The Power of Relationships as A Small Business Owner

Exploring passions and maintaining the relationships along the way has been at the core of Sean Moran’s entrepreneurial journey. Sean is the owner of Dashing Chicago, a luxury footwear retailer located in downtown Chicago. In our conversation, we dive into Sean’s experience opening and running stores before he finally opened Dashing in Spring 2021. He highlights the importance of persistence, patience, and relationships. All of which have enabled Dashing to be the premier Alden and Edward Green retailer in the Midwest.

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today we have sean moran uh the owner of dashing chicago here in chicago illinois

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um how are you how's it going man i'm doing good thank you so much this is such a

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surprise and when i reached out to you i had no idea we're gonna do this so this is a nice little surprise going forward

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oh man i'm excited to have you i'm so uh looking forward to hearing more about the shop and your experience and your

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journey as an entrepreneur so uh let's start tell the people about yourself sure sean moran uh

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kind of got into retail i guess it was maybe destined to do retail i've always loved retail from a

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young guy i my mom used to work at the mall so he was hanging out at the mall and then as

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a teenager i used to drive up from the south suburbs up to oak brook to go sit at a barnes noble or walk around oakwood

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mall but uh in a nutshell went to school for finance originally and graduated with that worked at a community bank

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one thing led to another went back to design school uh because i'd done some stuff on my own that kind of proved i

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wanted to go and practice like a little more graphic design uh long story short that didn't work uh

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skill sets were easy to get to me i i was kind of a skill based person so i attained those pretty fast

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and then uh met a women's wear designer anastasia chatsuka and uh one thing or another we uh

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dated but then are better as friends and business partners and then i due to an accident on my bicycle i found

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some money and i was able to open her store with her back in 09 so the height

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of the great recession we opened a women's wear store in chicago together um so that was kind of

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my introduction and into fully owning my own first retail as a co-owner with her so basically i ran the store 100 and she

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did all the designing and then after that kind of lapsed for a little bit um she was trying to decide what she

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wanted to do retail wise and i started looking and we kind of parted ways as business partners and i uh started at

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haberdash and gm taberdash for i called about four years and then uh

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saw that through and i was threw the keys under the door when they decided to close that store and i was there until

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the very end and then took a little bit of a break and then i was at lefo chica i ran the faux chicago which is a uh

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men's shoe store of about i think steven's had this business about 13 years now and it's luxury footwear

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stephen got into it in like 0.909 he opens at the height of the recession himself um

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and i was chicago's kind of midwest bureau for that so to speak and did that

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for the entire time that was open and then uh pre-coveted he decided he wanted to close the store and uh just due to

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the logistics of running two stores i mean something we can talk about um i think it's

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a thing that entrepreneurs don't realize scaling to one store is one thing and then scaling two and keeping all the

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accounts in check and everything else like that it's a that's a challenge that you know

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a lot of young entrepreneurs or retailers really i mean whether you're a florist or whatever i mean if you're shoe shiner if

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you for that matter or you know a barber it to run two locations is kind of tough

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so uh yeah it took a year due to covid um had some ups and downs of 2020 trying

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to get the store open and then decided to weather out the election

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and then look for 2021 and here we are so since august since july july was the soft open i

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haven't done anything big cracked the door to my brand stayed with me the entire

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time some care products some clients and uh luckily like any good small business i'm super

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niche and i'm the only vendor for my two vend for my two products

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basically in the entire center part of america so it's awesome yeah or at least one for

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illinois but the other one for like basically ohio to denver to like atl

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to me so you know it's a huge benefit and it's one of those things where it's like you know you're going to be a small business

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and you're going to launch something that has a boutique kind of atmosphere and a boutique clientele that can really

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generate sales you might as well be doing something extremely niche and be the only one doing it so

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awesome no i love that tell me a little bit about um

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i love the journey when you decided you wanted to open up dashing like what was your first action

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what was the first thing you did oh to be frank i the building people here wanted me to

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flip off the lights and flip them back on so basically december 20th they were like bye and then they text message me

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and we're like so january 1st you want to flip on the lights is your own store and i was like no i am not prepared for that whatsoever

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um it kind of happened like that after uh haberdash too alden rep who had been there

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before he retired like he was almost there or he was over there 60 years he said same thing goes you were great we

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love you do you want your own account 2016 early 20s i was like what am i going to do with my own alton account

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so that was kind of the same situation and then i i interviewed for some positions in new

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york in early january i was there during men's show and had a couple interviews and uh

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then due to covid the positions got shut down because they were mostly sales and uh i unfortunately had like most people

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was on unemployment and then weathered on my own dime for the rest of the time so you know had opened i've said the

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entire time had 2020 kind of the trajectory been different

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honestly a little less civil unrest i would have opened in 2020. i was willing

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i was willing to work around covid i that wasn't a scare to me i wasn't worried about opening a business in

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covit it was more everything around what was going around in 2020 that

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was kind of just scary yeah yeah i think that was more the part that was very

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unpredictable and you know or yeah like yeah it was just yeah

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covid was manageable but then all of a sudden i decided okay we're gonna do this and i admit i interviewed for lots

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of stuff i actually knew the minute that i was signing the lease

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one or two brands would come out of the woodwork and approach me of dream jobs and i kid you not

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i was tempted i had rivien come out and email me and i did take the interview because i was super curious uh rivian

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motors for those who don't know it's an electric car company uh they make really cool their niche they're jumping off

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with like suvs and they actually have they bought the mitsubishi plant down in normal illinois

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and where i went to school and they're doing the bases so the motorized bases with

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the engine or like with the electronics and everything for ups and usps

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for the future um i would say they're like the good electronic or the good like e or

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whatever you want to call it a kind of car company they're very their ceo just doesn't want to they're

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so low-key but the product is amazing and they're going after like super sporty outdoorsy people to launch and

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it's just they're phenomenal stuff so they attempted me and i took the interview just to take it um

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but uh yeah i mean the other one was a bike company and i was about that but you know but then i did

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it and i was like no i'm all in and i redid the sword this uh the whole thing was it was as is so i stripped the paint

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stripped the wallpaper did it all myself family didn't come out and help painted um

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need some touch-ups but yeah just went to it and you know luckily i had a lot of people

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still following me on instagram and on social media and that helped quite a bit because it was a good confidence booster you know i did have a list of clients

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that were from chicago and that's what i concentrated on was just chicago people and people who came through my door and

