The secret to success isn't about scaling at all costs—it's about still loving what you do 5, 10, 15 years in.
In this episode, I sit down with Nate DeMars, the founder of Pursuit, a Columbus-based custom suit shop that started as a project in business school—and turned into a purpose-driven brand that suits people for life’s biggest moments.
But this isn’t your typical startup story. Nate doesn’t chase venture capital, viral growth, or Shark Tank glory. Instead, he’s built a business on intention, integrity, and the wild idea that staying true to yourself might actually be the best strategy of all.
We talk about what happens when your business starts to drift from your values, and how Nate course-corrected to build something that aligns with who he really is. Think: partnerships with the Columbus Crew, indie bands playing in the storefront, and a suit donation program that’s changing lives.
Nate also gets real about navigating entrepreneurship in a dual-career household, the pressure to say yes to every “good” opportunity, and why going all in on community is the best marketing tactic in your toolbox.
Nate’s story might just be the permission slip you’ve been waiting for—the one that says it’s okay to build a business that aligns with your passions, your lifestyle, and your definition of success.
#TheKeriCroftShow #Entrepreneurship #PursuitSuitStore #ColumbusOhio #StartupStories #FounderLife
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there you beautiful badass.
Welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
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You're welcome Out there.
That I wear is usually hers,like the Jacquard.
I don't know if you've seen theJacquard.
You would appreciate theJacquard jacket.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The word Jacquard does not get used in my presence
very often, unless it's ussaying it, so I appreciate that
you know what that word is, nate.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
DeMars, welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thanks for having me, you know, you're just a
handsome guy, but the suitlevels you up a little bit.
Yeah, I find that I'm often themost overdressed in the
audience, wherever I am.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I mean when you're, when you're selling suits, you
know, but as you say, you knowit's so much more than suits,
like, if you think it's justsuits, you're missing the point.
Yeah, so let's just kick it offwith, like what.
I love to hear the entrepreneurpitch because everybody's so
passionate about what they'redoing.
Sure, so give it to me, likefirst time, where I'm like what
is this pursuits that you'respeaking of?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, I've said from the beginning, there's millions
of places you can buy suits, andthe world didn't really need
another one when we started in2011.
So, you know, what we think isspecial is that when people come
to us, it's typically for somemajor milestone moment in their
life.
They're excited to dress forwhatever the biggest thing
perhaps they've ever done is,and our job is to help prepare
(02:29):
them for that.
So, certainly, the clothing isthe medium that we use, but we
get to work with people who dothe most interesting, powerful,
creative things in the city, andit just kind of allows us to
bring that perspective to all ofour other customers too.
So when you work with thousandsand thousands of people who are
all doing really amazing stuff,it just helps you.
(02:51):
With people who are, you know,they're nervous about the thing
they're about to do, you canhelp them feel confident in how
they're going to dress.
But more so, just hey, we knowhow this goes, because this is
what we do every day, and theywalk out the door feeling
excited about whatever they'regoing to do.
That's special.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Do you think?
I know that you discovered thiscame about from your
entrepreneur class, right, butgoing way back to when you were
a wee boy and you would see yourgreat grandpa and he would come
up to the table with his suiton, and then your grandma and
your aunt or as I like to say,aunt, your auntie they made
(03:27):
wedding dresses.
So this was very much steepedin kind of the history of who
you are and subconsciously yousaw this.
How much did that play into allof a sudden in your mind in
that class you're like, oh bingo, there it is, it's all.
It all just came together.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
No, it really didn't.
So I think I'm a businessperson.
That's how I see myself, andwhen I first launched Pursuit,
we were focused on a college guy.
That was the avenue we weregoing down.
Our store was on campus.
I really did not write abusiness plan that included
weddings.
So it was many years, a fewyears at least, into the
(04:06):
business, before I was like, ohwow, this is what my family did
I'm dressing grooms andgroomsmen primarily and it's
like, oh wow, I'm in the weddingbusiness.
But it didn't occur to me untila couple years into the
business.
So, subconsciously, I'm sure itdid.
My great-grandfather, my parents, were super young when they had
me, which means he was arounduntil I was 18.
I got to be very close with him.
He was from a generation wherejust wearing a sport coat around
(04:31):
town when you're a retiredperson was a typical thing to do
.
So I think trying on hisclothes and when he would let me
take whatever vintage thingsout of his closet I had an
interest in fashion.
Let me take whatever vintagethings out of his closet.
I had an interest in fashion.
But I don't think if you askedthe people in my world in 2011,
(04:52):
like, what type of businesswould Nate start.
I don't know that fashion wouldhave come from anybody's mouth,
because that's not necessarilywhat I was.
I will say I was best dressedAshland High School class of
2001 in northern Wisconsin andthat's like the only fashion
resume thing I had when Istarted the company.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That's funny.
And so you were super closewith your great grandpa, to the
extent that they asked you to dohis eulogy just at the ripe age
of 18.
Yeah, Do you?
I mean you have to rememberthat like it was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, that's, that's become this weird but really
special thing that I've gottento do.
I was close with him and Ithink nobody else in my family,
you know, was super eager to getup and speak.
I think there's a littledistance when it's your
great-grandfather, when you losesomebody, than if it's your
parent or something like that.
So, yeah, I was asked to speak,I did it and it was just a
(05:44):
really special thing to get to,you know, talk to your family
about what was special abouttheir relationship with that
person, and then to feel likeyou know, this is your chance to
like, honor somebody you knowin a way that's like, you know,
hopefully encapsulates theirlife Like anything else in life.
I did it, I think, because I wasyoung.
People thought it was great.
I don't know that it wasactually good, but I was young
(06:05):
enough where they were like, oh,the bar is low and you exceeded
it.
So then now, every timesomebody in my family has a
funeral, it's become the thingthat I do.
In fact, I just in January didthat same thing for my
grandmother hit that.
Same my great grandfather'sdaughter, the one who made the
wedding dresses.
I did that for her as well.
Same my great-grandfather'sdaughter, the one who made the
(06:26):
wedding dresses.
I did that for her as well.
So it's kind of a weird thingon my resume is that I speak at
funerals.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, maybe you could like parlay that into you.
Know marrying people too.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
If I stick around at Pursuit long enough, it went
from selling college studentstheir first suit to doing
wedding suits.
Now we've kind of moved on to,you know, more of a grown-up
crowd getting their clothing forwork and important events.
So I think you know, at somepoint funerals will start to
become a bigger chunk of what wedo.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Fantastic.
What's one thing that you canlook back on, though, with your
great-grandpa and, whether yousaid it or not in the eulogy
like what's one thing you carrywith you where you're like.
I want to make sure I do this.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, so we have a family cabin in northern
Wisconsin that he bought in like1962.
My dad was just a little kidand that has kind of been a
place for my family to gather,like all of my aunts and cousins
and everything spent theweekends there together.
So we had this very much of aclan type of family that was
(07:24):
together all the time and hewould be sitting there.
He had macular degeneration sohe was legally blind the whole
time.
I knew him.
He was, you know, kind ofshuffled and was very much an
old man the whole time I knewhim.
But he would sit in his chair atthe cabin full of people and
just tell stories, and likestories of an era that you know
I'm sure his daughter would kindof roll her eyes I've heard
(07:46):
these stories for 50, 60 yearsat this point but it was like
talking about an era that youknow was so foreign to all the
young kids and he's just anamazing storyteller.
