Zero Investors, All Sisterhood: Bootstrapping a Licensed Brand — Elise Colomb

Joshua Wilson: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by FA Mergers and Acquisitions. If you own a business generating $10 million or more in annual revenue, our team can provide a complimentary opinion of value based on real transaction data in your industry. Whether you're considering a sale now or simply planning for the future, we can help you better understand what your business may be worth and prepare for an exit that aligns with your goals. Request your free valuation today at FAMergers.com. Good day, everybody. Welcome to The Deal Podcast. On today's show, we're gonna have fun and it it should be almost a PJ party because I think we're talking about pajamas and all sorts of cool stuff from a an unlikely story of how Elise got into the world of pajamas. Right? Elise, welcome to the deal.

Elise Colomb: 0:49

Thank you for having me.

Joshua Wilson: 0:51

Yeah. So I guess who are you and what do you do?

Elise Colomb: 0:55

So my name is Elise. I grew up in Lafayette. I we have started a business where we s it started off with our hero product, which is pajamas, and it started off in sorority pajamas. And since we've expanded to lots of game day and sorority products for moms and daughters and family members, and really it's a sisterhood to enjoy.

Joshua Wilson: 1:22

Yeah, super cool. So when I when I kinda kicked this off and we we started talking, your background is not in pajama sales.

Elise Colomb: 1:29

Not at all

Joshua Wilson: 1:30

Not at all. Okay. Kinda walk us through your your story of how you got into the world of pajama parties.

Elise Colomb: 1:36

Okay. So I graduated in nursing. I was a nurse for a little bit and then I got into pharmaceutical sales, which I loved. I'd learned the whole I was trained very heavily in sales and it came natural to me. I was a mom for a long time and then but I always kept busy and I was always very artistic. So I sold art out of my house just for fun. And I was doing resumes for girls going to college and a friend approached me and asked if she could help to do those resumes. And I said, Of course. This is for fun for me. So she came to my house one day and she saw the art and she said, I think we need to put these on products. And I thought that she was so crazy. But I I would just I went for it. I mean, I can remember my husband, we were forming because our third, there's three co-founders. Our third partner lives in Colorado and it's actually Virginia's sister-in-law, Kait. So it's Kait, Virginia, and myself. And when we were signing the LLC papers, my husband, who's an attorney, was, you know, he just was so cautious and he said, I just don't know that you should be doing this. And I said, Brian, if I make a dollar more than I'm making right now, I'm good. And he said, okay, then go for it. And so that's how it started and it's it's exploded. It's is it is really crazy.

Joshua Wilson: 3:06

Yeah. That that is awesome. All right. So before we get into which I I love hearing, you know, attorneys thoughts and why and and you know, having someone to go, hey, maybe this isn't a good idea and I want to know why. But before we go there, you were RN doing pharmaceutical sales, kind of stay-at-home mom for a bit, but then you sold art for fun. What kind of art were you selling and like how were you selling?

Elise Colomb: 3:36

So I was selling it on social media. I I was doing different mediums and I started working with clay and I would do clay presses and intaglios and I figured out that if I got different schools logos, that my cousin who had a 3D printer, he printed stamps for me. And so I could I could stamp the the branded intaglios and do paintings and then local stores started carrying them and they were perfect graduation gifts or a gift for for schools. Cool.

Joshua Wilson: 4:11

Yeah. Very

Elise Colomb: 4:12

Yeah, it was cool.

Joshua Wilson: 4:13

So all right, so you were doing school logos and doing art and selling it for fun. Yes. And then one of your friends came by and you're and resumes. Why resumes? I'm before we even go any further, why in the world who does resumes for fun?

Elise Colomb: 4:27

Okay. Well, so I have I had a daughter in high school at the time. Yeah. And she was about to go through rush. And so when you go through rush, you have to have certain resumes. You have to have a social resume. And so after I learned that, I also have the past experience of being an advisor for my sorority. So I knew what what needed to be on there and what didn't. And there's lots of girls who don't know. I mean, I get calls all the time who Tell me that they don't, you know, do the do we really need recs for sororities? Do we not? And you do. Even just out of you know, being polite, I think that you need to you need to introduce yourself. So that's how it got started.

Joshua Wilson: 5:12

Jude, what sorority were you in? Hilarious. All right, but there's this culture with sororities and with this sisterhood, right? I guess what sorority were you in?

Elise Colomb: 5:27

Okay.

Joshua Wilson: 5:28

So you went through the whole process of being in a sorority and now you're you you kinda came out and you were advising and girls would call you up and they say do we need help this and that? You found a this unique blend of your art and that sisterhood of sororities and your friend kind of envisioned it and said, Why don't you put these things together? When did it become pajamas? Like what other iterations were there prior to pajamas?

