think was a big
part of me becoming a CEO. I was raised by
entrepreneurs and knew the up and down lifestyle of having
your own business, and I always wanted to have my
own business. But as soon as I met my husband
and really married him in the Army, I quickly found
out that it was going to be very difficult to
have a business that moves with you. Yeah, a lot
(03:51):
of times you have a set group of customers that
follow your business. And I really started wondering, maybe I'm
not gonna be able to have my own dream of
having my own business. And so really that mentality of
growing up in a small location at rural location really
built that needed me to solve my own problems and
(04:12):
really became a problem solver. So in twenty eleven, after
four military moves and military spouses really struggling, every military
spouse I talked to said, you know, I applied for
this job.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I didn't get it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
My co founder, who ended up being my co funder,
was going through the same situation where we both had
degrees but no one would hire us. And so that's
really where we said, enough is enough. Let's create a
business model that supports and hires other military spouses. So
we didn't know what we wanted to make, we knew
our mission, we knew we wanted to hire other military spouses,
(04:46):
and so we came up with a distributed manufacturing line.
I just read a book by Frederick Smith, the founder
of FedEx, and he had this idea in college where
he was going to ship things in the opposite direction
that they needed to go to in order to have
an efficient system. And I thought, you know, maybe sometimes
we just have to think outside of the box. And
so we actually are shipping parts and pieces to military
(05:07):
spouses wherever the military takes them as part of our handbags,
and then they ship it back to us where we assemble,
assemble them and then send them out to our customers.
So that idea from day one existed. The only place
that we could find a shop to open was in
her attic. And I tell the joke about low overhead,
but it really did have low overhead because it was
(05:27):
such a small space, and we started stitching handbags that day.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Amazing, Lisa, Yes, I'm hearing your story, which, by the way,
I knew it was going to be fascinating, and I
purposely didn't want to do too much research because I
wanted to be surprised by some of this stuff. So
in that retrospect when it comes to the beginning stages,
was there ever a doubt on getting other military spouses
(05:54):
on board with this with because that's one of the
keys to the secret sauce here.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Right, No, there was never a doubt, just because you know,
the first military meeting it's called Nefforgi, it's actually where
my co founder there was just the same story over
and over again about so excited to get their first
job in this duty station, and then the next time
I meet them, you know, just disappointment sets in where
there's just no way you're gonna be able to find
even a part time job. And so really the doubt was,
(06:22):
you know, our family members, our husbands were like, you
barely know this girl, you're going to start a business
with her, and we said, you know, we need to.
It's about solving a problem. And so the first day
we met each other, we said, hey, would you want
to start a business with me? And at the time,
Cameron Cruise co founder, she was she has a degree
in architecture, so she's very good at construction and she
(06:46):
was making baby booties at the time, and I was like, man,
baby booties don't have enough parts and pieces for us
to send across the country. So that's when the idea
of handbags came along. And I think that hanmdbags is
a woman's choice of what she's going to carry each
day to set out on her mission. And that's really
why we wanted to go with handbags, because you're really
picking up a whole entire story, a whole entire group
(07:08):
of women that you're supporting every time you pick up
an our Ritter handbag, and so it needed to carry
that mission. It needed to carry that story, which is
why we ultimately landed on handbags.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I have many questions about the pieces and the assembly.
We'll get to that in just a second. But what
came first the concept or the name.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Right, So the concept came first, and then I went
traveling for a week. I came back to Cameron with
a list of really awful names, but one of them
I still have the list. Yeah, Yellow Ribbon Majesty was
one of them, which is awful.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But she looked at our riveter.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And she said, what's that? And I said, you know,
I love the World War two generation. They are the
greatest generation, agree, you know, just the backbone of America.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I really wanted to be able to bridge the.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Generations in a way and be able to tell that story.
And Rosy's riveter, she didn't just stand on the sidelines.