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uh yeah i'm happy i'm here and you know it's scary but i ran the faux

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chicago basically independently you know i mean steven would kind of come in and go but i mean on a day to day i was the

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only employee ever in the store so i kind of knew what was possible yeah during the time frame and stuff

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like that and then it was just kind of refining people and again when you go to the website and put in illinois and i'm

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the only person that kind of helps quite a bit so right for sure so so one one theme um just kind of as you

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talk about your journey and also the kind of birth of dashing is

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relationships like how talk to me about the power of relationships and how important it's

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been for you to kind of build these strong relationships and maintain them because it sounds like it's played kind

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of an integral role in oh ginormous i mean i wouldn't have just backed any designer i backed anastasia

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to start you know what i'm saying and i only saw that because when i met her in school

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you know we weren't dating obviously but i saw what she was doing and i was like blown away i was like i i mean i've been

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following fashion since i was like 11 years old like you know i i understood construction

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i've been to europe i've been to the big stores and stuff like that like in milan and stuff like that part of me yeah in

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rome and whatnot seeing stuff so i was like i know what's like possible and this gal can do it and i believe in her

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even after we stopped dating and we were like still business partners i'm like i still believe in her i still believe in her

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vision so starting there like you have to trust the brands you're with and in

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my case then even at haverdash it's like it was building that rapport it was building those people and

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the key to the relationship was when i got the job at lafoe stephen who owns

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the foe was like who's your one industry reference and i was like floyd at alden and he kind of

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was like oh you know floyd at alden he's going to vouch for you he called floyd god

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wrestle guy he's since passed but he was like just give the story to sean don't worry about it and stephen was like what and he goes

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just trust him he's good don't even worry about it just give him the story and stephen's like oh okey-dokey like

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cool so you know it was a trust thing and i think that was big because you know and i believe in alden i believe in

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edward green i believe now yeah i'm gonna carry probably periboot next year hopefully towards the end of the year

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you know it does it makes a difference you know it makes a difference when you build up the relationship when like the

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president or ceo of edward green you know calls you and then calls back because you have to tell her you're busy

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and then she tells you you need an assistant because you're too busy when i call and i'm like that's a good thing so

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you know stuff like that means a lot to me personally i know in this world things are kind of like you know very you know surface and

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you know i know a lot of luxury retail people flit around you know because it's just like it's

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kind of incestuous it's just you work there you work there you work there and all kind of is the same

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100 people in chicago working everywhere but for me it's like i trust the brands they trust me and that means a lot to me

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because the brands are all old and they don't trust everybody you know

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yeah you need to follow a lot of rules to get alden and you need to build a lot of trust to get edward green

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so it's kind of like that's that means a lot you know whether i bring in christ next year belts out of germany you know

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i had to poke them like 20 times for them to get a response and they were just like well we're just busy but

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yeah we'll talk in the spring and i was like that means a lot like rancourt as well i had two referrals to rancor and they

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never would call then finally brett from alden who i've befriended where i talk daily

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with him just even about anything he finally poked them and was like you know you should really call sean he's in no rush

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but you should really call sean you know i mean i called lotus leather in connecticut we sold them at haberdash

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again had to poke them a few times because the rep that i was dealing with just disappeared after 2020. i was worried that they had coveted kind of

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went away but they were just like oh he left the company we have your notes we just hadn't gotten to you and i'm like okay but they're

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like we like what you want so let's work together and that's kind of a slow burn too so it means a lot you know these

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brands mean a lot to me personally so and it means a lot that they entrust me to sell them you know so

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how how would you say that you've learned kind of the power of persistence right

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especially when you have to consistently reach out to folks and you know it could feel like rejection like how yeah how

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have you gotten good at just you know like you said keep poking keep poking yeah taking offense

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yeah i actually had to have this conversation with a friend um she's in luxury sales and she's like you

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know do you kind of get that up and down like how do you manage it and i was like i'm mostly by myself i don't have a

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staff so for me you know i just have to kind of manage the

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expectations and know that it's most people aren't taking i i can't take it personally you know for some of our

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other conversations when the client not showing up even though he's hitting me up with texting he's going to show up we're all busy

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right i'm retail i'm you know on a scale of groceries work

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family et cetera i'm the et cetera where they're like yeah he's there

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yeah he'll come when he comes but it can be kind of scary i mean i saw a quote recently where it was like you know

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no one understands like an entrepreneur one week the phone be ringing off the hook and the next week it'll be quiet and you know some days i sit here and

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when i was employed by other people i was like i'm still getting paid you know i'm just posting on instagram

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i'm like researching it's no big deal but now it's like oh wow like today was pretty quiet

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yeah oh you know it's like you know but on the other hand i look at my lineup of like my crm of like clients

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i reached out to or orders on you know coming in and i'm like you know just believing in what i'm doing

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believing in the contact i'm doing and just keeping a kind of a nice steady thing and you know i think that's the thing too is

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just believing in yourself and knowing that like it'll come you know and this is really trying times i mean it's still

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like you know for people who follow the markets you see one month sales are way up like you know

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consumer sales are way up and then you can't figure out why the next it's down and then you know that's reflecting directly on me because i'm a consumer

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sale you know and you you know i have friends in suiting and one time they're really busy one time they're not so yeah you

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just have to keep reaching out and growing in and knowing that like the guy who's hanging up on instagram saying he wants this shoe that just came

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out that you have an eight and a half in and then him and han and then you being like it's here

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do you want it and then being like i got bills yeah you're like

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okay okay guys like you were just harassing me for like a week looking for this one shoe and it's

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like i have it and you don't want it and it's just like hey that is what it is it's just you have to kind of keep grinding forward and

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you know looking for outlets you know i post one brand i post another brand to try to talk about stuff doing

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video you know my friend anastasia she got on youtube and she's phenomenal but

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i also knew when her original when she would just do one-on-one interviews like this and she'd need like a stage

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assistant just saying like you know i was like a pr person like i would stand there and kind of coax her forward or we'd like practice

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so to be frank doing a visual podcast is kind of new for me seeing myself on

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camera hearing my own voice i mean i'm used to hearing myself talk with clients but you know it is scary

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when you know you're reaching out to clients you're not getting a response and then all of a sudden no offense kind of like you you're like

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i don't need anything but hey what's going on and obviously you're like why do a podcast and i was like sure why not it sounds awesome you know