So I think you know, I alwayshave hoped to be able to, you
know, tell interesting storieslike he does, and I don't know
there's a history to that.
Like keeping the history aliveseemed like kind of part of his
(08:08):
thing.
He'd talk about the heyday ofDuluth, when the Great Lakes
were like the most booming placeand Duluth was this city full
of all these wealthy folks thatwere shipping and logging and
mining and all these things thatare like very early 1900s.
And so I don't know, I justthink, being around, that I see
a lot of that in my dad.
You know, skips a generationMaybe.
(08:28):
I see a lot of that in my dadand he's kind of now become the
historian and the one who tellsthe stories about all the
history of everything around.
And it's kind of funny to seebecause you know, my dad is,
he's a young guy, he's only 65,almost.
So a young guy he's only 65,almost.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So when I asked how you would describe yourself, one
of the things you said iscritical of yourself and others.
How so?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, I tried to make sure I included some negative
things in there so you didn'tthink I was full of shit.
But I think part of what hasmade me a good entrepreneur is
having a critical eye, maybebeing able to see things that
are lacking or missing and, youknow, incorporating those into
what I do.
And you know it's a fine line,when you are critiquing things,
from being critical and beingnegative.
(09:17):
So I think if I stray from thatand it applies to myself too I
always say that to be anentrepreneur, you have to be
really optimistic, like you haveto be able to believe you're
going to figure things out oryou can get through this, you
know, unknown period where youdon't know what you're doing.
But you also have to becritical enough that you realize
, like I'm not very good at this, I don't really know what I'm
doing, cause if not, then you'rejust kind of delusional and you
(09:40):
know it's tough to get better.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's powerful when you can call your own baby ugly.
It really is.
Yeah, you know, not a lot ofpeople are self-reflective.
The ego gets in the way.
Yeah, so to be able to you know, clearly be externally critical
around things like that needfixed, but then internally be
like whoa, this isn't.
I'm emotionally connected tothis.
This isn't right.
We need to move on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
A lot of people can't do that and I think if you have
the two together, I think a lotof people are self-critical.
They know like, oh, I don'tknow how to do that, or that's
not me, and it holds them backfrom, you know, doing the types
of things that we would do asentrepreneurs, small business
owners.
There are a lot of people whoare optimistic without this, you
know, and they may be, snakeoil salesmen or you know people
that very quickly you're like Idon't know, if there's any
(10:27):
substance here.
So I think to have the balanceof the two of I don't really
know what I'm doing, but Ibelieve in myself enough to to
know that with enough time Iwill get there, I'll figure it
out is like the rightcombination of things that you
need to do something for a longtime.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And I think you referred to it, as you might
have said, a ridiculous amountof confidence or delusional
amount of confidence.
And it's true.
You have to have this mix ofthis unwavering belief in
yourself when no one else seesyou or even understands which is
hard and then also beself-aware enough that you know
you keep that balance going.
(11:02):
I think that's a really magicalplace to be.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I think what I found, that in the early days of
Pursuit we focused on a youngcustomer.
We were on campus at the Gateway, selling to a group of people
that primarily had never thoughtabout or bought a suit before
and I maybe in the back of myhead had thought like I'd like
to be in the short North whereall the other cool kids are,
(11:26):
where the brands I really loveare the businesses I love are.
And I knew that like I didn'tknow enough, we weren't
sophisticated enough, like Ididn't feel confident that I
could go open a store in thecool neighborhood and be ready
for that.
And the funny thing is a lot ofmy peers who own clothing
stores they started with that.
They were fashionable, theyknew they wanted to be in the
(11:46):
business for a long time and forthem maybe they built the
business around it.
For me I started as a businessguy and then had to figure out
the fashion and the technicalparts of the fashion.
So it took me a couple of yearsbefore I felt like, ok, I can
be down there and like thatcrowd walking in is going to
like what we do and we'll beable to serve that audience.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Well, you had mentioned in the beginning of
your intake form aroundentrepreneurship and sort of
where your headspace is versuswhere it may have been in the
beginning, where it's like, ok,when you start something, you
want to scale it and you want togrow it and you want to, and,
of course, all that's important.
Those are all necessarycomponents, to a degree, of
(12:27):
having a small business.
But then you were also talkingabout letting go of some of that
and focusing more in on likewhat really is the purpose?
How am I spending my precioustime?
What kind of ripple effect am Icreating, not only for myself,
but my core people, thecommunity and the values that we
have?
So talk a little bit about that.
(12:47):
For a young entrepreneur rightnow, who's listening?
and trying to figure out likewho am I?
What am I trying to put outthere?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, I think if you are interested in
entrepreneurship, you startthese days listening to podcasts
.
You start, you know, readingstories about very successful
people and you get maybe apretty skewed view of what that
means.
So it typically involvesgrowing really quickly, becoming
a household name, raisingventure capital or some kind of
you know, outside funding.
(13:15):
And I started Pursuit in aclass, in an MBA program.
So there's like a built in biasthat comes with that where,
like they're not, you don't goget an MBA so that you can own a
lifestyle business Like the.
That's just not the typicalpath.
So I think, just kind of bydefault, I presumed this is
starting the way that it'sstarting.
(13:35):
It's going to look like theHarvard Business Review case
studies that we're reading inclasses and I think for a long
time, one I picked a businessthat doesn't very much fit that
model.
So like I picked a thing to dothat really isn't a logical
thing to grow quickly and raisemoney for.
But also I found over time thatlike that's what I thought I
(13:56):
should do but I wasn'tcomfortable with what that
looked like.
So I've never taken any outsideinvestment and I've never
really seriously considered itand like just that fact alone
means you're probably going tobe a small size and or you're
going to grow very, very slowly.
And it never really clicked inmy head that like, stop
(14:16):
comparing yourself to theseother businesses that raised a
bunch of money and grew veryquickly when you haven't done
those things.
But I think that's what thedefault a lot of times is like.
This is what business lookslike.
You have a good idea.
In order to be worthy, it needsto consistently grow.
Growing means things that youcould put on a bullet point on
(14:38):
an intake form.
You know how many?
locations, how many employees,how many million dollars in
revenue, tens of millions, andit's like, like, and those are
also the things like.
I haven't been on a podcast ina long time.
I used to get asked to do thiskind of stuff all the time.
I used to be in like the localnews all the time for all the
stuff that we were doing,because there was like tangible
growth things.
It's like well, pursuit didthis and did that.
(14:58):
You know it was, it was afactual thing that you could say
like there's another marker onthe.
I think too often that getsconflated and I speak for myself
as the point as opposed to like, I don't know, might be right,
might not be right, but I foundmyself we opened a second store
that was probably one of our bigmilestones and it was 100 miles
(15:20):
away in Cincinnati, because Ihad this vision that we were
going to open stores inneighborhoods like the short
north around the Midwest.
It was cool and we had really,you know it worked a little bit
and I had a great experiencewith parts of it, but, like,
overall, I liked my job a lotless.
I was doing things that perhapswere, you know, were less
motivating to me and I overallwas probably a lot less happy
(15:42):
because I made that decision,but it felt like I need to do
that.
You know, like I owe it to thepeople that have followed along
on my journey to like pushmyself or try new things, and so
I don't know, I think COVIDmaybe gave me a chance to
reevaluate a lot of that.
When it was like, oh shit, yougot to put it all back together
from scratch.
You start to think about likewhat do I want my life to be
(16:04):
within this business?