She jumped in right the country needed her. And in fact,
you would say that women played a huge part in
winning that war. They absolutely the planes, the ammunition really
played a huge part in that war. And we kind
of felt that we were doing the same things we were,
(08:22):
although we weren't the ones that said the pledge to
fight for the country.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
We are serving in our own way. We're not wearing
the uniform.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The military spouses are really that unsung hero who keeps
everything going on the home front. And so we really
wanted to be able to honor military spouses and be
able to honor really the legacy of Rosie the Riter.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I love that. And by the way, side, note, I
think there needs to be more stories documentaries told about
what women did, especially in World War Two. We would
not be here without them and the backbone, whether it
was here or some of the special units overseas and
Germany or Germany, but obviously Europe. So it's fascinating to
(09:04):
learn all this. I'm a history geek, so just to.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Usually I've had the opportunity to meet original Rosie Riveters,
and I mean, we're wow, there's not very many left
obviously just the timetime, but to just hear some of
their stories and a lot of times they didn't even
know what they were going to be in the end
making and they just one step in front of the other,
just whatever they needed to do to help the country.
And I just think that that is such an amazing
thing that if we can tell those stories in a
(09:30):
way that the next generation can actually hear and resonate with, Yeah, like,
then I am doing one good thing for our country.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So, Lisa, you always had this entrepreneur spirit, but did
you know anything about assembling manufacturing? When you put this together?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Have no idea, And I think sometimes you have to
go in with ignorance to be able to really create
something outside of the box.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I actually got fired from sewing very early on.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
We were you know, we started were It took us
two weeks to handstitch a vegetan leather top kit, which
my husband still uses today. But I looked at Cameron
and I said, we can't do this. It takes us
way too long to make on one handbag. Sure, so
we went out and we bought a old sewing machine
that I'm pretty sure Roses Riveter probably used. It was
that old, but it was all we could afford, and
(10:19):
we did what all business books tell you not to do,
which is put it on a credit card, and so
we brought it home. Of course, our husbands were gone,
because that's you know, how the military works. But even
if they were home, I think that we went to
vask for their help because.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We were Hecker high Water. We were going to do
this ourselves.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And so of course the only place we could really
set up shop was her attic. So we went to
the corner of her garage and we saw some five
fifty cord. It's used in the military a lot, and
it's called five fifty cord because they can they can
buy weight carry five hundred and fifty pounds We're like, well, oh, okay, I.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Probably get it up into the attic.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So we rigged up a Pulley system and we brought
it that really old sewing machine up into the attic
and it was our first week at work. So like
just some amazing memories of just grit and making it
work with very little.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I want to talk about Shark Tank, but before we
get to that, Lisa, was before Shark Tank came along
and you were on the show. Where were you at?
Where were things right?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So I lived in the same town as Cameron for
nine months, and then my husband transitioned out to a
different location, and so we were really only together for
just a short amount of time. And she took on
production at that point, and then I moved and took
on all the other things from from the business standpoint,
which mentioned I sewed up pocket upside down, and she
(11:39):
looked at me and said, when the customer came in
and said, I love my handbag, but this pocket is
upside down, it doesn't really work all that well, she
looked at me and she said, you need to get
to your side of the business, which is marketing, you know,
all the accounting and really running the business. Which was
a really good division of task for us. But it
was about that timeframe where my family yet again at
(12:00):
another move. We're at thirteen total at this point, but
we just started growing the handbag business one handbag at
a time. So we made seven to make twenty. We
reinvested the profits of that to make thirty, and so
on and so forth, until it was really not a
hobby company anymore. We had military spouses that were joining
(12:20):
our team, and it really our mission was growing. And
that's about the time that the opportunity to go on
Chart take a rised.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Did you apply for that? To apply to be on
the show? How did that work?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
You know?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
We did a Kickstarter video and I believe that one
of the producers saw that, and so the opportunity just
kind of presented itself, and we kind of were at
this crossroads of do we do it or not? And
when you're growing a business, the last thing you say
is no, you know, you have to put yourself out there.