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yeah so you know you just don't know but it is a grind and it's sales whether you're selling software or

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anything else like you know you just have to kind of incrementally believe in yourself and know that what you sell is good and

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people will come you know i mean one of the things that kind of stands out in my head and i'm i'm curious

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especially as as an entrepreneur and that shift from being an employee to

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entrepreneur dealing with idle hands like a lot of just kind of quiet time

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where business isn't busy you talked about you know trying new things and experimenting how

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how did you think to make that productive time rather than just working at it

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just sitting on tumblr trying to find inspiration work i mean it's like it's stuff like that no i mean like

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shooting a real i mean like i i'm 44 years old i

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shooting long format video talking about a product i totally get that like that's sales now that's just me

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kind of doing kind of you know customer outreach and stuff like that and you know a point i didn't make back and i

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think that you were trying to get at was the difference in chicago retail per

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kind of our conversations and kind of what i've told other people in the past is it's very consultative so in that

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regard doing the videos is a good way for me to kind of keep up that consultative type atmosphere so trying

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new things and then just hoping that cuts down on the hesitation once the guys come in

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store because you know it's like i've already talked about this and you've seen two videos on it so maybe that'll

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kind of like take the edge off where we're in the midwest you know whether you're selling a car or this you

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know you're gonna get the first visits kicking the tires the second visit is oh i did all this research how does it pan

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out with what you say and then the third time is like okay let's try it on or that's kind of the

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end of the second visit and then the third one is like okay i've done everything i've asked my spouse or i've saved my pennies and here's the time to

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do this and i'm gonna do this but idle time like i try not to sit there and just send

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emails you know it's just that to me it feels like you're just

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throwing it into the abyss your time you know it's like there's a time and a place for it and i think it's better in

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kind of short runs but i think sitting there and if i was just going through email lists just reaching out to people

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i think i would really not be good and lose my mind but uh motion in retail helps so even if i'm

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on the phone i'm trying to walk around the store and stuff like that you know i mean sitting there and looking at stuff

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and saying okay like i got to come up with some made-to-order stuff or even just like brainstorming i'm doing some collaborations with in my industry you

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don't need to do like big collaborations it can be with clients you know like collector clients or clients who are in

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suiting so like i'm doing uh alden that alden was really not my rep really pushed back on one of the

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makeups that i wanted to do and my client really really wanted it he was a buddy and he's just like let's do

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it and i was like you know what no let's let's do it yeah yeah i have to buy 12

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anyway so if you pre-order like if we pre-sell them that's cool but it's like

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you know it's kind of interesting through if you're in an industry especially if it's fashion and you have a gut for something you're like hey

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just because everyone else isn't doing this in the industry doesn't mean that i can't get

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20 guys who might be sitting on the outskirts who think oh an all blacked out

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suede tassel loafer like let's do it because it's all

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contrast and everything else this one is blacked out top to bottom it's going to be the coolest thing and then i was like

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jazzed about it and then i reached out to him and was like dude we got to promote this because i just signed the paperwork saying it's done deal so like

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let's do it and he was like cool let's do it so it's one of those things where it's like you know

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in europe and london still they're wearing tons of black and they love black suede just because in america with

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alden they're not doing it and alden hates using black suede doesn't mean

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that it's not going to be cool right exactly going to be very central to me so it's like and

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that's what me being an entrepreneur is me taking the risk on a judgment call that you know i think is going to kick and

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you know maybe something i picked will and maybe something i won't won't yeah yeah and i'm only

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four months in so it's like you know i'm willing to kind of make those judgment calls now and kind of feel it out so

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you know but awesome yeah i mean it is scary though i will hands down whether you're

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a baker or anything that's like got like an expiration date on it like i can't even fathom that stuff you know i mean

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i'm already making judgments on some mistakes came from

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you know england and i was like i'll keep it because it's just good table stock but it's like

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it is a mistake and you know i mean that's my mistake i just paid for that they made but i

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decided it's cheaper to keep it than send it back so it's one of those things where you know i give people who are

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i mean you could be an accountant just sitting there waiting for tax season you know and it's like you gotta you know

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or you're in advertising i mean that's even scarier i mean then you're based on your creativity 100 stuff like that i

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mean when you're an entrepreneur it's not just all fintech and it's all not just investor meetings and

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everything else like that it can be a scary endeavor yeah absolutely all right so let's talk about some of the challenges i mean

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you've been you've been in business or you've been open for four months um i would imagine there was a lot of

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leg work beforehand um what were some of the challenges that you faced kind of in that process and

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getting to opening day i would say patience last year you know people are like you know

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what did you do last year and i was like this has been kind of like an incremental like planning type thing

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it's like you know i didn't drop out of the industry i still was posting about stuff i was interacting with stuff so you're right

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it was a lot of legwork and a lot of just trust a lot of looking at real estate here in town

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chicago is very polarized when it comes to pricing you

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know and the expectations of some land or not landowners but you know business owners of you know who own

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commercial real estate so that's kind of tough i mean you can go anywhere from like where i am here

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where i had a relationship with the building and they wanted me here plus it's really near my uh you know where i

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live down in printers row versus like you know trying to get a space over in

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fulton market where i could have run the store third shift where it could have been like noon to eight which would have

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been kind of cool because you know i got up done my morning and then gone to the store and then you know as everyone knows if you're in

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chicago fold market doesn't get popping until like six you know so i could have run like a late

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shift store it would have been totally different you know but on the other hand it would have worked you know versus

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looking up and you know when i was looking up in uh bucktown you know i

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you know i loved the space there but the building owner didn't want to negotiate on lease

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and even though there was more than a baker's dozen of empty retail spaces on that block when i was

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looking during kovid you know they wouldn't want to do that um another another thing was

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banking uh having worked in community banking i saw a difference being down in central

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illinois i knew our big you know commercial banking people were and i knew that you

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know i had somebody i dated um her big job when she was at another bank was to bring in new

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commercial accounts and she was always looking at you know young entrepreneurs or small businesses or you know whatever

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and i still saw community banking like that and banking now is just

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not that right so you know all this talk sometimes about like basically they want your checking

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account but they don't want to do anything else unless you have tech after it fintech med tech tech tech

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that's how i feel you know and at that point it's just kind of like you know i'm looking for a line of credit that's

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not huge not by any standard but just enough that it's a little bit more than a credit card you know in regards to

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like you know i need 30 000 line of credit right that's what i was coming in to ask for