Elise Colomb: 5:57

Tell you. Okay. So my daughter is in a sorority. She was a Tri Delta. Okay. She's there and she has big sis, little sis. And they're gonna have a pajama exchange. And I get online and I look for cute pajamas that might have her sorority in them. Yeah. And everything was so cheesy. It just was not it wasn't what I would envision and what I would see her in. And so I thought, gosh, there they're I can't even believe this. Our company was the first company. Ever in the United States to come up with the concept of doing sorority pajamas that included the mascot and the flower and the colors. That's it. It makes me excited. This week, Roller Rabbit, in fact, is gonna launch their sorority line on September 1st. And I'm thinking, they're they're they are doing that because I thought of it.

Joshua Wilson: 6:51

That is pretty cool.

Elise Colomb: 6:52

I mean, I thought of it. It is. And so and Virginia was so genius with wanting to make the products. I mean, because I she had a background in fashion merchandising. I did not. So she was the one that was like, come on, we gotta do this.

Joshua Wilson: 7:10

Yeah. All right. Attorney talk, right? So you're filling out paperwork and you're you were selling it to some friends and family, you know, the artwork, putting in logos on there. Right. And then he you're like, All right, we're gonna form an LLC and we're gonna start to, you know, take this to the market. What questions did he have or like when he was thinking like, Hey, you know, logos, trademarks, all that kind of stuff? Like what kind of conversation happened?

Elise Colomb: 7:37

Well, we are still working on a lot of trademarks and things like that. He really doesn't he he really doesn't have an opinion on any of our business decisions. He's pretty supportive. I think his caution was he's just very conservative to begin with. Yeah. And he didn't know how much this would I guess cost him. And what he didn't realize at the time was we had done all these resumes and so we had a big we had a big cushion that we put into the business to begin with and we've never looked back. We've never had to ask anybody for help. We just roll the money back in and it's grown. I mean, our our revenue goal this year is gonna be one point two five million. You know, we're very goal oriented.

Jude David: 8:29

Yeah, that's awesome.

Joshua Wilson: 8:30

Awesome. That is so cool.

Elise Colomb: 8:31

Cool. I mean we've we've only been in existence since two two thousand twenty four.

Joshua Wilson: 8:37

Wow.

Elise Colomb: 8:38

So

Joshua Wilson: 8:40

Dude, that is pretty cool, kinda going from the idea to, you know, launch and and now you guys have rolled out. Zero investors, right? And this has been you guys have self funded this. Yes. From money that you made selling art and resumes.

Elise Colomb: 8:57

Yes.

Joshua Wilson: 8:58

Jude, what questions do you have? But let let's hear your y let's hear your investor mind. what questions do you have for Elise?

Jude David: 9:05

First off, don't be too hard on lawyers. I used to be a lawyer.

Elise Colomb: 9:08

No. I love my husband. I love what he does.

Jude David: 9:11

I'm reformed. Yeah. And you know what? Y we're programmed to be risk averse. So that's that's kind of the the operating procedure whenever you're a lawyer. how awesome. You know, that's like the true zero to one story going from the ground. I'm hearing a lot of themes though, like, you know, you don't describe yourself as an entrepreneur, but you are clearly a serial entrepreneur because you stepped from one thing to the next to the next until you found the one that was like we're gonna turn the dial on this. Right. Because this is the one that makes money. so how cool that you did that. one point two five million in revenue target this year. That is that is a real legit business at this point. And it just kinda begs the question, what's next after that? You know, where does the business go from you know, owning the market in sorority pajamas and other various, you know, university related products? And you know, where does it go from here?

Elise Colomb: 10:09

Well, we've really only scratched the surface. Okay. Because you know, we have we're only licensed for seventeen sororities and universities. Now we do have some products that are inspired by different, you know, maybe their colors or different things like that. But we haven't even, I mean, we haven't even scratched the surface when it comes to when you think about Pledge classes, okay. Like at LSU just now, they had about a hundred and twenty five girls. Okay. And they have twelve sororities there. And you think about that all over the country. We haven't even scratched the surface on that. And a lot of the Western states don't even realize that bid day is a big celebration thing. They don't even realize that game day is a thing. It's crazy. So that is another big market that we are gonna really try to educate people on and and get them involved in Game Day. Yeah,

Jude David: 11:12

Fantastic.

Elise Colomb: 11:13

we have a lot of growing to do.

Jude David: 11:14

Yeah, that's unlimited runway if you get to game that

Elise Colomb: 11:18

I'm serious. It's it's it's a lot.

Jude David: 11:21

Yeah. so how many universities do you guys cover now? Are you still expanding to cover more or is it is it mostly finite at this point?

