#048: From Corporate Chains To Quilter’s Gold: How Blake Serrano Built A Fabric Business With No Money Down

What happens when an ultra-competitive systems thinker walks away from a comfortable tech career and decides to build something real, messy, and human? Blake joins us to unpack how a failed $40k app, a seasonal toy, and one conversation with an 83-year-old shop owner sparked a thriving fabric business built on brand-name textiles, creative financing, and the infinite game of community.

We dig into the scrappy playbook: validating demand before spending a cent, pre-selling through social media, and using content as a growth engine rather than a vanity project. Blake shares how “no money down” inventory deals actually work, why niche focus beats breadth at the start, and how buying supplier dead stock became an unexpected moat as the industry shifts and legacy retailers leave gaps. He breaks down the tactile challenges of selling fabric online, how brand familiarity reduces friction, and why testing retail hours inside a warehouse beats signing a lease too soon.

Beyond tactics, there’s a philosophy at work: collaborative competition over zero-sum thinking. We explore infinite games, authenticity that attracts the right buyers, and generosity as a growth strategy. Blake’s early hustles, love for systems, and service mindset show up everywhere—from moving 1,500 bolts in brutal heat to helping small shops modernize, to asking customers what they actually want and letting that guide inventory. If you’re building an online store, eyeing the craft and quilting space, or trying to turn content into real customers, this conversation offers field-tested steps you can copy today.

Loved this convo? Follow Blake via the link in his profile on our episode page, subscribe for more creative entrepreneurship stories, and leave a rating and review to help others find the show. What’s one experiment you’ll run this week?

Blake's Profile
Blake's Website

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Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open: Love The Grind
• 1:35 Meet Blake: The Fabric Guy
• 2:23 Content As A Growth Engine
• 4:43 Leaving The Template Life
• 8:03 Lockdown, Books, And Big Leaps
• 11:18 The Costly App And First Lessons
• 13:43 The Seasonal Toy And Repeat Buyers
• 16:03 Helping Shops For Free To Learn
• 18:03 Pat’s Offer: Sell My Fabric Online
• 20:23 Buying Inventory With No Money Down
• 22:23 Online First, Then Testing Retail
• 24:33 Brand Names Beat Unknown Labels
• 25:53 Industry Shifts After Joann’s
• 27:23 Start Narrow, Then Expand
• 29:23 Suppliers, Dead Stock, And Scale
• 31:23 Pre-Selling Through Social Proof
• 32:23 Early Hustles And Systems Thinking
• 35:23 Authority, Corporate Games, And Exit
• 37:23 Creativity Beyond Business
• 38:53 Money, Meaning, And Service
• 40:23 Community As Competitive Edge
• 41:53 Collaborative Competition Explained
• 44:23 Infinite Games Over Zero-Sum Wins
• 46:23 Be Different, Be Authentic, Be Loved
• 48:23 Give More Hugs, Build Real Loyalty
• 50:23 Roots, Volunteering, And Purpose
• 52:23 Big Ask: A Vision For Cuba
• 54:23 Farming, Feeding, And First Steps
• 56:23 Wrap-Up And Where To Find Blake

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

I love it. I love it. I I literally wake up every day and I think that again competitive, but I think no one's going to beat me at this because I love this.

SPEAKER_03: 0:43

I love this.

SPEAKER_02: 0:44

Like I have brutal days. I have days where I have to move 1500 bolts of fabric from one place to another place in 100-degree weather. There's an accident on the freeway. I'm running out of gas. The cell phone doesn't work. And I want to scream, and I love it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12

This is Dwight, joined by our other connections and community guy host Maddox for for the for the love of creatives. We're so happy to be joined today by uh so snipped Blake Serrano. Welcome, Blake. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

So is it is it Serrano or Serrano?

SPEAKER_02: 1:32

Serrano. Serrano.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34

So sorry. Um you know it's uh I I've seen that you do a lot of fun stuff to show your journey on your your Instagram grid is just too too much for tacos. It is entertaining. You take everyone along for the ride, and you've got quite the tail. But in just uh a minute or two, could you uh orient people to who you are and what you're about?