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and i was willing to do 50 if they wanted me to go 50. but i was only going to use a small percentage at times and mostly it was just to bring in product

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didn't pay off right away right because it was literally just getting in the door and you know all their comments was and

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i had all the financials and i had kept track of all my numbers throughout the year so like i had numbers for my

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business you know and see in two to three years and my response then was i'm not going to need you in two to

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three years right you know and if i want to open another store or open a chain of stores which that's not in my future but

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if i wanted to go that route i'm going to a private investment bank i'm not going to chase not going to you

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know first national of whatever so it's like you know to me then it becomes a different breed like i'm going to need

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wealth management three years i'm not going to need right you know a 25 30 000 line of

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credit god forbid but you know to me it's like that's what i want i want that so

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you know when all these smaller banks are like oh we're here to help you out no you just want a checking account and you want to charge me too much for like

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you know a service fee yeah you know like i get i get the fees on

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achs i i i'm again i'm not going to harp fees but you're charging me for not keeping twenty five hundred dollars and

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there are twenty five hundred dollars under a month or you're bringing it up to like three thousand dollars a month like come on

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and you're gonna jam me on a fee like it's post recession like how do you want these things to go so again i can sit

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there and harp that all day considering i came from that background but i mean that's a challenge um you know luckily i

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had vendors that knew me and supported me so that was a little less of a scary thing i mean even edward green off

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before i had signed the lease for the store evergreen had offered me one of two people that they were willing

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to let have a digital only non-physical footprint selling of their

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product and i was truly honored to have been offered that because like alden you have to have a physical

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location you can't just sell online right so for edward green to offer it i was

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blown away but on the other hand i was kind of like i don't want that responsibility like

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i'm going to order literally soon i want the store open i want to just do it as a traditional retailer just to kind of

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take the edge off of them of being like well that's a guy only in america who's just

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got his own website and i didn't want to be that guy you know and there's nothing wrong with that but but the fact they

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offered it was you know very endearing and you know i was super excited about that but you know besides that though

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you know to be frank if you come from a background if you were an accountant and now you got your

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own cpa firm and you're doing your own thing or you're coming from a consultant and you're specialized in whatever field

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you're in you know it's it's rough because it's just you guys got to have confidence but on the other hand you know once you kind of get

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rolling and you believe in yourself and you're kind of clients coming and you have to be kind of cheap being like

27:12

you know frugal i should say is whatever you're looking for and i am extremely that when it comes to the business so

27:18

it's one of those things where you know once you get those things ironed out you know where your breakeven point is and where you need to be and stuff like that

27:25

then you know i think it's a great place to be you know you kind of take the bull by the horns and it is what it is so you

27:30

know that part excites me it's exciting it's fun i miss my clients

27:36

but you know when it comes to challenges i still think it's still financial that and to go back to the real estate side

27:42

of it chicago real estate commercial retail is way too big

27:47

you know i think you know we've had discussion before i've talked with it with other people there's not enough stores under a thousand square feet

27:55

versus stores that are like 2 500 to 5 000 square feet and for an entrepreneur and a small retail whether

28:02

you're selling candles or whether you're selling suiting you know

28:07

2 500 to 3 000 square feet even if a quarter of it's a back room

28:12

that's a lot of space right and that's a lot of lease and you know it's really tough in that regard so it's like that's

28:19

a scary thing sometimes what what part of

28:24

one of my favorite questions is what part of entrepreneurship was most challenging to you or most

28:31

surprising to you and you can go back to your years very early on starting a lot

28:36

of people say i didn't realize how hard accounting was i shouldn't try to do that myself what are some of those

28:43

things that you didn't have as much confident and confidence in and you had to figure out

28:49

a solution for that's a great question literally

28:55

because i don't want to come off cocky and be like i'm up for any challenge so it's like you know and i don't want to

29:01

say that in some kind of like cocky kind of way but it's like you know i mean i have a finance

29:06

background i'm used to using excel i'm used to that kind of stuff again i'm kind of thrifty when it comes to my

29:11

fiscal conservative just self and also kind of like i'm always worried about a rainy day so it's like running the

29:17

business it isn't scary for me to be like okay i can pay myself but i know i can't pay myself like my old salary like

29:23

literally i just need to cover bills right and that's it and i know where my break you know before i open the store i knew where my break-even point was to be

29:30

able to do that you know and stuff like that so um accounting is a big one i mean i

29:36

remember when we opened anastasia store i mean everything was run through paypal register in excel

29:42

i mean it was 2009. i was talking with dan about this last night i told her i'm like it's mind-blowing now that oh and

29:48

we designed our own website i designed the own our website by scratch i coded it all myself and then meshed it

29:54

with another like a like with the actual you know uh

30:00

like website side or the selling side so with uh magento was back then it was

30:05

open source so you could just download a free version and just mesh it into your store and i did that for all four years we had that

30:13

business and now you turn around you get a shopify big commerce whatever website's all there get a you know you

30:20

get a theme you plug it in you shoot your own stuff it's all good i mean it's mind-boggling now starting a retail

30:27

business in 2020 2021 versus when we did at the height of the great recession in

30:32

0-809 i mean it's crms at all it tells your finances it gives you your margin like

30:38

it has all built into the back end of shopify and you're just like holy cow like

30:45

ten years ago or nine years ago this was just like you know you have to pay 30 different things you had no idea half

30:52

people were like i don't get a good accountant you're like i'm not paying an accountant 200 an hour to just

30:58

like run my daily transactions like it made no sense you know but a good accountant

31:03

in the end is like worthless weight in gold we had a stellar one when i was with anastasia and she's got one now

31:09

that's going to refer to me when it's time for my tax season so you know that kind of stuff is stellar um oh getting

31:16

an llc we ran her first business without an llc

31:21

it's a pure partnership i would not recommend that to anybody

31:26

i don't care who you're partnering with it's not the way to go get it done get it in paperwork get yourself protected i

31:32

you know llc your business i mean that's something we did not do and something that i was just like oh my god like how

31:38

the hell did we i mean just financially for tax benefits like yeah i mean and

31:43

again it seems stupid it seems super arbitrary like why would you not put an llc in

31:49

but back in like oh 809 in the state of illinois it was like two g or something like that to get an llc and it was like

31:56

got two g's you can do a lot of other stuff right stuff like that so that kind of type stuff too so it is an interesting