Elise Colomb: 11:31

So we have 17 that we are licensed for right now, and that's pretty much across the United States. It's not just the South. And so we're in a showroom right now in Atlanta, in Dallas, and Las Vegas. And Virginia is our licensing guru. And so she goes to SLTS every year, and that's basically the sports licensing market. where all of the universities come to you and make appointments. And last year she had, you know, just different samples of pajamas that we wanted to get licensed for. And those universities took it back to their licensing departments. Like for instance, Minnesota. They saw our little Goldie Gopher and they wanted it to be official. So I've been working with them doing different versions of their logos. And they're actually going to buy two different ones. And we're doing all kind of products for them and that's gonna be one of our new licenses.

Jude David: 12:31

Yeah. So how do you decide what what's a good university partner and what's not a good university partner for you guys?

Elise Colomb: 12:39

Well, we try to be a good partner to everybody because we want we want to be reputable. We want to be licensed. If they want to give us that opportunity, we jump on it. Now it's it's a risk to us only for our profit. I mean, we pay them twenty five percent royalties. That's why we have to price our products the way we do in order for us to still come a little bit ahead. So it is it's a tough decision, but You know, in the end you can't if a university wants to us they want to license us, we're gonna do it.

Jude David: 13:15

So I I gotta assume the economics are pretty different at a big university versus a small one though. Like if you go, you know, LSU versus McNeese, you're gonna have really different economics. Do you have to price it differently or are you just trying to make sure that the numbers

Elise Colomb: 13:29

We try to make sure the numbers work, but we are constantly so we're very goal oriented. And when we meet, we we go by a strict agenda. I mean it's three girls in a hotel lobby. It's really kind of funny. And we we we figure out every single commission percentage, we figure out our costs, we figure out what we're gonna come up ahead and we adjust as we go. We're just trying to make money.

Jude David: 13:58

Fantastic.

Elise Colomb: 13:59

We're very we we analyze everything.

Jude David: 14:02

Yeah. So when you think five years in the future, ten years in the future, what does the business look like then?

Elise Colomb: 14:08

Wish I knew. we're so young. I I'm telling you, even this bid day when we were doing sorority bid day baskets, I thought, you know, maybe one number was great. And then we showed up, and my husband and my sisters, we were all on deck filling these orders because there were so many and they just kept piling in. And I told Virginia, my expectations are always like this. And We completely exceed them every time. It is so I I kinda live I kinda live just trusting the plan and just being excited about I know, isn't it funny? Yeah, yeah.

Jude David: 14:50

So what are your challenges to growth? I mean, do you have a good bit of marketing spend when you're going to new places or is it, you know, really organic?

Elise Colomb: 14:59

So our third co-founder, her name is Kaitlin Fontenot. She is Virginia's sister-in-law, and she is a Shopify expert. She's amazing. And she lives in Colorado, I said that, and she is our marketing person. So she she actually has an agency up there. So we're so lucky to have her because she does all of our websites, she does all of our social media. Anything you can think of, she does that part of it. So we really we're very lucky that we don't have to spend that.

Jude David: 15:34

You know? So there's the three of you.

Elise Colomb: 15:35

Yes.

Jude David: 15:36

What about the rest of the team? What have you what have you built out in terms of support, staff, anything?

Elise Colomb: 15:42

We have none. It is us three.

Jude David: 15:45

Fantastic.

Elise Colomb: 15:46

We we really we've thought about adding to the team, but we're so cautious. We're just we're so we're we're babies in this, you know, and so we what we envision is we're in a warehouse right now. We envision after we meet these goals that we've set for ourselves for the year to eventually be in a bigger warehouse where we can have support staff. And we can have people filling our orders and have a person that's contacting, you know, our wholesalers and, you know, making sure that everything's on the up and up. But right now we just all try to do it together.

Jude David: 16:25

So how many square feet now and then what are you trying to move into?

Elise Colomb: 16:30

We have about fifteen hundred square feet and it is packed to the ceilings. We are walking over things. I mean, it is nuts. And we would love to be in a four thousand square foot building.

Jude David: 16:43

Yeah, I'd assume come August, whenever you need to be as full as you can on inventory, it's quite it's gotta be pretty tough to to do it in fifteen hundred square feet.

Elise Colomb: 16:52

It is. It's a madhouse.

Jude David: 16:54

Now I'm making an assumption there that that you guys are very busy at rush time every year or, you know, in the month after rush as girls are picking sororities. Is that a fair assumption?

Elise Colomb: 17:05

Very fair. Yeah. It it's like a tidal wave. It kind of builds and then it grows to where we're it it's a for for me it's a rush to get all these orders in and to have to fill them. I mean, I went to the warehouse this morning and gosh, I don't know. There were twenty five different orders to fill like just get and she and Virginia is on the road and she said, These gotta go out today. I mean, it is nuts.

Jude David: 17:34

Yeah, you're moving quick.

Elise Colomb: 17:35

We are.

Jude David: 17:36

What about your regular university branded apparel, whenever it's not just sorority things? Is that a little bit more fixed throughout the year or does that come in waves too?