And I think the other part thatthat I've seen is I have a lot
of peers.
I think you've been in businessabout as long as I have.
There's a lot of people whohave done something really cool
and don't do it anymore, perhapsbecause that was the plan,
perhaps because they soured onit because of some decisions
they made, or because the worldtold them they had to close it
(16:26):
or whatever.
But I looked around and, like alot of my friends who had a
cool thing aren't doing itanymore or they hate what
they're doing, and I was likeshit.
Maybe what's special here isthat I like it more now than I
did 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
And how do I maintain that,like if I'm, if I'm going to do
this for my career, because it'sthe only idea I have at this
(16:48):
point?
How do I make sure that I'mcontinuing to be excited?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
and what I like about it is that it feels to me like
you're creating spokes off ofyour center or what is important
or that you like.
So you've got this angle whereyou're working more with these
sports teams, and then you'vegot another angle where you're
doing concerts, with music, andthen you've got this angle for
good, and so I see, like I lovethat and I feel that deeply,
(17:14):
because when you look at my show, that's exactly what this is.
There's just there's extensionsof my heart and what I love,
and I think that there needs tobe a bigger shine on that and a
play for young entrepreneurs tobe like hold on a minute.
At the end of the day, you'redoing this all the time.
You're going to be doing thismore than you're doing probably
anything, and so make damn surethat it feels and it fills you,
(17:40):
as opposed to just trying to hitcertain metrics and marks for
external whatever that is, youknow, because I think so many
people miss that.
So I think I feel like that issuccess being able to grow
something in a beautiful waythat totally reflects who you
are as a person and what makesyou feel good.
So what about?
(18:01):
Like the sports team?
So how did that come about?
So now you're like suiting themup.
I mean, what's happening there?
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Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, I think one thing that we've always done is
try to reach customers in waysthat are non-traditional, you
know, so that we don't really doany advertising or anything
like that.
But one thing that seems toalways have been has come
naturally is putting our suitson people in the community, and
I think the very first time wedid that in a big way would have
(19:46):
been in 2017.
We signed a partnership withthe Columbus Crew.
That's something that we aredoing these days as well, but it
gives us a chance to takesomething in the community that
has its own brand, its own loyalfollowers, its own culture, and
kind of come alongside that andput our suits on people who are
(20:08):
interesting, people, maybe havea different career lifestyle
than what our customers have.
So that was the first time wetried that, and then it turned
out with that partnership.
Like three weeks after welaunched, all the drama started.
They're going to move the teamto Austin and like now we just
launched this partnership andthis is the number one local
news story for like a year and ahalf was like is the crew
(20:30):
moving?
For like a year and a half waslike is the crew moving?
And we got to kind of be alongin the middle of that like messy
situation and all the savingthe crew stuff.
That was such a cool Columbuscommunity thing, I think with
that partnership it was like, ohwow, this really has zero to do
with suits, but like we have avoice, we have a different
perspective as a corporatepartner, as a business, in all
(20:52):
of this.
That is different than othersin the conversation and it was
like, oh, this allows Pursuit tokind of have a voice in the
community in a different way.
And you know, maybe people willthink about Suits when they see
us speaking at something ortweeting about something, but
it's just like, yeah, this is away to get involved.
That isn't just hey, we gotsome new fabrics in.
(21:12):
It's not just the same over andover the same things over and
over again, talking abouttechnical things, about fabric.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Where's the concerts?
Like where does that come in?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
The concerts are another.
Like you know, my wife jokes Ijust try to take whatever it is
I'm excited about and find a wayto make it my work.
The very first concert we hadwas 2014.
We were still at the Gateway.
My favorite band is a band fromDuluth, minnesota, called Lowe.
At the time, a friend of minewas the bass player in this band
(21:43):
, so they were coming throughtown and I was like, hey, would
you want to play in the shop?
I'll give you some suits, I'llinvite some people.
It happened to be our thirdanniversary, so I was like this
is a perfect timing.
And they said yes and they didit and it was just a cool thing,
because you think about a suitcompany.
You wouldn't expect an indierock band to perform in a suit
(22:08):
shop.
That's just not those.
Things don't really go together.
And my personality, I think Ialways kind of enjoy the quirky
and unexpected things.
So, yeah, that was the firstone.
It was cool, but it also was myway of having a direct
connection to my favorite bandand I was like, oh, there's
something there.
Like it turns out that I can,and at about the same time we
did our first sports partnershipand it was with AJ Hawk.
(22:31):
So I'm from Wisconsin, I'm aPacker fan, I'm a Packer
shareholder, you know likethat's the culture I grew up in
and AJ was a Columbus guy andOhio State alum and was the
middle linebacker for the GreenBay Packers and got connected to
him and that was a way ofbringing the Packers into my
business and there's just beenso many of those things where
(22:58):
it's like here's what I'minterested in.
Can I find an excuse to get toknow these folks, work with
these folks be?
associated with them and alsobring them into you know our
brand and our world, and that'sI mean still, that's pretty much
what I do all day, every day.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Your wife's right.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
She knows me well, we'll get to her in a minute.
So what about the good the part?
Is that the like?
What's the name?
Good Intentions Program.
Good Intentions.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Program.
Like many things, that was anidea I came up with as a
placeholder that I just neverreplaced.
So if you've got a better namefor that, we've been doing it
about a year, but the idea waswe found that we can't really
have a huge impact in terms ofwriting checks to causes.
My name is not on a building atFisher or anything like that,
(23:37):
because that's just not theworld I live in.
But we get asked constantlylike oh, will you donate this to
my—typically it's a silentauction at a charity event and
we've done a ton of that andI've always kind of felt like
this is the least impactful waythat I can give back.
It's like here's a, here's a$500, $1,000 suit that you can
put in your silent auction, sellto a rich person for $350.
(24:00):
And then that money goes to the.
You know, just like it's likethe least efficient form of
money laundering.
So, and you know, and I getthose emails still probably once
a week and they're all verywell intentioned, but it's just
like I don't want to do that,like that's that's not really
help, that's that's not reallyhelping directly.
But we found that we've donesome partnerships where we put
(24:21):
people in suits who neverdreamed that they could own a
suit, and it might be that samefive hundred thousand dollar
suit, but the level of impact ofthat is five5,000, $10,000
worth of benefit and I'm likethat is the opposite.
That is magnifying what thismeans to somebody.
So for years I've been trying tothink about how can we do that,
(24:42):
how can we fund that so that wecan do a lot of it?
Finally got to the point wherethe business was just healthy
enough, where it's like I don'tneed to go out and ask
nonprofits to pay me for this,I'm just going to dedicate some
money to this.
Hopefully my customers willsupport it financially.
And so we did that last yearand we're like we're just going
to create this program, we'regoing to work with nonprofits,
we're going to put people whocould never otherwise shop at
(25:03):
Pursuit in one of our suits andwe don't have to pick who those
people are, because thenonprofits already do really
cool, powerful programming.
They have those people and sothat was the idea and we started
doing that about 12 months ago.
The most, I mean.
It's the most meaningful,powerful, best thing we've done
and it started in year 14 ofhaving the company and it's
(25:26):
honestly, it's been the mostpowerful thing for us.
Like my employees would say,that's the best part of their
job.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Have you heard of ICE Mentors?
I have.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We have not worked directly with them.
I think perhaps we donated someties to the program way back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And this reminds me this is probably the universe
saying I should get back withhim and his wife.
