Today we’d like to introduce you to Lia Larue And Nicole Johnson
Hi Lia LaRue and Nicole Johnson, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Nic&Maude is a company built on friendship first and foremost. Nicole and I have been friends for over 18 years! We have raised babies together, taken countless trips, lived all kinds of life and weathered many storms together. About 4 years ago we took a trip out West, and road-tripped through Wyoming and Montana. We have always been avid hat wearers and even been called the “Hat Ladies” a time or two by some locals 🙂 But while we were away we fell in love with the untamed beauty of the West and the rich cowboy culture it permeates. We immediately knew we wanted to up our hat game after that. So we started some conversations around one day making our own custom hats. We first started messing with old hats we had and tried adding some of our own customization, that was fun for a minute, But we slowly began having conversations around actually making a business of making custom hats. I was personally walking through a divorce and one of the hardest times of my life, and Nicole being my eternal sidekick and best friend was in it to win it with me. And in the midst of my dire straights, we had an opportunity to purchase minimal equipment to start the process of actually making our first custom hats.
Nicole and I are both singer song-writers, passionate about music, and have had some success in that world. Nicole and her husband Josh were on the first season of The Voice together, and have put out several records since. She is still very present in the music world and currently working on a solo record, to be released. I also worked in music with my ex-husband and he and I had success in the TV and film world as well. So naturally, we wanted to find a way to work with our hands and build a livelihood by still staying in a creative business. So this chance to start a hat company was the beginning of a dream come true for us.
And so we stepped out and went for it. We bought that minimal equipment, set up shop in my garage and began the journey of our hat company. We never went and apprenticed under anyone, we are self taught and elbow greased our way through it all. It took years of learning and unlearning to get to the place of feeling confident in all the skills you need to feel confident in to become a really good hat maker. Some folks think we just take a hat out of a box and throw some ribbons and bows on it and give it a burn, but that is far from the reality. Every single hat we create is hand made from the absolute start. It’s s a process, and a labor of love. And over the last 3 years of building this company we have fought so hard to keep the dream alive.
I was working 2 other jobs, juggling single mom life, and working on hats nights and weekends. And at times Nicole had to carry the weight when I was unable to be in it with her day in and day out. It was hard. We almost threw in the towel, and then, i had a conversation with my mom that changed it all. She dared me to quit all my jobs and dive head first into the hat business. And my mom is not one to say something like that unless she really believes in it. And so we took it to heart, and asked all our close people if they also believed in moms gusto advice, and they all agreed. So September last year, I quit all my jobs and Nicole and I dedicated our lives to turning our company around. We got our hats in as many retails locations we could, we marketed ourselves, we posted and posted some more, got our hats on some Titans players and Recording artists, and we got into some really incredible events as vendors… and we also started seeking out investors. We knew we needed a brick and mortar location in a well trafficked spot in order to actually become a successful business. And at that time we knew a couple contacts at the Franklin Factory and so we reached out about a possible space for our shop. They had just a couple spots left, and we in good faith asked them to hold a location for us.
So we went out on a limb and posted a post on instagram asking if anyone would be interested in investing in our hat company. We were overwhelmed with the responses! We ended up sending out over 25 business plans and sat down and had meetings with several investors. Within a couple short months, we did in fact find our business partners/investors who are the most incredible folks. And when we only had $100 left to our companies name we received our first check and the biggest sigh of relief!! We did it! We then began negotiations with factory to secure our space there, and we were well on our way to the big dream of owning our first retail location!!
hoping whoever writes this story knows that I am quickly writing this and want this to be from both Nicole and my perspectives, Not trying to take the spot light here 🙂
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
referencing previous tab-
my divorce, juggling starting a company while both being full time mamas, finding investors
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
What we are most proud of with our company is that we are self made, self taught, and female owned and operated. We had to push through the odds and the naysayers to get to where we are.
We are incredibly proud of the brand we have built and the hats we create. Each hat is a unique one of kind, curated piece.
Also, we are not only custom hat makers but have been able to connect and work along side so many other incredible brands. Some that are local, and some from out west. Our up and coming retail location is going to not only be where the custom hat workshop will be, but we will be designating about 1500 sq ft of the new space to carry retail from thoughtfully selected brands.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
O My…. I dunno, some may call it luck. We call it intentionallity. Intentionally thinking and praying and believing that something is possible when no one else thinks it is. Being incredibly intentional with how we moved forward, with how we spoke when we were down, intentional with our friendship, our business relationship. Truly living this journey out with clear direction of what we wanted and intention. Nothing easy is good and nothing good is easy. We have pushed our way through, pretty much swimmin upstream with our hands full of belief and faith. We knew we needed this store, this retail location. And There wasnt a day that went by that we didnt call out exactly what we hoped to see happen. On our bad days, or days of discouragement, we would scrape one another off the floor and remind one another of the hope and the dream. We believed it was attainable and so it was.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nicandmaude.com
- Instagram: @nicandmaude
- Facebook: Nic and Maude