Elise Colomb: 17:46

Okay, so it really it's it's starting now. It's kind of like a tidal wave now, right before football season starts. I mean, I sent out things in Indiana today, New Jersey, Colorado. So I'm really hoping that the game bug kinda gets contagious and that we can really once those people in Indiana see their things or you know, that people will start ordering more and more. It's kinda it's like a tidal wave.

Jude David: 18:16

Yeah. So what an interesting journey you've had. Nursing, mom, artist. And then this, like I'm I'm sure that's a big life transition for you. It is. Like tell tell me the different roles of actually running the business. So I know you've got the marketing person in Colorado, but like people are having to look at P&Ls and input accounting entries and all of that. Who's doing those things? How are you all dividing that up?

Elise Colomb: 18:42

So okay, Kait does all of our Shopify and our numbers. She she's a coding geni genius where she can like basically she codes our website and Shopify and links them to report to reports. And then we have a dashboard on Google where I can check live time all of our goals and like net gross profit, everything right there. That's amazing. And then Virginia is our licensing person. She also does all of the inventory and makes sure that we have the inventory to fill the orders and prints out everything. And then I go in when she's not there and I fill the orders. And then on the other hand, I'm in front of my computer or my sketchpad and I'm drawing. Always trying to meet deadlines.

Jude David: 19:34

Yeah. So you've got a lot of art to do whenever you get a new university contract.

Elise Colomb: 19:40

it's so much fun though. I mean it really is. It's it's almost like doing a crossword puzzle for people at night. My husband is watching, you know, different series and I'm just like drawing, you know?

Jude David: 19:54

Fun loving artist. I like

Elise Colomb: 19:55

Right.

Joshua Wilson: 19:56

It really looks like you're having fun. You haven't stopped like smiling since you showed up. And I I know that Jude and I are are great company, but like you have a lot of joy. Did

Elise Colomb: 20:06

Yes.

Joshua Wilson: 20:07

this unlock something in you, like in your heart or in your world where like like a not a missing piece, but like i is this a big piece of the puzzle for you?

Elise Colomb: 20:18

It is. It's a it's a huge piece of the puzzle for me. I I always I I love to create and I loved to make money to say that I made money. Kind of, you know, my husband to say, I can pay for that. I made the money. Yeah. But and he didn't care, but it you know, it was something that I wanted to do. And so now this is just really fun and it was really great. you know, just to listen, listen to God, let him open up the space for me. And I feel like what I'm doing is creating with the talents that he gave to me. I was the most artistic in high school. I mean, I'm sure y'all all got your what are they called? The awards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I was the most artistic in my class. And so it's fun to be able to use the skill that God gave to me. And it's it's mind blowing when you walk into a store and you see your products and people, I they don't know that I drew them and they're buying the stuff. It's it's just mind blowing. It almost feels like I almost feel like a songwriter and then you see the artist get on stage and sing and everybody knows the words and you're like, this is so it's just mind blowing.

Jude David: 21:43

I think I was most likely to be president of the United States. worries. So at least one of us lived up to our potential.

Joshua Wilson: 21:50

Still time buddy.

Elise Colomb: 21:51

That's funny.

Joshua Wilson: 21:54

When you create, do you put your signature somewhere or do you hide stuff in there that's important to you? Or like are there Easter eggs kind of like hidden in your art?

Elise Colomb: 22:05

There are. I put my signature in in the art all the time. And it's hidden. It's like it might be part of like the tail fur, but it's in there. Yeah. All the time.

Joshua Wilson: 22:17

My my wife and her sisters and mother in law, they're they're artists and you can they they hide their their signature or or sometimes they just put it out in the open. But yeah, it's an artist thing that I w I'm not an artist, so I would have never known. But yeah, like it's it's it's your signature. And it's fun.

Elise Colomb: 22:32

It is. Yes. And I actually you know, when I'm doing this Minnesota design, it my signature is on it and they have re ev n everybody has respected that my signature is on my artwork. No one's ever said we need it removed for it to be licensed.

Joshua Wilson: 22:48

I think it's special. I think I I th I think it's really cool. do you think that this will ever like tap into high schools or organizations like Girl Scouts or, you know, other big organizations, you know, the Catholic community is huge, right? Like what are your thoughts on on expanding out? I mean, there's there's big enough to go just sororities, period, in universities, like you could you could spend all all day there, but like Where else could this go?

Elise Colomb: 23:20

Well, we do custom designs. Okay. So we've already done designs for Camp Longhorn in Texas. We've done a local design for Round Top, Texas. Like I have you heard of the antique market there? It kind of honors that. Your mom knows it, I can tell you. And your sisters do. It's amazing. So we've done custom pajamas for them. Cool. We've the high school that we graduated from, St. Thomas More, I have done pajamas for them. And I have some of my accessories that are about to be in their Cougar Closet. we've done I'm about to do a Schools of the Sacred Heart, Duchesne in Nebraska. I've done Dallas Episcopal School in Dallas. So I we do custom designs all the time. It's one of my favorite things.