I actually did like a littlething with them one night with
some of the kids, and they wereso great and what they're doing
is so awesome, but I totallyfeel like an ice mentors
connection with you.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, that'd be cool, and they probably are somebody
we should we should work with aswell.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Absolutely so.
Let's talk about your wifey,yeah, so she's a little
powerhouse of her own, isn't she?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
She is definitely an impressive woman and, uh, we
live, you know?
Know, we have very differentcareers, but I think the level
of intensity of both of ours arepretty similar.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So how does that work when you have two high
vibration, hard-charging humans?
How do you like give each otherspace and kind of like yin to
the yang?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah it's, it is evolved quite a bit.
We've been together 10 years.
We've been married almost sevennow and you know, I think in
the early days we were both likefull bore in our career.
We don't have children still,so, like you know, we have a
little bit of space that a lotof our friends don't have.
But I think we probablyinfluenced each other in the
(26:47):
same direction.
You know, like we were both.
We'd come home from workexcited but wound really tight,
and we would just kind of feedoff of each other's energy.
And I think you know, as mycareer has evolved, you know
I've had very intense periods oftime where, you know, I was
perhaps burning myself out.
My wife has certainly had thatas well and we find that like if
(27:07):
we both happen to be at thosehigh stress working too much,
sleeping not enough type of it'snot the best times for our
marriage.
So I think what we've bothlearned is, as we've gotten my
wife will be 40, I'm 42.
I think we both have realizedlike we need to find a better
balance.
She got there before I did, andI think we've now have
(27:30):
influenced each other Slowly.
We've started to influence theother direction where it's like
all right, you know she's got alot of things she does to
decompress, manage stress.
You know she's worked outpretty hard for years and that's
one of her outlets that.
You know I'm finally starting totake to in my 40s but I think
at the very least you can relateto each other.
You know, like I think,understanding the intensity and
(27:55):
why maybe you are so fixated onsomething, it's easier to see
that when you both kind of haveit in your work, but it's
definitely, you know, can bedifficult to have enough space
for.
Hey, you had a stressful day.
It's eight o'clock.
I had a stressful day, can Itell?
you can I get all this off mychest and, you know, does she
(28:15):
have any space to absorb that ornot?
So we've, we've had to get goodat like I don't think I have
the energy for this tonight, youknow, like is this really
important?
Because I'm not sure I am goingto be much of a listener, and
but that's an ongoing thing.
Where you're like the solutionis to maybe not be so wrapped up
in your work and I think we'reboth just trying to instead of
(28:37):
learning how to cope together,or like could we just maybe dial
this down a little bit?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
yeah, I mean it's being like in the
entrepreneurial world, likethere is no on and off button
and that's, I think the hardestthing for any, really any
external relationship that youhave at least that's I think the
hardest thing for any externalrelationship that you have At
least that's been my experiencewhere it's like the expectation
is well, it's five o'clock andlike there's this I wish there
was.
I would give anything for thistortured, mental fuck situation
(29:05):
in here to be able to have aswitch.
I would love that, love it.
But to try to explain that toanother human being who's very
on and off and wired in that wayand I don't know if that's your
wife, that's my husband youhave like training yourself to
be like look, carrie, no onecares about this as much as you
and other things exist outsideof you and your brain and this
(29:26):
thing like you have to figureout a way.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think of myself much more as a dimmer switch,
like it's always on and maybe Ican, you know, turn it down to
nearly off.
And I think with my wife's workI mean, she's an attorney,
she's done the law firm lifebefore and I've been.
You know we've been togetherthrough that, which has been
great but intense, and she'sbeen at Chase now for over five
(29:53):
years at this point, and I thinkthe challenging part is how
hectic is my life often is aconsequence of a decision I made
, maybe not cognizantly, butlike you know, how busy am I?
How many of these projects didI take on, you know, did I time
it strategically around theseasonality of our business?
And have I?
You know, how busy am I as?
How many of these projects thatI take on, you know, did I time
it strategically around theseasonality of our business?
And have I?
You know, have I done this tomyself?
(30:14):
Am I willing to take on more?
And with her work, being anattorney is often much more
reactionary.
It's like, well, things havebeen relatively calm and then,
oh shit, here's a new rulingissued by the federal government
or here's this crisis thatcomes up and I get a phone call.
So for her.
I think she doesn't get to planthe chaos as much as perhaps I
(30:38):
could.
So I've tried to get a littlebetter about leaving some space.
But my problem is I get excitedabout this.
It's not as much these days asI have to.
It's like I want to do that.
But should I do one more thing?
And it's easy to say no tothings you don't want to do.
Actually it's not it.
It's easier to say no to thingsyou don't want to do, but it's
really hard to say no tosomething that you definitely
(31:00):
want to do and you probablyshouldn't do.
And that's at least a luxury Ishould have.
But yeah, she's.
She is, I think, far morethoughtful and strategic about
how she approaches these things,because that's just the way her
brain is wired.
I'm much more like I don'treally want to know what I'm
doing tomorrow.
I just want to have one thingon the calendar and then go
where the spirit compels me therest of the day.
(31:22):
And she's planning her life farmore.
You know, I look at hercalendar if I go up to the home
office and it's like 17conference Zoom calls a day and
some of them are at the sametime, and I'm like how does this
work exactly?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
No, thank you and.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I'm like well, I got this podcast this morning and I
think I'll probably work on thisother thing, and then, you know
, somebody is going to call mewith something that I need.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I don't like to plan Right, hey, I mean, listen, you
got to do what you got to do, soany last minute advice for a
young little fresh entrepreneurout there who's sitting there
listening to you like what elseyou got.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I think it certainly seems daunting and you got to
kind of find the.
You know I'm inspired by thisstory or that story.
I'm inspired by this story orthat story, but you got to know
that whatever it starts out asis probably going to be just OK
at best and probably bad inother areas.
And I think for me, my, myapproach has been to to get
comfortable with this is a slowand steady process.
(32:23):
I'm OK with, I'm not happy withthis or that.
Today, if I'm seeingimprovement or I'm, you know, I
have a path to getting better atit, and I think in the early
days there's not a lot you'regoing to be looking at saying,
oh, this is really great.
And every year, you know, thesedays I do, you know, I like to
say we do the coolest shit ofany suit company in the world
and that's what gets me excitedand I believe that to be true in
(32:48):
my definition of what cool shitis.
But these opportunities I havenow in year 15 are things that
seeds that were planted 15 yearsago, 12 years ago, people I
knew before they are what theyare today.
I mentioned Taylor from camp isplaying in the store on Sunday.
That's awesome.
One of my favorite bands, greatperson, but also in 2017,
(33:09):
before camp was huge.
They played in my store.
And now the people in our orbithave opportunities for us to get
involved.
That are just so much different.
So I think playing the longgame being okay with like this
is just okay now, but it'sgetting better when it gets
tough.
That will keep you from feelinglike you want to throw in the
towel.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Anything else about Pursuit or anything you want to
put out in the universe beforewe close out.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, we sell suits.
I don't know if I've actuallysaid that at this point, but
yeah, people usually come to usfor, you know, suits and
professional clothing.
We sell suits to everybody,which I think is our Good
Intentions program is fillingthe last of that gap of people
without the financial means, butwe really do sell suits to
everybody.
So if one more person walks upto me and says, oh, do you sell
(33:56):
women's suits?
My head's going to explode,because you know our partnership
with the Fury and many otherthings that we do are intended
to let people know we do that.
