Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Smith.
Hi Blake, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in Marietta, Georgia, and headed to the University of Tennessee in 2018. After graduating in 2022 I moved to Nashville, and like a lot of people who land here, I came chasing something I couldn’t quite name yet.
I’ve always been drawn to building things. I had a handful of ideas and side projects before Steel & Saddle ever existed, but the one that stuck came from something I kept noticing on trips out to Fort Worth and Dallas. There was this energy out west, a real cowboy culture rooted in grit and authenticity, and I felt like Nashville was missing that. The city had gone corporate. Country music was everywhere, but western culture had been watered down or left out entirely. And across the Southeast, people gravitated toward southern and country style but had almost no exposure to real western wear.
So I started Steel & Saddle Co. as a brand. Gritty, western-inspired tees designed for modern outlaws. Simple graphics, no flash, just something that blended the soul of the South with the spirit of the West. I spent over a year selling at local markets, mostly out at 12 South, building a following one customer at a time.
That grind showed me there was a bigger opportunity. People weren’t just buying tees, they were buying into the lifestyle. That’s when Steel & Saddle Outfitters was born. We opened our flagship shop at Marathon Village and turned the vision into a full western wear destination carrying brands like Duck Head, Sendero Provisions Co., and Marsh Wear, plus a curated Hat Bar where customers can get a fully custom hat shaped, branded, and styled with pins, feathers, and hat bands.
We’re here to prove that western wear belongs in the South, and Nashville is exactly where it starts.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If anything, the road to opening Steel & Saddle has been one obstacle after another, and every time I thought we’d caught a break, something else hit.
I built this business while working a full-time corporate job, so from day one it was early mornings, late nights, and weekends spent grinding at vendor markets. There were family emergencies that pulled my focus when I couldn’t afford to lose it. I took on serious debt to fund inventory and the buildout at Marathon Village, the kind of financial risk that keeps you up at night when you’re betting on yourself with no safety net.
Then there were the things you just can’t plan for. A tree fell on our brand new trailer before we even had a chance to insure it. A downpour at one of our markets destroyed around $4,000 worth of inventory and equipment in a single day. We dealt with stockouts on key products right when momentum was building.
When we finally signed on at Marathon Village and started the buildout, the hits kept coming. Construction delays pushed our timeline back over and over. A pipe leak in the store nearly destroyed the brand new buildout we had poured everything into. Staffing was its own challenge on top of all of it.
Nothing about this has been easy. But if I had to go back and do it all over again to be where we are today, I wouldn’t change a thing. Every setback made the foundation stronger, and I think that grit is baked into the brand itself. Steel & Saddle was never built on convenience. It was built on showing up when it would’ve been easier not to.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Most people don’t know this, but I’ve been coding since high school. That ended up being a huge piece of the puzzle because I was able to build our entire website myself. I also come from a graphic design background. In college, I interned for a Hall of Fame quarterback’s bourbon company where I handled their branding, marketing assets, and inventory on the supply chain side. I didn’t know it at the time, but that experience was basically training for everything Steel & Saddle would eventually need.
I still work a full-time corporate job in supply chain and logistics. The corporate world has taught me a lot, but it also showed me what was missing. I never really felt a sense of family or real culture at the places I worked. That stuck with me, and it’s a big reason why building the right culture at Steel & Saddle matters so much to me. I want the people around this brand, employees, partners, customers, to feel like they’re part of something, not just passing through.
With Steel & Saddle, I’ve had to figure out a little bit of everything along the way. Design, web development, inventory, operations, the in-store experience. Not because I wanted to do it all, but because that’s just the reality of building something from the ground up with no outside funding. A year ago we were setting up a tent at weekend markets. Now we’re in Marathon Village and nowhere close to done.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Honestly, the biggest one is that I don’t give myself a way out. When I commit to something, I go all in. Financially, mentally, all of it. I put myself in positions where failure literally isn’t an option. Some people might call that reckless, but for me it’s the only way I know how to operate. When there’s no safety net, you figure it out. You don’t have a choice.
Faith is a huge part of it too. I’ve always put myself in God’s hands for guidance, but it wasn’t until recently that I really handed the business over to Him. I was at a FedEx print shop and ran into someone who told me he had done the same thing with his business. That conversation hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Right there I prayed and asked God to take hold of Steel & Saddle. It sounds simple, but that shift in perspective changed everything for me. I’m still putting in the work every single day, but knowing it’s in His hands takes a weight off that I didn’t even realize I was carrying.
The other thing is that I never want this to feel like just my thing. I bring the people around me into it. Family, friends, the people who work with me. I want them to feel ownership over what we’re building. Steel & Saddle is bigger than one person, and the more people who feel invested in it, the stronger it gets. That’s the kind of culture I’m trying to build from day one.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://steelsaddle.co
- Instagram: steelsaddle.co and steelsaddle.nashville