Joshua Wilson: 24:09

Super.

Jude David: 24:10

Sounds like a lot of schools though, asking for custom designs.

Elise Colomb: 24:13

They do. I mean, we have we've done Clio, the Mardi Gras krewe. I mean we've done I've done so many different things which makes it really fun.

Joshua Wilson: 24:25

Bring me back to a moment like in the last two years, two and a half years. Bring me back to one of your greatest memories in in business.

Elise Colomb: 24:35

Okay. The first time we ever went to market in 2024, we were in Dallas and I was helping a customer. My daughter was with me and she she tried to get my attention, but when I'm with a customer, I'm kind of tunnel vision. So I I didn't pay attention to her. And so I was finished with the customer and she said, Mom, that lady was just from Good Morning America. And I said Well, did you get her card? And she said, No, I just I didn't think about it. I was too nervous and I couldn't get your attention. I said, It's okay. You know, this is it's in God's hands. It's okay. Well, Monday morning after market, Good Morning America called. It was, it was so surreal. And so they wanted to feature our pajamas on their Mother's Day show. And when we got that call, I told my husband that day, because we don't we don't go out during the week much, and I said, We are going to celebrate at Ruth's Chris and we are going to get a bottle of wine. I am so excited. And he said, This is amazing. And it was. It was it was so cool. We had a watch party and we had T V screens. And as they would sell, as they would make the announcement in different time zones, you could see the sales go across the United States from east to west. It was amazing.

Joshua Wilson: 25:57

Yeah, what a cool experience. Yeah. All right. Now now on the challenge side. Mm-hmm. You guys launched this. What has, you know, something that you could talk about maybe. What is one of the biggest challenges that you personally overcame while building this? That you look back and you go, wow, I'm proud of myself for that.

Elise Colomb: 26:17

Think it's recognizing that sometimes you have to step away. Like I might be designing something for hours and I just can't get it right. And nothing clicks. And so sometimes you have to step away in order to gain a fresh perspective to start again. You know?

Joshua Wilson: 26:37

Yeah, yeah.

Jude David: 26:39

That happens in everything. If you write something, if you work on a song or music or whatever, like you have to step away and then hear it with fresh ears or see it with fresh eyes.

Elise Colomb: 26:49

You do.

Joshua Wilson: 26:50

Yeah. What have your prayers been like since starting this? Or you know, like ha has your relationship, your spiritual walk changed at all while while doing this, your relationship with your husband? Like kind of give an idea of like how has this impacted relationship up and and sideways?

Elise Colomb: 27:07

Okay, well, first of all, the biggest leap of faith was starting the business and it was completely in his hands. I mean, that's how I felt about it. I wasn't gonna push anything. I have not pushed anything. I try to let things come to us. And it is really when you open your heart to God and his plan, it is amazing what he puts in front of you when it's supposed to happen that way. And that's what I've tried to teach my children. You know, they get stressed out about, you know, they're both in college. Well, one of them's in law school right now. And, you know, what are we gonna do and what what's next? And you don't, if you just kind of let God take the lead and surrender to him, you there's miracles that happen. It's amazing. And so that's what I've learned at 50 years old to let go and let him lead the way. You know, and it's just been I I think that I think it's been really neat for my husband to watch because he he'll try to guide me and I'm and I just say, I'm not, I'm letting it happen. You know, and it does. It's amazing. So we've all learned from it and grown.

Joshua Wilson: 28:22

Alright, so I see you you brought in some catalogs. Do you have any stuff for guys? Any any dude stuff out there? Yeah not yet.

Elise Colomb: 28:31

Yeah. We will. We have so much stuff in the pipeline. Yeah. I am constantly thinking of ideas. Virginia is constantly thinking of ideas. And now with AI, we will punch something in and I will go back and forth with AI for product development and then send it to her and say, This is what we need. This is the size, this is zipper, this is everything. And she will get it, she'll get it. mapped out for us with manufacturers. But we do get asked a whole lot about game day ties, game day pack pocket squares. The guys who are friends with my daughter and her friends love our pajamas. They're bamboo cotton. So they're amazing. It's just

Jude David: 29:15

I can see it in his eyes.

Joshua Wilson: 29:19

That's for my wife. I know

Elise Colomb: 29:22

But they love just because of the way they feel. Yeah. You know? But we're just it it we we're trying to grow very conservatively. And right now we are I'm telling you, we are busting at the seams.

Joshua Wilson: 29:36

So I love this this this conversation because I I've already thrown like twenty ideas at you, right? And and this is a problem I I find with myself and with other entrepreneurs, you know, especially creatives. Lots of ideas. How do guys kill ideas? How do you decide prioritize them? Yeah, how do you determine which ideas get get put on the marketplace and which ones go on the shelf for now?