You know I don't talk enoughabout like what I actually do
for a living or like what paysmy bills, but we do it in a very
personal way where somebody canmake it easy and make it fun
and help you through the process.
We have a shop in the ShortNorth.
(34:17):
We do things by appointment.
We appreciate that people planahead because a lot of the
things that we try to do are notinstant things.
So if you have something thatyou're excited about months in
advance, we would love for youto come down and have an
appointment and look at thingsand start to put a plan together
.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I love it.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Of course, and if you're still out there following
your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you
get your podcast.
And until next time, check outNate.
Check out his business.
Hey there you beautiful badass.
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You're welcome Out there.
That I wear is usually hers,like the Jacquard.
I don't know if you've seen theJacquard.
You would appreciate theJacquard jacket.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The word Jacquard does not get used in my presence
very often, unless it's ussaying it, so I appreciate that
you know what that word is, nate.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
DeMars, welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thanks for having me, you know, you're just a
handsome guy, but the suitlevels you up a little bit.
Yeah, I find that I'm often themost overdressed in the
audience, wherever I am.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I mean when you're, when you're selling suits, you
know, but as you say, you knowit's so much more than suits,
like, if you think it's justsuits, you're missing the point.
Yeah, so let's just kick it offwith, like what.
I love to hear the entrepreneurpitch because everybody's so
passionate about what they'redoing.
Sure, so give it to me, likefirst time, where I'm like what
is this pursuits that you'respeaking of?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, I've said from the beginning, there's millions
of places you can buy suits, andthe world didn't really need
another one when we started in2011.
So, you know, what we think isspecial is that when people come
to us, it's typically for somemajor milestone moment in their
life.
They're excited to dress forwhatever the biggest thing
perhaps they've ever done is,and our job is to help prepare
(02:29):
them for that.
So, certainly, the clothing isthe medium that we use, but we
get to work with people who dothe most interesting, powerful,
creative things in the city, andit just kind of allows us to
bring that perspective to all ofour other customers too.
So when you work with thousandsand thousands of people who are
all doing really amazing stuff,it just helps you.
(02:51):
With people who are, you know,they're nervous about the thing
they're about to do, you canhelp them feel confident in how
they're going to dress.
But more so, just hey, we knowhow this goes, because this is
what we do every day, and theywalk out the door feeling
excited about whatever they'regoing to do.
That's special.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Do you think?
I know that you discovered thiscame about from your
entrepreneur class, right, butgoing way back to when you were
a wee boy and you would see yourgreat grandpa and he would come
up to the table with his suiton, and then your grandma and
your aunt or as I like to say,aunt, your auntie they made
(03:27):
wedding dresses.
So this was very much steepedin kind of the history of who
you are and subconsciously yousaw this.
How much did that play into allof a sudden in your mind in
that class you're like, oh bingo, there it is, it's all.
It all just came together.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
No, it really didn't.
So I think I'm a businessperson.
That's how I see myself, andwhen I first launched Pursuit,
we were focused on a college guy.
That was the avenue we weregoing down.
Our store was on campus.
I really did not write abusiness plan that included
weddings.
So it was many years, a fewyears at least, into the
(04:06):
business, before I was like, ohwow, this is what my family did
I'm dressing grooms andgroomsmen primarily and it's
like, oh wow, I'm in the weddingbusiness.
But it didn't occur to me untila couple years into the
business.
So, subconsciously, I'm sure itdid.
My great-grandfather, my parents, were super young when they had
me, which means he was arounduntil I was 18.
I got to be very close with him.
He was from a generation wherejust wearing a sport coat around
(04:31):
town when you're a retiredperson was a typical thing to do
.
So I think trying on hisclothes and when he would let me
take whatever vintage thingsout of his closet I had an
interest in fashion.
Let me take whatever vintagethings out of his closet.
I had an interest in fashion.
But I don't think if you askedthe people in my world in 2011,
(04:52):
like, what type of businesswould Nate start.
I don't know that fashion wouldhave come from anybody's mouth,
because that's not necessarilywhat I was.
I will say I was best dressedAshland High School class of
2001 in northern Wisconsin andthat's like the only fashion
resume thing I had when Istarted the company.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That's funny.
And so you were super closewith your great grandpa, to the
extent that they asked you to dohis eulogy just at the ripe age
of 18.
Yeah, Do you?
I mean you have to rememberthat like it was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, that's, that's become this weird but really
special thing that I've gottento do.
I was close with him and Ithink nobody else in my family,
you know, was super eager to getup and speak.
I think there's a littledistance when it's your
great-grandfather, when you losesomebody, than if it's your
parent or something like that.
So, yeah, I was asked to speak,I did it and it was just a
(05:44):
really special thing to get to,you know, talk to your family
about what was special abouttheir relationship with that
person, and then to feel likeyou know, this is your chance to
like, honor somebody you knowin a way that's like, you know,
hopefully encapsulates theirlife Like anything else in life.
I did it, I think, because I wasyoung.
People thought it was great.
I don't know that it wasactually good, but I was young
(06:05):
enough where they were like, oh,the bar is low and you exceeded
it.
So then now, every timesomebody in my family has a
funeral, it's become the thingthat I do.
In fact, I just in January didthat same thing for my
grandmother hit that.
Same my great grandfather'sdaughter, the one who made the
wedding dresses.
I did that for her as well.
Same my great-grandfather'sdaughter, the one who made the
(06:26):
wedding dresses.
I did that for her as well.
So it's kind of a weird thingon my resume is that I speak at
funerals.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, maybe you could like parlay that into you.
Know marrying people too.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
If I stick around at Pursuit long enough, it went
from selling college studentstheir first suit to doing
wedding suits.
Now we've kind of moved on to,you know, more of a grown-up
crowd getting their clothing forwork and important events.
So I think you know, at somepoint funerals will start to
become a bigger chunk of what wedo.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Fantastic.
What's one thing that you canlook back on, though, with your
great-grandpa and, whether yousaid it or not in the eulogy
like what's one thing you carrywith you where you're like.
I want to make sure I do this.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, so we have a family cabin in northern
Wisconsin that he bought in like1962.
My dad was just a little kidand that has kind of been a
place for my family to gather,like all of my aunts and cousins
and everything spent theweekends there together.
So we had this very much of aclan type of family that was
(07:24):
together all the time and hewould be sitting there.
He had macular degeneration sohe was legally blind the whole
time.
I knew him.
He was, you know, kind ofshuffled and was very much an
old man the whole time I knewhim.
But he would sit in his chair atthe cabin full of people and
just tell stories, and likestories of an era that you know
I'm sure his daughter would kindof roll her eyes I've heard
(07:46):
these stories for 50, 60 yearsat this point but it was like
talking about an era that youknow was so foreign to all the
young kids and he's just anamazing storyteller.
So I think you know, I alwayshave hoped to be able to, you
know, tell interesting storieslike he does, and I don't know
there's a history to that.
Like keeping the history aliveseemed like kind of part of his
(08:08):
thing.
He'd talk about the heyday ofDuluth, when the Great Lakes
were like the most booming placeand Duluth was this city full
of all these wealthy folks thatwere shipping and logging and
mining and all these things thatare like very early 1900s.
And so I don't know, I justthink, being around, that I see
a lot of that in my dad.
You know, skips a generationMaybe.
(08:28):
I see a lot of that in my dadand he's kind of now become the
historian and the one who tellsthe stories about all the
history of everything around.