32:03

situation and it changes so much over time so much stuff is like built in but yeah i mean accounting is always a

32:08

challenge people could ask me if i'm hiring anybody i'm like no not hiring anybody

32:16

i need to get through you know i i didn't pay me like you know and you

32:22

know that's step one and then the thing too is you know they're like working six days a week

32:28

i had a year off of work yeah yeah working six days a week i didn't do it

32:35

i missed working tell me you know talk to me in a year and a half and i'll be like no i'm down to like five days like a traditional work week and it is but

32:42

right now saturdays by appointment sundays i completely disconnect i i made that a

32:47

rule i think more people need to do that both an entrepreneur and whatnot unless you're like a doctor or something like that

32:52

i truly believe one day a week completely disconnecting is

32:59

vital you know i mean it's not perfect you know um

33:04

in this day and age prayer story you know we and i have talked before just recently i was at dinner on saturday and

33:10

my phone's blowing up with a client and you know my date was very open to letting me

33:17

answer it but i was like it's saturday at 8pm you know we can't we this is a bad precedent to start if

33:23

it was like six i'd say okay you know maybe it's still within work hours or whatnot but you

33:30

know i think that's a a very fast downhill that i think people get burned out on if they don't give

33:35

themselves at least just a day a week to just as best as possible kind of disconnect you know don't ignore a client don't

33:42

ignore social media but i think it's a good way of just being like i'm out with my family i'm going to go sit in the woods i'm going to go

33:48

just do whatever and just kind of let sunday be the day yeah that's that's one of my that's

33:54

actually one of my favorite questions is how do you find how do you find that

34:00

way to balance your responsibilities or integrate your own life and passion with

34:07

your business and separate like my business is not me personally like how do you

34:13

separate those two things how did you find that sunday was just your

34:18

you know i'm not i'm i'm not dashing i you know i kind of made it a concerted

34:24

effort literally when i cracked the door in july i was like you know i'm i'm also a cyclist so basically

34:32

in cycling terms usually you take one long day a weekend to go and do like whatever like test your distance you're gonna go do a 16 mile ride you're gonna

34:39

do a 40 mile ride that's your fitness you know like during the summer of last year during covid i was one of the rare people

34:45

i lost a bunch of weight because i was riding a ton you know i was off work i had nothing to do i got up i had my

34:51

morning routine i switched back to being a morning person kind of thinking okay i'm going to open a store soon

34:56

eventually i need to be back up in the morning and i kind of set a schedule and kind of tried to stay to it so i'm not like up

35:03

at three o'clock in the morning watching cat videos on youtube you know which again there's nothing wrong with that

35:08

but you know it's one of those things where that was the thing and then you know but again even when it comes to that for me

35:14

cycling is it clears my mind and sets me up and i'll be honest since i opened the store i've been absolutely horseshit

35:22

you know so it's like you know i've given myself that time to balance but i've thrown it off by dropping a

35:28

priority that i know will benefit dashing so it's even that where i'm still trying to find it so you know it's

35:34

like ideally yeah my sunday is now you know i sit there i read i just

35:40

disconnect i try not to even be on my laptop which again is kind of not possible but i try not to be but it's

35:46

one of those things where it's like i think it's vitally important for people i think it's very important for anybody doing anything but it has to be a

35:52

priority you know in my in my mind's eyes i was like great i'm gonna get up trash myself on the bike come back and

35:58

i'll just be like comatose the rest of the sunday so i really wouldn't be that engaged or that helpful

36:03

to anything but you know i think staying on a schedule you know if you're creative and you work better

36:09

at 3 o'clock in the morning then hey you know i mean we did that with

36:15

with anastasia you know i mean she was a night all and i'd end up staying up late we didn't open the store to like nine or

36:20

ten so it was no big deal and you know that sometimes you know when we're in a big studio together and was part of our

36:26

loft that we lived in you were just kind of always on working right you know and that was a passion project

36:33

because it was both of us like putting it out there you know this it's a lot more social media i can just

36:38

turn that off you know and just be like i'm not answering dms right now you know it's like

36:44

it is what it is there's no shoe emergencies

36:49

you know the guy can wait on what color to use on his shoes tomorrow in a dm and it's like

36:54

no big deal i can answer that or i can just you know on the fly hit that up be like i'll reach out to you on monday when i get back into the store like i'll

37:01

send you shots or i'll send you a spec or i'll give you a description so again it's a challenging thing you know

37:06

especially because i enjoy this i'm scrolling instagram looking at stuff i'm looking on again i'm an old man i'm

37:13

still on tumblr looking for inspiration shoes that guys were doing back in 0809 when tumblr was like really popping so

37:18

it's like stuff that i think you know would kind of still be relevant today or stuff guys haven't seen forever because

37:24

you're always kind of looking for that little bit of extra something that you know everybody hasn't touched so it's

37:29

like you know what can we do and stuff like that so you know it's there was a challenge but you just have

37:36

to kind of sometimes like you said i have to just put a break on it and say hey you know

37:41

got to respect my boundaries on this so you know which again some clients respect and may appreciate

37:48

and others who are just very like no no no no no might not quite you know

37:53

appreciate it so you know so what does your personal life and

37:58

dashing what does tuesday look like five years from now

38:05

lots of powerball hits um

38:11

i think it's going to be that's a great question because i've seen how the market's kind of changing

38:17

and see i don't look at myself how should i phrase this

38:27

even though i'm in chicago i see myself more as like a luxury good so i would

38:33

love i'm gonna put this out there i would love to be like the kiss of these shoes

38:39

that high-end sneaker brand out of you know out of new york that to be frank and you know i'm gonna

38:45

probably get knocked off and someone's gonna steal that from underneath me but um that would be my end goal like i

38:51

would love to like i would love to be able to get those young guys transitions who are only into sneakers now who now

38:58

all of a sudden are finally finding loafers because everyone's been lounging at home and not really wearing shoes and

39:04

they all want slip-ons getting them into that stuff to keep these heritage brands and other brands like that kind of

39:09

growing i mean i'd love to have a staff i'd love to be able to like be just generating content you know in that regard but i

39:16

don't think i'm ever gonna leave this that side of the business you know it's like it's mine unless someone comes in and wants to buy me out and even then

39:22

you know i don't even know if i would switch it up like that but like my goal is to have it

39:28

i mean to be frank my lease is five years here so basically you're kind of looking a little that's why i asked it was two years or five years because it's