Elise Colomb: 30:03

Honestly, it's all about profit. Okay. We when we figure out a product, we figure out how much it is to make, what is the packaging gonna cost, what what the wholesale price would be, then we have to pay our commission to our reps and to if it's licensed to the school or the sorority. And so we if the bottom line is not at a certain percentage, it we're not doing it.

Joshua Wilson: 30:32

You kill it. How many reps do you guys have and like how do you how do you find new reps?

Elise Colomb: 30:39

Okay, will the reps come with the showroom? So, gosh, I don't wanna guess. I'm guessing maybe we have twenty per showroom. So we probably have sixty reps right now and they cover the entire United States, even Hawaii. So we're all over. And we're basically in boutiques and bookstores and that kind of thing.

Joshua Wilson: 31:04

Yeah. Yeah, super cool. So as you're as you're building this out, your kids are seeing a new side of you. What would your kids say about you as you're building this out?

Elise Colomb: 31:16

think that I will I hope I inspire them. I know my daughter has told me so many times that I inspire her to to do big things. I try to teach them to never think small. I can remember a time where before I was in pharmaceutical sales, I was working for a tchotchke company, just selling pins and you know whatever. And they gave me a sales list. And I had a friend who worked at Southern Living and I I asked my boss, I said, okay, well, I think I want to fly to Southern Living and pitch all these products so I can sell to them. And she was like, Okay, because so many people tend to think small and I don't have that ability. I always think bigger because there's so much world out there, right?

Jude David: 32:09

Absolutely.

Joshua Wilson: 32:12

Well, this is I'm gonna throw myself under the bus here. a lot of times as I'm building something out and I've known Jude. Jude's been my, you know, friend and mentor for a while. You know, a lot of times he would say, Josh, why would you you know, you're thinking too small, you know, like and then he he'll talk about mergers and acquisitions and buying a big company. And me going into it, knowing what I have in, you know, bank account or whatever, that's a frame I'm thinking. Whereas he

Jude David: 32:39

don't make me stress her out. What's that? Don't make me stress her out with with the thoughts I have about how she could grow.

Elise Colomb: 32:45

No, I wanna know, dude. I really do wanna know. Yeah.

Joshua Wilson: 32:49

I I do too, and that's what I'm leading at is is that s having having someone with a you are a bigger thinker than me.

Elise Colomb: 32:56

Mm. okay.

Joshua Wilson: 32:58

He's a bigger thinker than me. So like I wanna hear, you know, your thoughts on this without stressing her out for sure. But like what are some of the thoughts that you have, Jude, about you know, about growth in in scale to a ten X or a hundred X?

Elise Colomb: 33:11

Yes, I really w I wanna know.

Jude David: 33:14

Well, you know, we we work at breakneck speed. And so most folks think, you know, very deliberately in business. You know, how do we attack these three initiatives at a time? How do we focus on what can we cash flow in terms of our growth? my companies, we tend to think the opposite of that. It's like, what's the maximum amount that we could leverage our assets that we have to be able to grow from there? And, you know, it's it's a little bit breakneck and happy. Haphazard. It can feel like you're, you know, building the plane as you're taking off. That's

Elise Colomb: 33:48

Right, right.

Jude David: 33:49

but it can also let you like really get to that next level. I mean, I look at your business, 1.25 million in revenue this year. You're in with 17 universities, but a lot of room to grow. It's a very investable business. You know, if you had an investor who came along and said, Here's ten million dollars to go grow this thing, like what would you do with ten million dollars? I bet there's a lot of things.

Elise Colomb: 34:12

my gosh. I can think of a lot of things I do. You want me to tell you? I

Jude David: 34:17

yeah. Let's hear it. Let's dream together.

Elise Colomb: 34:19

mean, I would I would build that huge warehouse. We would have a staff to help us. We would I would get one of those wrapped vans that had a boutique inside and we would go all over the United States. I'd have someone doing that, selling our products with pop ups to universities. I mean, it's endless.

Jude David: 34:41

So like there are people out there who would give you ten million dollars to invest, but they'd probably want a chunk of the equity in your business. Right. But realistically you probably have the ability to go borrow five from a bank to help you to grow. What keeps you from doing that? Is it conservatism? Is it

Elise Colomb: 34:56

I think it's education. We just don't know enough about it to do it. Yeah.

Jude David: 35:00

Yeah. But you're doing so well even without doing it.

Elise Colomb: 35:02

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that if I think that if we were educated enough about it, we're just kind of we just kind of go with our gut and we're not business people, obviously. We're just doing what we love to do and growing it. And so I think if we knew more about that, maybe we would do it, but we don't.

Jude David: 35:29

So less than eight percent of businesses ever make it to a million dollars a year in revenue.

Elise Colomb: 35:34

Really? Are you serious?