And it's kind of funny to seebecause you know, my dad is,
he's a young guy, he's only 65,almost.
So a young guy he's only 65,almost.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So when I asked how you would describe yourself, one
of the things you said iscritical of yourself and others.
How so?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, I tried to make sure I included some negative
things in there so you didn'tthink I was full of shit.
But I think part of what hasmade me a good entrepreneur is
having a critical eye, maybebeing able to see things that
are lacking or missing and, youknow, incorporating those into
what I do.
And you know it's a fine line,when you are critiquing things,
from being critical and beingnegative.
(09:17):
So I think if I stray from thatand it applies to myself too I
always say that to be anentrepreneur, you have to be
really optimistic, like you haveto be able to believe you're
going to figure things out oryou can get through this, you
know, unknown period where youdon't know what you're doing.
But you also have to becritical enough that you realize
, like I'm not very good at this, I don't really know what I'm
doing, cause if not, then you'rejust kind of delusional and you
(09:40):
know it's tough to get better.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's powerful when you can call your own baby ugly.
It really is.
Yeah, you know, not a lot ofpeople are self-reflective.
The ego gets in the way.
Yeah, so to be able to you know, clearly be externally critical
around things like that needfixed, but then internally be
like whoa, this isn't.
I'm emotionally connected tothis.
This isn't right.
We need to move on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
A lot of people can't do that and I think if you have
the two together, I think a lotof people are self-critical.
They know like, oh, I don'tknow how to do that, or that's
not me, and it holds them backfrom, you know, doing the types
of things that we would do asentrepreneurs, small business
owners.
There are a lot of people whoare optimistic without this, you
know, and they may be, snakeoil salesmen or you know people
that very quickly you're like Idon't know, if there's any
(10:27):
substance here.
So I think to have the balanceof the two of I don't really
know what I'm doing, but Ibelieve in myself enough to to
know that with enough time Iwill get there, I'll figure it
out is like the rightcombination of things that you
need to do something for a longtime.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And I think you referred to it, as you might
have said, a ridiculous amountof confidence or delusional
amount of confidence.
And it's true.
You have to have this mix ofthis unwavering belief in
yourself when no one else seesyou or even understands which is
hard and then also beself-aware enough that you know
you keep that balance going.
(11:02):
I think that's a really magicalplace to be.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I think what I found, that in the early days of
Pursuit we focused on a youngcustomer.
We were on campus at the Gateway, selling to a group of people
that primarily had never thoughtabout or bought a suit before
and I maybe in the back of myhead had thought like I'd like
to be in the short North whereall the other cool kids are,
(11:26):
where the brands I really loveare the businesses I love are.
And I knew that like I didn'tknow enough, we weren't
sophisticated enough, like Ididn't feel confident that I
could go open a store in thecool neighborhood and be ready
for that.
And the funny thing is a lot ofmy peers who own clothing
stores they started with that.
They were fashionable, theyknew they wanted to be in the
(11:46):
business for a long time and forthem maybe they built the
business around it.
For me I started as a businessguy and then had to figure out
the fashion and the technicalparts of the fashion.
So it took me a couple of yearsbefore I felt like, ok, I can
be down there and like thatcrowd walking in is going to
like what we do and we'll beable to serve that audience.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Well, you had mentioned in the beginning of
your intake form aroundentrepreneurship and sort of
where your headspace is versuswhere it may have been in the
beginning, where it's like, ok,when you start something, you
want to scale it and you want togrow it and you want to, and,
of course, all that's important.
Those are all necessarycomponents, to a degree, of
(12:27):
having a small business.
But then you were also talkingabout letting go of some of that
and focusing more in on likewhat really is the purpose?
How am I spending my precioustime?
What kind of ripple effect am Icreating, not only for myself,
but my core people, thecommunity and the values that we
have?
So talk a little bit about that.
(12:47):
For a young entrepreneur rightnow, who's listening?
and trying to figure out likewho am I?
What am I trying to put outthere?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, I think if you are interested in
entrepreneurship, you startthese days listening to podcasts
.
You start, you know, readingstories about very successful
people and you get maybe apretty skewed view of what that
means.
So it typically involvesgrowing really quickly, becoming
a household name, raisingventure capital or some kind of
you know, outside funding.
(13:15):
And I started Pursuit in aclass, in an MBA program.
So there's like a built in biasthat comes with that where,
like they're not, you don't goget an MBA so that you can own a
lifestyle business Like the.
That's just not the typicalpath.
So I think, just kind of bydefault, I presumed this is
starting the way that it'sstarting.
(13:35):
It's going to look like theHarvard Business Review case
studies that we're reading inclasses and I think for a long
time, one I picked a businessthat doesn't very much fit that
model.
So like I picked a thing to dothat really isn't a logical
thing to grow quickly and raisemoney for.
But also I found over time thatlike that's what I thought I
(13:56):
should do but I wasn'tcomfortable with what that
looked like.
So I've never taken any outsideinvestment and I've never
really seriously considered itand like just that fact alone
means you're probably going tobe a small size and or you're
going to grow very, very slowly.
And it never really clicked inmy head that like, stop
(14:16):
comparing yourself to theseother businesses that raised a
bunch of money and grew veryquickly when you haven't done
those things.
But I think that's what thedefault a lot of times is like.
This is what business lookslike.
You have a good idea.
In order to be worthy, it needsto consistently grow.
Growing means things that youcould put on a bullet point on
(14:38):
an intake form.
You know how many?
locations, how many employees,how many million dollars in
revenue, tens of millions, andit's like, like, and those are
also the things like.
I haven't been on a podcast ina long time.
I used to get asked to do thiskind of stuff all the time.
I used to be in like the localnews all the time for all the
stuff that we were doing,because there was like tangible
growth things.
It's like well, pursuit didthis and did that.
(14:58):
You know it was, it was afactual thing that you could say
like there's another marker onthe.
I think too often that getsconflated and I speak for myself
as the point as opposed to like, I don't know, might be right,
might not be right, but I foundmyself we opened a second store
that was probably one of our bigmilestones and it was 100 miles
(15:20):
away in Cincinnati, because Ihad this vision that we were
going to open stores inneighborhoods like the short
north around the Midwest.
It was cool and we had really,you know it worked a little bit
and I had a great experiencewith parts of it, but, like,
overall, I liked my job a lotless.
I was doing things that perhapswere, you know, were less
motivating to me and I overallwas probably a lot less happy
(15:42):
because I made that decision,but it felt like I need to do
that.
You know, like I owe it to thepeople that have followed along
on my journey to like pushmyself or try new things, and so
I don't know, I think COVIDmaybe gave me a chance to
reevaluate a lot of that.
When it was like, oh shit, yougot to put it all back together
from scratch.
You start to think about likewhat do I want my life to be
(16:04):
within this business?
And I think the other part thatthat I've seen is I have a lot
of peers.
I think you've been in businessabout as long as I have.
There's a lot of people whohave done something really cool
and don't do it anymore, perhapsbecause that was the plan,
perhaps because they soured onit because of some decisions
they made, or because the worldtold them they had to close it
(16:26):
or whatever.
But I looked around and, like alot of my friends who had a
cool thing aren't doing itanymore or they hate what
they're doing, and I was likeshit.
Maybe what's special here isthat I like it more now than I
did 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
And how do I maintain that,like if I'm, if I'm going to do
this for my career, because it'sthe only idea I have at this
(16:48):
point?