SPEAKER_02: 2:00

Yes. So as we said, my name's Blake, and I opened a fabric shop a little over two years ago. And as we get into it's been up and down, left and right, every which way direction. And the last few months it's really stabled out, and I've started to figure things out, and uh we're building success now.

SPEAKER_04: 2:21

And it looks like you're having a great time along the way. Yes, yes. This is by far the best job I've ever had.

SPEAKER_01: 2:28

That's a cool thing to claim, especially this early in, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 2:33

Yes. Uh 12 months ago, I was not saying that. Yeah.

unknown: 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:40

But it's great. You're you're definitely doing something that's working, and I can see that it's uh some of the the beautiful stories that you tell are the um one thing that sticks out to me is um there was one piece that you did where you're talking about how you always uh look forward to getting a call from a husband talking about charges. And yes. You get to set them straight that that you're the fabric guy. Like that that's all you. It's so funny.

SPEAKER_02: 3:11

Yeah, we know. I mean, you you all deal with it, and and anyone listening, I'm sure, deals with it that creating content is 80% of your business, you know, maybe not 80%, but somewhere between 40 and 80% of your business is content. So I'm really blessed that I the content writes itself most of the time.

SPEAKER_04: 3:30

It's a it's a beautiful thing. Well, and and I I think a lot of it is how you just approach life with an open heart. And so you're you're seeing all the gems everywhere that uh for anyone that might just be in that spiral where they're just looking at their shoes, they're missing out on all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 3:49

Yeah. And we know that negativity compounds and positivity compounds, and you know, it it definitely takes persistent. And I've crossed to the other side now where I have enough positivity outweighing the negativity. Gotta love that.

SPEAKER_04: 4:06

And I know a a lot of people are following a template. You know, they've seen what's modeled to them by their parents and by you know everyone that they've seen that's kind of the template for success. And what you're doing is highly creative in that you had to figure a lot of things out on your own. Where did you find the courage to step off of that firmly beaten path?

SPEAKER_02: 4:39

I have a very non-traditional upbringing. I've lived in many different places in America growing up at very critical ages. So I saw things done differently often, and it really opened my eyes at a very young age that there is no right way to do anything, and that perspective is 90% of you know what we think is right or wrong or good or bad for the most part, you know, everyone has their own journey, their own truth. So I started just doing what I felt like was my truth, my journey, my path. And I didn't fight it, I stopped fighting society basically. Um, you know, and we can go into a little more details on that later, but yeah, I really marched to the beat of my own drum. I always have. And it did take me 35 years to lean into that. And the first couple of years of that were difficult. But once you get rolling, and now that I'm rolling, I wouldn't have it any other way.

SPEAKER_04: 5:52

Well, and I I think a lot of people need to really let that sink in. I mean, by all accounts from the outside, you're an overnight success, but it's that overnight success took a lifetime to get there.

unknown: 6:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

No, I I think it's worth saying, Blake, that um, you know, thankfully you got it at 35 because there will be people that will live out their entire lives and never get it. You know, we I I hear people say this, and you didn't say this, but I hear people say this all the time. Well, I wish I'd figured this out, you know, 10, 20 years ago or when I was X old. Um and the truth is most of the time it's more about just being grateful that you did get it when you did get it because you could have lived out and and never gotten it. You know, I think that we're seeing more and more people step away from the cultural norms. You know, I I was in a female dominated industry for a 40-year career. And like me, you know, your fabric is a female dominated. Now, it may not be female dominated if you're in the upholstery fabrics, but that's not what you're in, is it? Right.

SPEAKER_02: 7:09

No, you're correct.

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

Yeah, you're you're in the types of fabrics that make quilts and clothes and yeah. How did how did that come about? How did that come to be? What how did you wake up one day and think, wow, fabric is my thing?

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

Yes, so this uh this this runs deep here. We love deep.

SPEAKER_03: 7:32

Yes, it it's we're gay.

SPEAKER_02: 7:34

We love deep.