Jude David: 35:36

Don't ever say that you're not a business person. Top nine percent.

Joshua Wilson: 35:39

You are

Jude David: 35:41

Top eight percent. You're

Elise Colomb: 35:42

That's amazing.

Jude David: 35:43

probably in the top five percent 'cause you're at a million and a quarter, so you're

Elise Colomb: 35:47

Well, we have to make it. We have to reach that goal. now we're on target. We're we're above we're we're about three hundred thousand above our target right now, for the year. So we're we have a huge cushion, but you know, we just you're always just praying that you're gonna make your goal. Yeah. You know.

Jude David: 36:10

Yeah. You get this thing in startups where you've grown a business and it's it's almost like imposter syndrome. Like we're playing business. You know, we're like everybody else knows what they're doing and they're growing their business the smart way, but we're just like fumbling our way through every day. And then you realize like you take a step back and go, wait, like we're actually a real business today. And somehow managed to fall into this. We made all these dumb decisions and we managed to fall into

Elise Colomb: 36:37

Yes.

Jude David: 36:38

and you discount all the hard work. That went into it and all the smart decisions along.

Elise Colomb: 36:42

Hours, hours. I mean, my husband tells me, my dad was an insurance defense attorney where they bill by the hour. And he said, and he'll he sees how hard I work. Sometimes I'm I'm working till two in the morning and he was like, Gosh, if you would have worked for your dad's firm, you would have outworked everybody. It's in your blood. It it just is, you know.

Jude David: 37:05

Except if you were doing insurance defense. I doubt you would have worked as hard. Well

Elise Colomb: 37:09

Yep. I wouldn't have loved it as much as I do this.

Jude David: 37:12

Yeah, it's why you work so hard. You're passionate about it. Yes. Yeah. I can tell you, as a former lawyer, it is hard to make yourself sit at that desk every day whenever you're not passionate.

Elise Colomb: 37:23

Right.

Jude David: 37:23

And you find something like this, you'll never work a day in your life.

Elise Colomb: 37:26

Right. no, this does not work to me. It's so much fun.

Jude David: 37:30

Well, you're killing it. You're getting to do the art thing that you love to do. You're growing a business, obviously making your kids proud. we have a lot of listeners who haven't made that transition from, you know, the desk job they hate or being a stay at home mom or whatever it is and they've thought about it, they've considered it, but you know, they've been a little scared to take that leap. What do you tell all those people?

Elise Colomb: 37:54

gosh, you just have to take the leap of faith. I I mean I'll tell you this. Virginia started off at as a teacher and she was doing this with me and we got so busy that she just she said, I have to just take the leap of faith and do this instead. And now she's she is working as hard as I am and we're we're killing it. So I just think you just have to trust, like I said, you just have to trust your gut and go for it because we only live once. You know, and that job is always there's always gonna be a job at a desk waiting for you. So do what you love to do so that it's not work.

Jude David: 38:34

Yeah, or maybe there won't be jobs at desks. AI is taking off pretty fast. So like figure out something productive to do.

Elise Colomb: 38:40

Well, that's why I love what I do too. All of our it all goes back to the artwork and the hand illustrations and the watercolor because there's lots of products out there that are clip art. These are not.

Jude David: 38:53

Yeah, robots aren't replacing you guys.

Elise Colomb: 38:55

Right. No. Not at all.

Joshua Wilson: 39:00

So fun. All right. We had some guests in prior to you. Okay. And they left behind a question. This is how we connect guests is through questions that we've done. And then you'll be able to do that for the next guest. We actually have two questions from you. Let Jude read it.

Jude David: 39:17

So Catholic Legacy Foundation came on last. So we have one from Monica and one from Margaret. We'll start with

Elise Colomb: 39:27

Okay.

Jude David: 39:28

Margaret Trahan.

Elise Colomb: 39:30

Miss Margaret. Yeah. She knows me, she knows my heart.

Jude David: 39:35

How are you modeling stewardship to others?

Elise Colomb: 39:41

gosh. I try to live my life faithfully every single day and honor him and the talents he gave me. But we also at the end of the year choose some place to donate a ton of pajamas to. Last year we we did it to the women's shelter in Lafayette where we dropped off pajamas to the whole shelter and it was it was great. I mean, they were so appreciative. So You know, that we're just try to and we try to do the right thing every day. Because there's lots of challenges, especially with vendors or different wholesalers that might might say something ugly and we really try to do the right thing by making it better.

Jude David: 40:28

You guys are a mission-driven brand. We didn't even know it.

Elise Colomb: 40:31

Yeah.

Jude David: 40:33

the other question was from Monica Zuschlag. What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

Elise Colomb: 40:44

I hope that I'm an inspiration to my children and my sisters, and that I make my parents proud because I work really hard and they see they they help, so they see what it takes to run a business. And I hope that makes them proud. I hope the decisions I make make them proud and that they know they can do it too.