I had a huge public speaking fear.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Really you're so good?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
During college when I had a public speaking of course,
the professor literally suggested that I go on medication because exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Medication because what is that profession? Right now?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Look back, I like what I think, but that's just
I think that it's a good representation of the hurdles
that are in front of you and you have to
get through them in order to grow. So we said,
you know, we just have to confront whatever fears we
have in doing this.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I said, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
That's amazing. So you get the call to be on
Shark Tank. What was going through your mind? Were you
even thinking of saying no?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You know I when when the producer called and he
said I am from Shark Tank, I was like, yeah,
and I'm Bear Bradley right and about because truly, you know,
really a producers from Shark Tank's calling. And then when
it really came to like, wow, this really is a
producer from Shark Tank. Really tried to like sound like
I had all all the things together and that we
were ready to go. But we we really prepped for
(13:51):
a long time. You know, you don't go on national
television and in front of America's best business leaders and
not know all your numbers. So we took months and
months to prep. We did mock tanks with our accountants.
My husband just finished grad school and he was the
worst shark we ever went against.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He was brutal.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
He completely wrecked my co founder and I but I'm
so thankful for the effort that he took and helping
us for the tank. And then we did our final
mock tank with a group of investors amazing, and we
went in there. They asked us a ton of questions.
We I mean, we knew everything down to what a
rivet cost and had all of our our scales of
(14:32):
how much of the company we would give away and
what we thought was completely prepped. And at the end
they said, well, anybody that would invest in this company,
please raise your hands, and no one raised their hand,
and we were about ready to go and film, and
we're like, dang, like, why wouldn't you invest in us?
And they're like, we don't really like your scaling plan.
(14:52):
And at the time, we were going to have retail
stores across the country and then the production was going
to be attached to each retail store, and they said,
there's no way that you'll be able to afford to
have that many production facilities and just the amount of
inventory that needs to be at each location. And now
looking back, they were completely right. We have one production
facility which is actually located in Florida where all the
(15:15):
parts and pieces up that the military spouses make, which
is textile pieces get sent to. But really what that
meant was that I had to re memorize all the numbers,
which was terrifying for me. So when kind of redid
everything and re memorized all of the scaling plans and
then we went and filmed in two weeks and we
(15:35):
completely knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's amazing. And for those that don't know, which celeb
investor that's on the show agreed to investigation.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, we got three offers, same offers, but we went
with Mark Cuban, and yeah, we're really glad that we did.
He is an amazing partner and I say that he's
the most efficient emailer ever, Like we email and he's
been just any time we have a question, he's the
one on the other side.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Just absolutely they're willing to help and advise.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mark himself very accessible, Yeah, very accessible. That is so
awesome to hear even to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, he's still an advisor to the company and he
I think he genuinely really cared about what we were
doing and how to grow, and it wasn't so much
about profits and really the what most investors really like,
push and a lot of stress.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
He was never like that as an investor.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
He just really truly cared about what we were doing
and how we were giving back to military spouses.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Can and I don't know if you can answer this,
but I've read that some that go on Shark Tank
have complained later on that they feel like they're shackled
down because of the show or because of who maybe
invested in them. Can you debunk that at all and
say that you've not had that?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Okay, it was one of the best things we ever did.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I mean really just from the standpoint of being able
to tell our story to an Asia that wanted to
good story. They wanted to know that you can still
do something from nothing in America, and you can have
a dream and you can really set out and change
people's lives. And that's exactly what that show did for us.
We were able to tell our story.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
That's amazing. So you wrap up a Shark Tank considering
remembering where you were before Shark Tank. Post Shark Tank,
how vacillated things change for you.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Unbelievably, we sold more in one night than we did
by double the whole previous year in sales.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So it was just an unbelievable story of growth and scaling.
And we were a team of military spouses that didn't
know anything about production, so we just a lot of
it was just grit and not giving up.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And America was great.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
They knew that they weren't just buying the traditional Shark
Tank product that's just bought overseas lands and gets shipped out.