SPEAKER_03: 7:35

I'm teasing yikes, love it.

SPEAKER_02: 7:38

Um I think a lot of people during COVID, specifically the beginning of COVID lockdown time, went through what I went through in a sense of just a lot of time alone to rethink and seeing different sides of things. And I live in Richmond, Virginia, and this place is very corporate and government oriented, and I do my best not to offend people, but I am a pretty anti-corporate, anti-government person. Um and even when working for governments and corporations, I was not a big fan of them. But to your point earlier, I did what everyone else did, I did what I was supposed to do, um, and it paid and it made my life easy and and comfortable. So once lockdown happened, I I started reading a lot, something I hadn't really done in years. And a book a friend recommended to me was Think and Grow Rich. And it has its fair share of controversy around it, but that book said things in it that I always thought in my head my whole entire life and never heard anyone say eloquently. And that was my first big aha. I'm not crazy. And that led me down the rabbit hole to start to understand that wait, the people I look up to, I'm more like those people than I am the people that are around me. And that really came from that book. So the first part of this whole journey was I need to take the leap and leave corporate America. And, you know, there's a term which people may be familiar with called the golden handcuffs, right? I had to make$100,000 a year. I had no option. I for my house, my truck, I had a son, everything, I had to make that. And so that was the very first sacrifice and journey I had to take was okay, I can't go from X amount of money to zero dollars, but how do I make money and not be in corporate America? So the first thing I did is I went looked for a new job, and I found a job um in a tech startup. And they offered me$90,000 just to put numbers on this. And so my first sacrifice from all this was saying, okay, I'm gonna be 10 grand a short every year, but this is what I want to do. Let's go for it. Um, so that was step one. I worked for a startup, and when anyone asks about business or asks me for advice how to get started, I always say, go work for someone who is already doing what you want to do. Get paid to learn. So the journey really began two years working for a tech startup. I was a tech consultant for over a decade. I then finally took the leap from the startup to start my own app. I had about a$40,000 budget that I saved up. I sold things and I put all this money in this pot and said, I'm gonna go start an app with$40,000. That was the first big mistake I made. I now preach to the high heavens that you do not need money to start a business. In fact, I could argue that money is your biggest problem when starting a business because I blew through$40,000 and had nothing to show when it was all said and done. I never got a customer. I had a beautiful app, I had a great logo, a great name, an LLC on the books, and zero customers. Um so I took that lesson and then I learned, okay, I need a customer. Plain and simple. Don't create an idea, solve a problem. Find someone who has a problem who's willing to pay you for that problem. So my second attempt at a business was a toy, which this toy still exists. And basically, I made a prototype for my son, and all the kids in the neighborhood loved it. And the parents were like, if you made this, I would buy it. So light bulb went off. I got a customer, at least a verbal agreement that they would be interested in purchasing this. So I went out and I made the toy, and again, the toy cost me about 15 grand to get started. Should have been a red flag, but I was like, hey, at least I know I have people that want to buy it. So I learned some lessons from the toy. I took all the lessons from my first two businesses. The toy, come to find out, is an incredibly seasonal item. In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense. Uh, so I could only sell the toy around the holidays. I still sell it, but two months out of the year, I sell the toy. And also, it's one product, one skew. So it's something that people buy once and never come back. These were big lessons I learned. So the first lesson was get a customer. Second lesson was uh beware of seasonal and beware of non-repeat item skews. So then I went out and I decided that I was going to just help local small businesses. I was going to take everything I learned from corporate America and go apply it to small businesses asking nothing in return. Just trying to find my next niche. I went through probably five different businesses, five different industries. And the way I would approach these people is hey, I noticed your website is outdated or you don't have a website. I noticed you have no Google reviews. I would love to help you with that. I'm asking nothing in return except for maybe, you know, a recommendation from you that a letter saying, Hey, Blake did a great job. And uh we can kind of take it from there. So my sister and my niece have been in the fabric industry for a long time. So as I was out doing this, they recommended I go speak to a couple of local fabric shop owners who had basically those exact problems. They had no website, they had no Google reviews, they've been in business for 50 years, and they said chances are those they might be looking to leave, retire. So the first lady I went and spoke to, her name was Pat. Pat at the time was 83 years old. Her shop was in its heyday, the biggest fabric store in Virginia. Everybody knows her around here. Her shop is legendary. And she I went to her and said, Hey Pat, I heard you want a website. And so she and I are kicking it around. And she goes, You know what? What if you made your own website and you sold my fabric for me? And I was like, Oh, you know, I never even thought about that. So I did. I literally, within 24 hours, made a website, made a Facebook, made an Instagram, made a few videos, started running ads, all of which I learned from the first two failures. I already knew how to do all these things for no money at all. So within 24 hours of her giving me that idea, I got a handful of sales for the fabric. And that's really the very, very beginning where I sat there and I looked at it and I went through my checklist. Okay, not very seasonal, don't have a lot of competition. I need no money to get started. This lady really is willing to just let me have this fabric to try it out. Um, and that's the very beginning of how I got into it. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 15:45