39:35

like or like three years in five years because to me it's like five years

39:40

i could be kind of going that direction of like a luxury version of dashing that's designed out not by me but has

39:48

that kind of like elements of a luxury store to get those guys in whether it's in here or whether it's someplace else

39:55

in chicago or even someplace else someplace else right you know so you

40:00

know that's what i've looked at it is like three years five years and like eight years kind of where i want to be

40:06

you know and i would love to do other stuff with dashing you know i mean whether it's

40:11

not its own clothing line and stuff like that but just doing you know lots of collaborations with lots of great small

40:17

boutiquey businesses you know i mean i had lefoe we worked with a lot of great people but you know

40:23

hiro from japan made a good comment to me he's like i can't work with you because i'm loyal to xyz i was like

40:30

that's fine and he goes maybe it's your time to go find your it sounds like it's gonna sound weird

40:36

hiro meaning himself like is it like time for you to go find your own japanese shoemaker who's moving up the

40:42

ranks who you'll have a relationship with and be able to kind of have that relationship so it's kind of like that

40:47

like to me i want to keep striving and finding those kind of brands and offering to people men and women because

40:53

i think that's a huge market so you know i would still love to be in store i still love meeting clients i still love

40:59

communicating with clients i think video is going to be way bigger you know video consultations video

41:06

fittings stuff like that i think it's going to be much much more important especially the next couple years

41:12

i think it's going to take off and you know i know instagram is trying to push everyone to video to be tick-tock or

41:18

some hybrid between tic tac and yacht and uh youtube i think youtube's gonna be very big i'm trying to figure out

41:23

what i'm gonna do with youtube i see what anastasia's doing with it i see what other people i follow on it are doing and i think it's

41:30

you know there's a lot of upside to it so that kind of stuff is kind of what i see myself doing i mean

41:36

i love working with the clients yeah i love bringing someone in gaining their trust

41:43

showing them that these brands are they're gonna be there etc you know um i

41:49

recently was asked like what's my long-term goal and to be frank

41:54

i would love to like gm one of those brands or like ceo one of those brands you know i think i like it yeah i mean

42:02

like if all i think is gonna keep it all in the family so i mean i wouldn't even try to say them but you know it's like

42:09

uh when i go to alden for the first time next year to sit down and have a you know dinner with you know

42:15

at the factory i'm excited to talk to art and see what's kind of going on and see how he sees the future because there's a couple of us who are a little

42:21

on the younger side who are trying to push the brand that aren't luxury we're not engineered garments we're not

42:26

those type of places who kind of have a little bit of clout kind of elbow their way in they can do what they want because they're engineered garments and

42:32

you're like okay that's fine like there's independent guys like us that want to try to push the brand a little bit too what they can do and that's why

42:39

it's good to have other brands edward green you know alden won't do

42:45

blue cordovan edward green called me against like we got a whole bunch of blue cordovan what do you want to do like yeah

42:52

yeah but you know if hillary tomorrow said after five years she's like

42:57

i'm ready to retire you know i would love you to come work for the company in some regard here in

43:03

you know in northampton i'd be like okay i'm there i want to keep giving that to asia i

43:10

keep giving it to europe keep giving it to america you know grow south america like to me that would be super exciting

43:15

like you know working with the sales staff and working with you know the asian market to just love this product

43:20

and stuff like that to me that's the kind of thing i would love to do but yeah the whole kind of like i joke

43:25

about the kiss thing but you know i look at those stores and i just visually swap out sneakers and swap

43:32

in kind of like these shoes or more of like a hybrid between these shoes more casual heritage

43:37

stuff in regards to like ranger mocks and kind of iv style stuff and just like how cool would that be like

43:44

to walk in yeah it's like you know you got a whole ceiling of indy boot

43:49

like mock-ups like how they have when it's all like air jordans or like the like air force ones when you see like old ceiling of like air force ones how

43:56

cool would be like a whole bunch of indie boots like something like that yeah yeah and stuff like that i'm like that's kind of cool

44:02

you know and i think that would be a way to get that kind of people in and you know you know find out where new balance is

44:08

in six years and kind of you know how it kind of melts into this stuff or you

44:13

know stuff like that so again it's kind of grandiose you know and it's kind of like an open-ended answer but you know

44:20

i mean i have a little bit of bigger plans for stuff like that and that's the kind of stuff that's like you know sticking with that heritage

44:26

manufacturing and heritage people and you know keep growing that because that's fun you know i mean yeah

44:33

it's people's livelihoods you know i love it i think i think that that'd be one of the coolest

44:39

collaborations and combinations now one question i have

44:44

how do you stop yourself from pursuing that now and or

44:51

what daily steps are you taking to get there it happened with the website and it just

44:58

kind of is like to kind of give you what you're saying my grandiose plans for the website got slammed in my head and i was like

45:05

take a break you're doing this all yourself you don't have a staff of 10 and back you don't have a whole group of

45:10

people taking photos you don't have you know a model at the ready that you can just throw them in a pair of shoes and

45:16

you know do all this stuff you don't have a bunch of graphic designers to create all these graphics like

45:21

the website's never going to be perfect take a break and do it um i kind of dangle that out there and i talk about

45:27

it to kind of keep myself a little bit motivated to do it it's kind of the way to do it you know it's like we kind of

45:33

did it with anastasia and kind of said okay you know eventually we want to do xyz and

45:38

it's kind of not getting wrapped up in the day-to-day of retail i think that's the thing and i think

45:44

you know jerry hughes owen haberdash him and i will readily admit i love jerry

45:50

and jerry and i also have problems but jerry's vision i will second to none say

45:56

the guy had vision and i think that's the thing that i kind of took in where it's like okay

46:02

he tried a half dozen times a half dozen things and he kind of didn't get it so

46:07

he met adam who had haberdash got in there helped him shape it got it to a point and then it just didn't happen

46:14

again but he always was like right there with what it could have been and where

46:20

the market was going and that's the kind of thing i've seen too i mean we talk about it amongst ourselves all the staffers we're like what would happen if

46:26

he just had given us a little bit of like a little bit of slack like could we have

46:32

been the todd schneiders of the world now you know with private equity backed or you

46:37

know investment banking backed where we have you know five stores now it's gonna be 15 stores or like

46:43

you know could we have way to j crew out and like taking over j cruz kind of position and things so you know in that

46:49

regard i kind of see myself like okay like this is luxury product sure it doesn't say dior next to it it doesn't