How do I make sure that I'mcontinuing to be excited?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
and what I like about it is that it feels to me like
you're creating spokes off ofyour center or what is important
or that you like.
So you've got this angle whereyou're working more with these
sports teams, and then you'vegot another angle where you're
doing concerts, with music, andthen you've got this angle for
good, and so I see, like I lovethat and I feel that deeply,
(17:14):
because when you look at my show, that's exactly what this is.
There's just there's extensionsof my heart and what I love,
and I think that there needs tobe a bigger shine on that and a
play for young entrepreneurs tobe like hold on a minute.
At the end of the day, you'redoing this all the time.
You're going to be doing thismore than you're doing probably
anything, and so make damn surethat it feels and it fills you,
(17:40):
as opposed to just trying to hitcertain metrics and marks for
external whatever that is, youknow, because I think so many
people miss that.
So I think I feel like that issuccess being able to grow
something in a beautiful waythat totally reflects who you
are as a person and what makesyou feel good.
So what about?
(18:01):
Like the sports team?
So how did that come about?
So now you're like suiting themup.
I mean, what's happening there?
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Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, I think one thing that we've always done is
try to reach customers in waysthat are non-traditional, you
know, so that we don't really doany advertising or anything
like that.
But one thing that seems toalways have been has come
naturally is putting our suitson people in the community, and
I think the very first time wedid that in a big way would have
(19:46):
been in 2017.
We signed a partnership withthe Columbus Crew.
That's something that we aredoing these days as well, but it
gives us a chance to takesomething in the community that
has its own brand, its own loyalfollowers, its own culture, and
kind of come alongside that andput our suits on people who are
(20:08):
interesting, people, maybe havea different career lifestyle
than what our customers have.
So that was the first time wetried that, and then it turned
out with that partnership.
Like three weeks after welaunched, all the drama started.
They're going to move the teamto Austin and like now we just
launched this partnership andthis is the number one local
news story for like a year and ahalf was like is the crew
(20:30):
moving?
For like a year and a half waslike is the crew moving?
And we got to kind of be alongin the middle of that like messy
situation and all the savingthe crew stuff.
That was such a cool Columbuscommunity thing, I think with
that partnership it was like, ohwow, this really has zero to do
with suits, but like we have avoice, we have a different
perspective as a corporatepartner, as a business, in all
(20:52):
of this.
That is different than othersin the conversation and it was
like, oh, this allows Pursuit tokind of have a voice in the
community in a different way.
And you know, maybe people willthink about Suits when they see
us speaking at something ortweeting about something, but
it's just like, yeah, this is away to get involved.
That isn't just hey, we gotsome new fabrics in.
(21:12):
It's not just the same over andover the same things over and
over again, talking abouttechnical things, about fabric.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Where's the concerts?
Like where does that come in?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
The concerts are another.
Like you know, my wife jokes Ijust try to take whatever it is
I'm excited about and find a wayto make it my work.
The very first concert we hadwas 2014.
We were still at the Gateway.
My favorite band is a band fromDuluth, minnesota, called Lowe.
At the time, a friend of minewas the bass player in this band
(21:43):
, so they were coming throughtown and I was like, hey, would
you want to play in the shop?
I'll give you some suits, I'llinvite some people.
It happened to be our thirdanniversary, so I was like this
is a perfect timing.
And they said yes and they didit and it was just a cool thing,
because you think about a suitcompany.
You wouldn't expect an indierock band to perform in a suit
(22:08):
shop.
That's just not those.
Things don't really go together.
And my personality, I think Ialways kind of enjoy the quirky
and unexpected things.
So, yeah, that was the firstone.
It was cool, but it also was myway of having a direct
connection to my favorite bandand I was like, oh, there's
something there.
Like it turns out that I can,and at about the same time we
did our first sports partnershipand it was with AJ Hawk.
(22:31):
So I'm from Wisconsin, I'm aPacker fan, I'm a Packer
shareholder, you know likethat's the culture I grew up in
and AJ was a Columbus guy andOhio State alum and was the
middle linebacker for the GreenBay Packers and got connected to
him and that was a way ofbringing the Packers into my
business and there's just beenso many of those things where
(22:58):
it's like here's what I'minterested in.
Can I find an excuse to get toknow these folks, work with
these folks be?
associated with them and alsobring them into you know our
brand and our world, and that'sI mean still, that's pretty much
what I do all day, every day.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Your wife's right.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
She knows me well, we'll get to her in a minute.
So what about the good the part?
Is that the like?
What's the name?
Good Intentions Program.
Good Intentions.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Program.
Like many things, that was anidea I came up with as a
placeholder that I just neverreplaced.
So if you've got a better namefor that, we've been doing it
about a year, but the idea waswe found that we can't really
have a huge impact in terms ofwriting checks to causes.
My name is not on a building atFisher or anything like that,
(23:37):
because that's just not theworld I live in.
But we get asked constantlylike oh, will you donate this to
my—typically it's a silentauction at a charity event and
we've done a ton of that andI've always kind of felt like
this is the least impactful waythat I can give back.
It's like here's a, here's a$500, $1,000 suit that you can
put in your silent auction, sellto a rich person for $350.
(24:00):
And then that money goes to the.
You know, just like it's likethe least efficient form of
money laundering.
So, and you know, and I getthose emails still probably once
a week and they're all verywell intentioned, but it's just
like I don't want to do that,like that's that's not really
help, that's that's not reallyhelping directly.
But we found that we've donesome partnerships where we put
(24:21):
people in suits who neverdreamed that they could own a
suit, and it might be that samefive hundred thousand dollar
suit, but the level of impact ofthat is five5,000, $10,000
worth of benefit and I'm likethat is the opposite.
That is magnifying what thismeans to somebody.
So for years I've been trying tothink about how can we do that,
(24:42):
how can we fund that so that wecan do a lot of it?
Finally got to the point wherethe business was just healthy
enough, where it's like I don'tneed to go out and ask
nonprofits to pay me for this,I'm just going to dedicate some
money to this.
Hopefully my customers willsupport it financially.
And so we did that last yearand we're like we're just going
to create this program, we'regoing to work with nonprofits,
we're going to put people whocould never otherwise shop at
(25:03):
Pursuit in one of our suits andwe don't have to pick who those
people are, because thenonprofits already do really
cool, powerful programming.
They have those people and sothat was the idea and we started
doing that about 12 months ago.
The most, I mean.
It's the most meaningful,powerful, best thing we've done
and it started in year 14 ofhaving the company and it's
(25:26):
honestly, it's been the mostpowerful thing for us.
Like my employees would say,that's the best part of their
job.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Have you heard of ICE Mentors?
I have.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We have not worked directly with them.
I think perhaps we donated someties to the program way back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And this reminds me this is probably the universe
saying I should get back withhim and his wife.
I actually did like a littlething with them one night with
some of the kids, and they wereso great and what they're doing
is so awesome, but I totallyfeel like an ice mentors
connection with you.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, that'd be cool, and they probably are somebody
we should we should work with aswell.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Absolutely so.
Let's talk about your wifey,yeah, so she's a little
powerhouse of her own, isn't she?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
She is definitely an impressive woman and, uh, we
live, you know?
Know, we have very differentcareers, but I think the level
of intensity of both of ours arepretty similar.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So how does that work when you have two high
vibration, hard-charging humans?
How do you like give each otherspace and kind of like yin to
the yang?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah it's, it is evolved quite a bit.