They're buying a handmade product which is literally shipping across
the country and back to be able to eventually make
it to their door. And they were very patient and
they just knew what we were behind the scenes doing.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
There is there is something special there. First of all,
when when it is handmade, when when there are humans involved,
it makes it extra special. But then of course the story,
when you find the story behind our riveter makes it
even more special. So who wouldn't want to investor buy
product from that?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I think that in today's world, you just don't know
what's really behind products. Of course, you know, like now
we have our signature line which is still made the
exact same way that we took on Shark Tank where
the liners are made by military spouses and they sew
them on home sewing machines and then ship them back
to us.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And really not a category of American made.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is that we're just like our own category, because nobody
would do that and nobody would spend the money on
shipping like we do to be able to provide those jobs.
We also have a giveback model where we help military
spouses start and grow their own products, which we think
is the ultimate form of flexibility is really being your
own entrepreneur. Yeah, and so we we really found in
today's post twenty twenty world that military spouses need support
(19:11):
in a lot of different ways, and so we try
and do that through our different product lines.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Lis So what, I'm sure there are many things, but
what is one thing that stands out that you learn
from mister Cuban?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Hm?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
You know, I think that he really really pushed that
we can do it without a lot of help, and
that if we just keep looking inward and staying true
to what we were set out to do, that we
don't need help from a lot of different and different
advisors or groups. You know, I think when we signed
(19:45):
up for Shark Tank, we thought we were going to
get a lot of different entities kind of coming in
and helping us. And in the end, we said, you know,
we need to look inward and really stay true to
what is our mission and how do we want to grow?
And we over the years we've really just kept that
very focused view of.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Where we're going and how we're going to grow.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, tell us paint a picture for us about how
this works with the process of let's just take a
handbag for example, because I want to get to the
products that you have and something very special that I
know you have coming up with one of your new
collection coming. But how does it work with you have
(20:27):
military spouses from all over the country. Is that right? Assembling?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Correct? Yep?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
So we actually have multiple product lines. Okay, one of
them we still make out of recycled military materials. So
that's what we took on Shark Tank.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so's it's a really really amazing part of bridging
the generation. So we'll take an era of the military
and those uniforms from that era and then we make
a it's called Limit Edition if.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
You search for it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And so those are actually from upcycle materials and we
actually just did a collaboration with the Women's Marine Corps
where we took thirty uniforms that were thirty women that
actually served in World War Two and we.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Actually had all thirty uniforms, which.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Was just an amazing piece of history, and where to
turn those into handbags. So that's our limited edition line,
our signature line if you search. That is where the
parts and pieces go out to military spouses across the country.
So we send kits out to them where they're able
to make essentially a liner bucket and then it drops
inside the handbag that we assemble in Florida, and that's
(21:26):
where you can see all the riveter numbers of the
individual that stamps each piece that they make.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
So starts out on.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
All four corners of our country, huh on military near
military bases wherever the military spouses are located. And then
those are added to stamps of our employees who are
assembling the products. And so it's a really amazing kind
of second wave of a modern Rosy the Riveter.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, all coming together of.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Parts and pieces coming in and then coming into a
factory where we're still assembling here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So Lisa, everything, if I'm hearing your right, every gets
assembled in Florida the end resulted and finished it. How
did geographically speaking, how did you decide on Florida? How
did you decide that should be where everything gets assembled?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That was kind of just a by happen chance.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We were assembling everything in North Carolina and then during
COVID we had a massive PO with QBC and the
state of North Carolina was shutting down. Oh, we had
a PO that was half made and we didn't think
we were going to get to finish it. So we
found a company that we bought all their machinery and
moved down to Florida during that timeframe. So wow, literally
(22:33):
just by happen chance that we ended up down there.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's amazing. So you you owned this plant in Florida,
then you yep, Wow, that's that's incredible. In this day
and age of brick and mortar versus e commerce, I
mean clearly, places like Amazon of course, have shown us