46:54

say prodded next to it you know even though john lobb is owned by her maze

47:00

you know so it's like it is a luxury product you know and having that insight

47:05

of what that stuff is so it's like i see that like i would love to do that tomorrow but it's like

47:11

the propensity of it succeeding in 2021 is kind of rare

47:17

but things are percolating and that's why i want to kind of stay on this track because it's like if i see an opportunity that i could

47:25

get into like a small private bank here in chicago and say okay like i'm gonna go big

47:31

let's do this like i got a gut this is gonna work like the market's coming back into this you can see where the trends

47:37

are going young guys want to be in a little bit of dressier shoes they're not going to be in like wing tips they're going to be in

47:43

fancy loafers or some hybrid thing in between and that's what the likes of like you know like a

47:48

john lobb is looking at that and edward green pivots really fast and you know they saw their market changing and stuff

47:55

like that so it's like you know i think it's a little bit of self-control a lot of self-actualization

48:01

you know i mean it's like you know you see in med tech someone comes up with a big goal they keep pushing it they talk

48:06

themselves into it and then they screwed over a bunch of shareholders and then next thing you know you're being

48:11

indicted you can get a little up in front of your skis so to speak or whatever that kind

48:18

of thing is you can get a little too far out if you have a little too much ego and not enough realization or you're trying to

48:24

kind of scam your way there and you know that kind of fake it to make it makes a sense to a part but it's like you know

48:30

the reality is you still need income and you still need clients and it's you

48:35

know that build up and then it just is like you know that's that so you know it's tough because it is you

48:42

you wake up in your morning like god how cool would a store like that be of course people would want to shop with

48:48

you when you have a store it looks like that and then you sit back and you're like we had a store like that a hammer dash

48:53

yeah days when it was like slow and then i'm sitting there thinking god i got to keep these guys motivated to sell we got

48:59

to keep movement here you don't want guys milling around you know sales staff i should say when i say guys i mean anybody on my staff and then you're like

49:06

oh my god i'm paying 18 we're paying 18 000 a month for this spot

49:12

wow yeah so it's like you know you kind of sit there and your way stuff out you've got to be kind of realistic about it so it's like you know what i've loved

49:18

to been in river i'm going to be in uh full market next to the asap store two doors down from blind barber around

49:26

the corner from you know you know six school hotels and around the corner from nobu and you got it yeah

49:32

we've been flipping awesome but i'm doing it on my bank account that dwindled after 2020 so it's like you

49:39

know and my family helped me out a little bit to get the intro orders in just to get the you know ball rolling

49:44

and you know my goal is by one year to pay them back so it's like you know that's my goal

49:50

well it's to kind of show it that you know even if it goes back to being my line of credit at least i want to show that i

49:55

was able to incrementally back pay back my investment and kind of keep going from there so yeah to me it's like

50:02

i guess i'm gonna be a little too fiscally conservative to have those kanye dreams of being like i'm the greatest i'm gonna do everything

50:09

you guys don't know me i'm the edward green i'm going to triple their sales you know that type of thing you know

50:16

everyone who does all then they're all crap i'm going to do it so much better i that's not my ego i'm just going to fit

50:21

in do my thing you know and just you know percolate and

50:26

i think there's there's another retailer where him and i talk all the time and he's out east and not and he's outside

50:33

new york and he's got a kind of a character like me and he's kind of got a bigger kind of like vibe and i'm just

50:39

like we can't talk and i'm like thank god there's someone else just as kind of like we're like the willy wonkas of the group

50:45

you know like i like wearing suits still because i think it legitimizes things in chicago but you know my style's even a little

50:51

bit changed and he showed up at the menswear show in a seersucker short suit and the guy looked flying towel i mean

50:58

i'm green steer sucker he looks flies now i was like i finally get to meet voltaire dude

51:03

you're awesome like i thought i was looking good like dude rolls in in a lime seersucker

51:10

like suit with shorts i'm like come on dude like thank god like you and

51:17

i are the two wacky guys you know we don't look hashtag menswear all the time where it's like leather i mean his store

51:23

is kind of like that but you know it's just fun to have kind of like i don't know another kind of oddball to kind of

51:28

be like we can push this like yeah and do our own thing but he's also kind of like me

51:34

he's very conservative about stuff right he's uh i forget where he's from

51:41

i don't want to say cuz i want to miss judge but no but voltaire out of uh style by blaine dude's awesome so and

51:48

you know he's just got a different vibe kind of like me so it's kind of fun but yeah i mean if chicago's not a place to

51:53

flop down i mean you can go new york there's six all in stores yeah yeah you can do like a little ring

51:58

of fire and hit them all and you know you're gonna bump into people you saw the other story because they're all trying to check out stuff and here i'm

52:04

just plopped down here so yeah you know if i did something grandiose it probably wouldn't be in chicago i hate to say

52:10

that that's fair i i i said to here but i guess yeah i mean i i totally give credit to like

52:17

stadium goods or like like round two and stuff like that you know who can do big sneaker stores and

52:23

kind of go kind of big in that regard but if i was gonna do like a luxury big store i don't even i don't even know

52:30

where i go you know it's just it's a tough gig that's kind of i mean literally i

52:35

plop myself down in europe at that point honestly you know like in a big city like that like a paris or

52:40

something kind of you know that kind of vibe or you know but something where it's going to be kind of appreciated outside of

52:47

space where yeah do a grandiose store and you know not have it be like

52:52

like who's this guy you know yeah i mean no offense like does chicago need a five-story burberry store

53:02

you know and the nuance of it's like looking super cool on you know i'm michigan avenue she kind of wears off

53:08

after like a year or so and you're like that's a lot of space a lot of space for

53:14

burberry in chicago so it's like you know again you sit there and look at that you know but then you look at you know real

53:20

estate value over in gold coast it's like four to a thousand dollars a square foot depending where you put yourself and you're like

53:26

that's a lot of project you got to move yeah i mean yeah it's like just tons so it's one of

53:32

those things where you know again i think that's kind of the goal yeah you just have to be a little bit self-aware

53:38

you know you know do you think you're going to be in advertising and win like you know five gold mines in your first year because you came up with like three

53:44

jingles like you know that type of thing it's like okay you can aim for that but

53:50

i mean that takes a strike of genius to like do something like that same with this it's like you

53:55

know saying it might be a three million dollar store in a year that's a lot of aldens and greens you