We've been together 10 years.
We've been married almost sevennow and you know, I think in
the early days we were both likefull bore in our career.
We don't have children still,so, like you know, we have a
little bit of space that a lotof our friends don't have.
But I think we probablyinfluenced each other in the
(26:47):
same direction.
You know, like we were both.
We'd come home from workexcited but wound really tight,
and we would just kind of feedoff of each other's energy.
And I think you know, as mycareer has evolved, you know
I've had very intense periods oftime where, you know, I was
perhaps burning myself out.
My wife has certainly had thatas well and we find that like if
(27:07):
we both happen to be at thosehigh stress working too much,
sleeping not enough type of it'snot the best times for our
marriage.
So I think what we've bothlearned is, as we've gotten my
wife will be 40, I'm 42.
I think we both have realizedlike we need to find a better
balance.
She got there before I did, andI think we've now have
(27:30):
influenced each other Slowly.
We've started to influence theother direction where it's like
all right, you know she's got alot of things she does to
decompress, manage stress.
You know she's worked outpretty hard for years and that's
one of her outlets that.
You know I'm finally starting totake to in my 40s but I think
at the very least you can relateto each other.
You know, like I think,understanding the intensity and
(27:55):
why maybe you are so fixated onsomething, it's easier to see
that when you both kind of haveit in your work, but it's
definitely, you know, can bedifficult to have enough space
for.
Hey, you had a stressful day.
It's eight o'clock.
I had a stressful day, can Itell?
you can I get all this off mychest and, you know, does she
(28:15):
have any space to absorb that ornot?
So we've, we've had to get goodat like I don't think I have
the energy for this tonight, youknow, like is this really
important?
Because I'm not sure I am goingto be much of a listener, and
but that's an ongoing thing.
Where you're like the solutionis to maybe not be so wrapped up
in your work and I think we'reboth just trying to instead of
(28:37):
learning how to cope together,or like could we just maybe dial
this down a little bit?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
yeah, I mean it's being like in the
entrepreneurial world, likethere is no on and off button
and that's, I think the hardestthing for any, really any
external relationship that youhave at least that's I think the
hardest thing for any externalrelationship that you have At
least that's been my experiencewhere it's like the expectation
is well, it's five o'clock andlike there's this I wish there
was.
I would give anything for thistortured, mental fuck situation
(29:05):
in here to be able to have aswitch.
I would love that, love it.
But to try to explain that toanother human being who's very
on and off and wired in that wayand I don't know if that's your
wife, that's my husband youhave like training yourself to
be like look, carrie, no onecares about this as much as you
and other things exist outsideof you and your brain and this
(29:26):
thing like you have to figureout a way.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think of myself much more as a dimmer switch,
like it's always on and maybe Ican, you know, turn it down to
nearly off.
And I think with my wife's workI mean, she's an attorney,
she's done the law firm lifebefore and I've been.
You know we've been togetherthrough that, which has been
great but intense, and she'sbeen at Chase now for over five
(29:53):
years at this point, and I thinkthe challenging part is how
hectic is my life often is aconsequence of a decision I made
, maybe not cognizantly, butlike you know, how busy am I?
How many of these projects didI take on, you know, did I time
it strategically around theseasonality of our business?
And have I?
You know, how busy am I as?
How many of these projects thatI take on, you know, did I time
it strategically around theseasonality of our business?
And have I?
You know, have I done this tomyself?
(30:14):
Am I willing to take on more?
And with her work, being anattorney is often much more
reactionary.
It's like, well, things havebeen relatively calm and then,
oh shit, here's a new rulingissued by the federal government
or here's this crisis thatcomes up and I get a phone call.
So for her.
I think she doesn't get to planthe chaos as much as perhaps I
(30:38):
could.
So I've tried to get a littlebetter about leaving some space.
But my problem is I get excitedabout this.
It's not as much these days asI have to.
It's like I want to do that.
But should I do one more thing?
And it's easy to say no tothings you don't want to do.
Actually it's not it.
It's easier to say no to thingsyou don't want to do, but it's
really hard to say no tosomething that you definitely
(31:00):
want to do and you probablyshouldn't do.
And that's at least a luxury Ishould have.
But yeah, she's.
She is, I think, far morethoughtful and strategic about
how she approaches these things,because that's just the way her
brain is wired.
I'm much more like I don'treally want to know what I'm
doing tomorrow.
I just want to have one thingon the calendar and then go
where the spirit compels me therest of the day.
(31:22):
And she's planning her life farmore.
You know, I look at hercalendar if I go up to the home
office and it's like 17conference Zoom calls a day and
some of them are at the sametime, and I'm like how does this
work exactly?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
No, thank you and.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I'm like well, I got this podcast this morning and I
think I'll probably work on thisother thing, and then, you know
, somebody is going to call mewith something that I need.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I don't like to plan Right, hey, I mean, listen, you
got to do what you got to do, soany last minute advice for a
young little fresh entrepreneurout there who's sitting there
listening to you like what elseyou got.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I think it certainly seems daunting and you got to
kind of find the.
You know I'm inspired by thisstory or that story.
I'm inspired by this story orthat story, but you got to know
that whatever it starts out asis probably going to be just OK
at best and probably bad inother areas.
And I think for me, my, myapproach has been to to get
comfortable with this is a slowand steady process.
(32:23):
I'm OK with, I'm not happy withthis or that.
Today, if I'm seeingimprovement or I'm, you know, I
have a path to getting better atit, and I think in the early
days there's not a lot you'regoing to be looking at saying,
oh, this is really great.
And every year, you know, thesedays I do, you know, I like to
say we do the coolest shit ofany suit company in the world
and that's what gets me excitedand I believe that to be true in
(32:48):
my definition of what cool shitis.
But these opportunities I havenow in year 15 are things that
seeds that were planted 15 yearsago, 12 years ago, people I
knew before they are what theyare today.
I mentioned Taylor from camp isplaying in the store on Sunday.
That's awesome.
One of my favorite bands, greatperson, but also in 2017,
(33:09):
before camp was huge.
They played in my store.
And now the people in our orbithave opportunities for us to get
involved.
That are just so much different.
So I think playing the longgame being okay with like this
is just okay now, but it'sgetting better when it gets
tough.
That will keep you from feelinglike you want to throw in the
towel.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Anything else about Pursuit or anything you want to
put out in the universe beforewe close out.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, we sell suits.
I don't know if I've actuallysaid that at this point, but
yeah, people usually come to usfor, you know, suits and
professional clothing.
We sell suits to everybody,which I think is our Good
Intentions program is fillingthe last of that gap of people
without the financial means, butwe really do sell suits to
everybody.
So if one more person walks upto me and says, oh, do you sell
(33:56):
women's suits?
My head's going to explode,because you know our partnership
with the Fury and many otherthings that we do are intended
to let people know we do that.
You know I don't talk enoughabout like what I actually do
for a living or like what paysmy bills, but we do it in a very
personal way where somebody canmake it easy and make it fun
and help you through the process.
We have a shop in the ShortNorth.
(34:17):
We do things by appointment.
We appreciate that people planahead because a lot of the
things that we try to do are notinstant things.
So if you have something thatyou're excited about months in
advance, we would love for youto come down and have an
appointment and look at thingsand start to put a plan together
.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I love it.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Of course, and if you're still out there following
your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you
get your podcast.
And until next time, check outNate.
Check out his business.
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