that e commerce can be very successful. You kind of
did the same thing, didn't you. You started with e
(22:57):
commerce and started.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
With e commerce, and then eventually the retail store really
happened again out of chance where we needed a place
out of Cameron's attic essentially women or mintary spaces were
picking up pieces and her husband's like, we've got to
get a physical location for our roter and so, you know,
it's a scary I'm sure a lot of business owners
(23:20):
go through that, where like you've got to put the
money into a brick and mortar and really taking the
chance of that cash flow going towards that. And it
was one of the best things we ever did, was
that first retail store. And it's still in Southern Pines,
North Carolina today and where brick and mortar might be
really a thing of the past for a lot of companies,
for us, it's just growing because to be able to
(23:42):
come in physically and be able to hear how the
company is changing and helping lives, and then see the
products in person. It's just it's an experience that they
really helps you walk in and it smells like leather,
like that experience that you still you still want to have,
You still want to have that tangible experience.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Do you think it depends on the business when first
of all, so refreshing to hear that you believe in
brick and mortar, But does it depend on the product
and the business on who should be in brick and
mortar still or.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I think so it's.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
You know, for us, it's that story that goes along
with it, and so being able to have that human
interaction where we're all looking at our phones and this
is a product that out really starts conversations. And that's
what that brick and mortar experience does, is you're you're
actually living it and you're not just reading it online.
(24:40):
And so I think it does really matter about what
the product is and if it can grow in brick
and mortar versus just an e comm Can.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I ask you, Lisa, this is coming from a guy
who knows nothing about retail, but just out of curiosity,
is what's easier to maintain or run? Is it e
commerce or is it the the brick and mortar?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Maybe there's no easier I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
I think just doing one or the other, okay, you know,
Like for us, and I think a lot of people
don't understand, is we are essentially running three separate businesses
at any one time. We have an entire manufacturing division
of the company, which is very you know, having not
done it before and learning potentially sometimes all the wrong
ways to do things before the right way. It was
(25:23):
definitely a trial and air that is like a whole
entire division of the company, and then brick and mortar
and e comm and then we also saw wholesale. So
all of those different entities essentially have a different set
of what makes them tick.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And so I would say.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
One or the other, but like a lot of companies
are really growing with both because they really they help
each other grow. For instance, all of our retail stores,
you see a halo effect that really happens.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
We're the omni channel.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They're actually going online and purchasing for a second time.
So our core customers are really omni channel. They're going
to both locations.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Have their thoughts and maybe you have Sorry if I
missed this, but do you have thoughts on like QVC
and going on those type of shows the Home Shopping Network?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Would you do that?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, we do it again. It was a great way
for us to be able to tell our story. I
think that the QBC really emphasized value, and we have
a American assemble product, so sometimes a lot of people
resonate with it and sometimes people don't.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
And that's I think the nice thing.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
About our company is there's a little bit of something
for everybody. Our primary mission is supporting military spouses, and
so we really believe in how we can do that,
whether it's a give back model and being able to
give back to them.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Starting their own business. We give a grant twenty.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
To multiple times a year to be able to help
a military spouse start their own business. That was the
same amount that Cameron and I put on a credit
card in order to start ours. We have someone who
had done that back in those days. Then we went
to broken all the business roles of putting things on credit,
so we would just want to give back and.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Be able to help. We're at one point we would have, yeah,
needed it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Can I just add that some of the most successful
people I know, and now you I can add to
that list, knew nothing about the business they were getting
it at all, especially the manufacturing. But yet somehow they're
just so successful now. And I guess I have to
ask you how did you do it?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Did you just did you learn as you go? Are
you a research person? I'm just fascinated by the manufacturing part,
especially you knew nothing in it.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Nothing, Yeah, Google, I googled the business is essentially what happened.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
But before AI could suggest to you, yeah, a list.
I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, but you know, eventually you reach a point where
we're bringing in industry professionals like really helps the company grow.