Jude David: 41:10

Multi generation, up and down the scope. Hopeful folks

Elise Colomb: 41:12

Seriously.

Jude David: 41:13

proud. Well, I'm sure you're inspiring your kids and hopefully they find a way to follow in your footsteps.

Elise Colomb: 41:20

So too.

Joshua Wilson: 41:22

So I don't know how many sororities we have listening in. We might. I don't know. I'll check the number

Jude David: 41:27

We're gonna send it to all of

Elise Colomb: 41:29

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Wilson: 41:31

But I I love the business, I love the idea, love your energy, super cool. Where can people go to learn more and to place a huge order?

Elise Colomb: 41:42

Okay, well, if you're a retail store, you well actually I'll tell you that you can go to our website. It's www.sororityandsisterhood.com or www.weekendwhimsies.com. We have two different companies and they both lead to the same thing, but any wholesaler or any consumer can go there and if you're a wholesaler, you can apply for a wholesale account. Or if you're a consumer and you want to look at our products, you I promise, I can promise you, once you're on the website, you will not leave without buying something because it's all so great. And that's how you find us. We're all over social media, TikTok, all the things.

Joshua Wilson: 42:31

Super cool. So what's one question that I should have asked you that I did not ask you during this interview?

Elise Colomb: 42:44

Yeah.

Joshua Wilson: 42:47

Nice.

Jude David: 42:47

Keeps you up at night. I'm gonna jump in.

Elise Colomb: 42:49

Okay, what keeps me up at night?

Joshua Wilson: 42:51

That's a great one, Jude.

Elise Colomb: 42:53

Right now I'm stuck on a design. I know that it needs to be really great because we're refurbishing some of our things. And I have all the other ones nailed, but this one has me stumped and it's it's it just has me stumped. So I'm constantly thinking of different variations that I can do to make designs better and to be the one that people pick.

Jude David: 43:18

So as you guys grow, seems like you're really focused on don't let the design and the beauty of the brand slip as you're as you're growing.'Cause it'd be so easy to just start pumping out designs, especially in an AI world, like how can we go fast? How can we go fast, fast, fast?

Elise Colomb: 43:36

Well, we constantly are putting out new products too. I mean, like I said earlier, pajamas is our hero product, but we have scarves, we have twilly scarves, we have acrylic trays. gosh, we have nightgowns for brides, we have purse straps that we just released this year, we have door hangers for the sorority girls. I we are we are constantly trying to move with the market as a lifestyle brand. So

Jude David: 44:04

Well great. That's not too bad for things that keep you up at night.

Elise Colomb: 44:06

Right.

Jude David: 44:08

Some people say like, I hope the bank doesn't come shut us down. So

Elise Colomb: 44:11

no, we don't we're not worried about that.

Jude David: 44:14

It's it's good problems. Good problems to have when you're worried about how do we keep doing what we do and do it even better.

Elise Colomb: 44:19

Yes.

Joshua Wilson: 44:20

I have two daughters. Mm-hmm. All right. thirteen and six. Billy

Elise Colomb: 44:25

Okay.

Joshua Wilson: 44:26

and Hattie. What advice do you have for the future deal makers? I could see I could see both of them being entrepreneur and and creativity like like flows through their blood. What advice do you have for them?

Elise Colomb: 44:39

I say go for it. What you need to do as a parent is expose them to everything you can. Put them in different camps, different lessons. Let them tap on some of their different talents that they might enjoy, they might not enjoy, but they're learning along the way who they are. And it helps them to hone in on those skills and develop them and into the adults. I mean, look. Their path is their path. Okay. It just is. But you can help to to guide them to the things that you think they will love doing.

Joshua Wilson: 45:20

Yeah, super cool.

Elise Colomb: 45:21

You know?

Joshua Wilson: 45:23

Awesome. Jude, final thoughts? Close this out.

Jude David: 45:28

Well, I'm just so thankful that you came on and shared your story. This is this is like the perfect transition in life, you know, going back and and doing it again as an entrepreneur kind of story. and I hope you'll come back on in a few years and tell us about how much you have grown. We didn't quite get the answer to the where's it gonna be in five years. So I'd love to hear five years from now and see where it's at

Elise Colomb: 45:50

Well I would too.

Jude David: 45:52

much for coming on. To all of our listeners, if you wanna reach out, how can we get a hold of you?

Elise Colomb: 46:03

You can reach us through our website. Yeah. But we're willing. We do partnerships, we do collaborations, we do pop ups, we do all sorts of things. So we're game. Just contact us.

Jude David: 46:16

Fantastic. Deal Podcast listeners, if you are thinking about that transition, thinking about making the jump, listen to Elise. Just do it. You gotta do it.

Joshua Wilson: 46:27

Cool. All right guys. You heard it. I hope you're having a great day. We'll talk to you all on the next episode. Cheers all.