54:01

know so you know that might be the long-term goal but that's just you know in my personal opinion that's just kind

54:07

of i think you have to be a little grounded yeah yeah okay so all right so i'm going to hit

54:12

you with some some quick hitters so yeah some entrepreneurial some fun um kind of as we start to conclude so

54:19

um what what job

54:25

do you currently have for your store that you're actively trying to work yourself out of

54:32

oh i hate cleaning the store i should have

54:38

just paid to have the i had the cleaning service in the building and honestly i didn't cook it into the lease it was

54:43

like why do i need the lady to come in and clean the floors and clean the toilet i'm like oh my god i just need to pay

54:48

the lady to clean the floor that's a great answer

54:54

to be frank it's a retail it's a retail thing like you're just sitting there and you're like you know and the thing

55:02

the foes the lady came in like cleaned everything like i don't mind cleaning the table and the mirror and stuff like

55:07

that but that's yeah that i have to cook that in i'm gonna cook

55:12

that in that extra like 50 a month will be cooked into the lease i'm gonna add my time to add it as a service probably

55:18

in january of next year like first six months i'll clean the toilet in the floor but after that just send a lady in

55:24

every two weeks or every week and a half to do it i don't want to do it so i love that no i love that

55:30

what um what's your go-to shoe on a saturday

55:37

that's a good question because i did that in the uh the interview i did with stitch down he

55:44

was like what are you wearing right now and my answer was like i'd love to say something like fancy and be like i'm

55:49

wearing xyz and i'm like dude i've been like a beaten up pair of aldens like um

55:54

go-to it's always just like a loafer from alden i mean they're all i have like four of them sitting at my door where i just

56:00

kind of swap them in and out and stuff like that so i would say that like an alden tassel loafer probably in suede is

56:06

just something i just slip on and off and just run out the door and it looks cool and

56:12

some guys think tassels are a little too dressy and i just wear it with a big kind of you know effort what the hell

56:17

yes kind of thing so i would say that that would be my thing yeah what um

56:24

what's a pair of shoes that you wish you could pull off but you know you can't oh that's a good question

56:32

you could also say that you think you could pull off anything i know i'm not no again that's self-actualization i know what i

56:39

can and can't um i've been exposed to corte um they're out of france uh they're very french and

56:46

i've tried them on a bunch of times and randy's gonna freak out if he ever hears this podcast because he said rob i

56:52

just cannot pull off corte i've tried it it's not my fit i really wanted to like i really wanted

57:00

to because they were like if you sell enough of them we'll send you a friend to the factory i'm like hell yes free

57:05

trip to paris with randy who knows everybody like that would be awesome can't do it um

57:11

of stuff i own like i'm not a double monk fan everyone's going to freak the hell out everyone in finance is like what the hell um i just can't do those i

57:18

just can't but i would say those are the two things like anything quartet or like a double monk i just can't do it

57:25

i just go ahead no i wasn't saying randy's gonna have to take on the challenge to find something

57:31

that you can pull off yeah that and i gotta say something i don't carry sneakers i i

57:36

um i can if i find it i guess i just

57:42

nothing really kind of blows my mind that i look at aesthetically and say

57:47

i want that always like i look at stuff on my table and i'm like yeah i want that always but like i can be my

57:54

inspiration file is huge with sneakers like the colors and the combos and kind of the vibe but i look at it i'm like

58:00

that's just not for me i can appreciate it 100 i can appreciate it and guys who are sneaker collectors i totally get it

58:06

because i have guys who are like high-end shoe collectors but i just look at them like i couldn't pull that off my life depended on it like

58:13

no i think it'll work it's too chunky it's not me even with a zero break pant it just looks kind of like whatever so it's just

58:20

i mean that's me personally but yeah well okay so now you just another question popped in my head

58:26

you know every time i've seen you look dapper you look great you know you look great now

58:32

here's my question what in your closet would you be embarrassed

58:37

if someone saw you wearing during coven once i went out to starbucks and they just looked at me

58:44

because they're all used to me even kind of like casually just a pair of khakis and like something like a sweater i walked in

58:51

in a pair of my l.l bean boots with a pair of like

58:57

weird japanese joggers from nike and like

59:02

a sweatshirt from tracksmith and like my cycling cap like my winter

59:07

cycling cap like in mourinho they were just like what happened to you

59:12

i was just like yo i woke up i wasn't feeling good i didn't have covert or anything it was just like one of those days where i was just fatigued i was

59:18

like it's cold in my apartment i don't feel like getting changed i'm just rolling down this and it was like they were just like what the hell and i

59:24

was like take a picture because this is not going to happen again unless i have the flu and need a coffee

59:29

because my brain is going to explode from not having caffeine you are not going to see me like this again but it was super funny because all the

59:36

staff was just like what the hell like he's not dressed up

59:41

and like one time they were like usually like i walk in they take my order it's almost like ready i just get

59:46

like a quad espresso they walked in like oh we didn't even recognize you with the mask and like my glasses they were just

59:51

like what the hell is this guy so it's like clown especially that's weird sean orders that i am shot oh my

59:56

god you're sean so it's that kind of thing but i love it yeah it was totally funny and i've like

1:00:03

wandered out only like maybe twice like that maybe three years so [Laughter]

1:00:08

pretty impressive yeah impressive um all right but they are cool but they are cool nike joggers

1:00:15

from japan so i will say yeah we're pretty cool but

1:00:21

he's got nike's got a lot of cool collaborations yeah is that japanese it's a japanese running guy who he does that uh i cannot

1:00:26

pronounce that song i'm going to try but it's that naked collaboration that they do for their nikki lab stuff and this

1:00:32

was like an old pair that was like knit and like tech and it was just they're phenomenal

1:00:38

they're awesome this has been awesome i'm so excited there's just so many gems in here and uh and you're you're super

1:00:43

easy to talk to so oh thank you like i said probably could talk another two hours i like to talk so you give me any

1:00:48

topic we can go down and be like you know stuff like that but no this is super cool i really enjoyed this

1:00:55

[Music] thanks for watching if you found this video to be helpful please leave a

1:01:02

comment like subscribe and share with a friend if you are an entrepreneur and want to

1:01:08

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1:01:15

see you next time

Full audio interview: https://tinyurl.com/jnfhhkry

Full video interview: https://youtu.be/nNx5fKUFN98

Connect with Sean: https://dashingchicago.com/

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