So if you can survive and you can grow and
cash flow off of your your lack of knowledge and something,
but you have you have a purpose, you have a
marketable product, and then you can get through those early
stages and then bring in those those industry experts. That's
(28:00):
really where the lightning can be let out of the bottle.
And that's really what happened for us. We were growing
for ten years. We used essentially the infrastructure that I
put into place, and then we brought in actually in
twenty twenty three, an expert through a company called Florida Makes.
It's a grant that we actually received, and they came
(28:20):
in and completely overhauled how we were doing our manufacturing
and it just really helped us with how we were
investing our cash into things. How throughout the year our
cash into inventory was just more useful and more efficient,
and it was really such a fascinating thing to go through.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So you did you just open your store in Granville then,
or is it officially opened.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Now, we did our soft opening earlier this month and
we actually have our grand opening and it's a very
exciting actually launch as well with a really special foundation.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Well please tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, So we are doing a collaboration with the night
Bird Foundation. Jane went on America's Got Talent and she
was such a phenomenal individual that really just had such
an inspirational message. Actually when she was on the show,
they just talk so much about her authenticity and we
really believe that doing this collaboration with our riveter really
(29:17):
was able to really honor her authenticity because we're both
out there really trying to help women in today's age.
And so we have a product line that is giving
back to her foundation and it's just a beautiful product
with edge paint that's pink and then also her logo
which is a night bird and so just a beautiful
product collaboration that we're launching on September twenty fifth at
(29:40):
Cedar and Thread in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
That's amazing, By the way, how did that start? Did
you did you just reach out to the foundation and say, hey,
we'd love to do something with you, or how did
that work?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And I think that's the beauty of being part of
a small community.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Is Actually her foundation is near us in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
She's originally from Sainesville, and so just by the.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Threads of life we get stitched together and be able
to do amazing things together.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
By the way, saw the Instagram posts that you have made.
It looks like it looks like a fun place to
be as far as product goes, got a lot of
product in there. We walk into our riveter, what are
we going to see?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
So walk in again. That smell of leather just hits you.
And then just being able to tell stories. You know,
it's not uncommon to go down there and people are crying,
which I think is it's a great way to be
able to remember.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
People in our family that have served and I'm so
proud of them.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And no matter like what you believe, there's this an
amazing group of people that have to support the ones
that go and sometimes don't come home.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And yeah, that's really what we're honoring at our river.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I love that. By the way, a friend of mine
showed me some of your first responder shirts. Do you
still have those?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Okay, I need to buy one of those.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So do you know we really believe in service.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, so first responders and we actually just launched those
on September eleventh.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Oh great, great, great, I will be looking at those.
I will definitely get one. By the way, so with
Cedar and Thread is above you? Is that right in
the same building?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Correct? Yep? Out in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I heard that woman runs a tight ship.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So no, it's really amazing to be with another woman
owned company. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, like be able to I went in there and
got closed for a business event.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
It's nice to be able to to.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Pop in there and know that what you need is
there and someone's already done the work, which is really
just making women's lives easier.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
That's what we're all setting out to do.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. Well, look before, because
I don't want to forget this again. The very special event,
the grand opening. When is that again?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
September twenty fifth, that's next Thursday in Grandville, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Okay, Thread oh open all day the hours, do you know?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
The all day? And then the event is later in
the evening at six o'clock.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Okay. And website for our riveter.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Our riveter dot com. Remember Rosie the.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Riveter, super super easy. Lisa Bradley, thank you so much
for your time. Big thanks, mad respect for you military
spouses everywhere who are a part of our riveter and
of course your husband as well. Is he still serving
by the way.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
He's actually a transitioned out and it's a veteran now.
So I get to have the honor being a veteran
military spouse and thank you for having me. You know,
it's amazing to be able to have the forum, to
be able to tell our story and really support military
families through this.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I just think he was, Oh my gosh, it's it's
our pleasure and congratulations on all your success. Great story.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
CEOs You Should Know is hosted and produced by Brandon Boxer,
a production of iHeartMedia Columbus
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