That is amazing that she would suggest something like that at 83. What would have ever given her that idea? I wonder.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

She did not want to maintain a website.

SPEAKER_04: 15:57

I get it. It's one more thing. The clock's winding down for her. She's looking at spending time with the grandkids and kicking it on the beach somewhere.

SPEAKER_02: 16:07

Yep. But I agree. It's it's you know, going back to that think and grow rich, like the universe just sort of opened the door. I told the universe what I wanted, and I stayed diligent, and the opportunity really, you know, people say, Oh, the fabric fell in your lap. Yes and no. But at the end of the day, yeah, it was that advice that set the the whole thing into motion.

SPEAKER_04: 16:28

Yeah. Well, and I I, you know, I'm glad that you're speaking so highly of that text. Uh, granted, it would get canceled today, for sure. Yeah, but there's some gold in there.

unknown: 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 16:43

Agreed.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Agreed. I love that book. And and if anyone's looking to get into it, it'll tell you in the beginning of the book take your time, take it a chapter at a time, half a chapter at a time, write notes. I studied that book like it was a degree. I really did.

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

Was it her fabric store that you ended up purchasing? Great question.

SPEAKER_02: 17:05

Uh yes and no. So along this journey, I started following a handful of people, influencers, business influencers online, one of which is Cody Sanchez, who I love. I basically follow her model on everything I do. And her shtick is buy boring businesses with little to no money down. And I took one of her master courses, and so I knew what to look for. And so when I made the website for her and I went back to her and I said this actually worked, we sat down and looked at what is it that I actually want from you, and what is it that you actually want to give to me. So I wound up just purchasing her inventory.

SPEAKER_04: 17:56

That's that's smart. That is so that is so slick and unconventional because I know that you know, most people think that, well, you know, uh let's go and pull up biz by sell and you know, like have have some broker uh make everything real smooth. You got right into the weeds and like how can we do this?

SPEAKER_01: 18:23

So Blake, is this 100% an online business or do you have a storefront somewhere now?

SPEAKER_02: 18:31

So when it started, I had no clue what I was doing, as you can imagine. And it started out only online, and where the fabric was in the beginning had a two-month lease left. There was two months left on the lease. So I had two months to figure this out. Now, for those of you that don't know about fabric, which probably in this podcast, most people do, fabric comes wrapped around a piece of cardboard, and that's called a bolt. This lady had 3500 bolts. Um wow, she she had quite an inventory. Yes. So a couple of things about this. One, I do not recommend starting a business with 3,500 of anything.

SPEAKER_03: 19:16

Don't do it.

SPEAKER_02: 19:17

Way too much. The second thing I like to say before I answer your question is I paid this lady zero money down, and we finance the fabric. So I pay her monthly, which has now become uh two times a year, I now pay her. And I've done this multiple times. So anyone listening, you can indeed buy a business and or inventory with no money down. She's she's now 85 years old. If I didn't come along, she would have had to either throw the fabric away or put it in a storage unit that she would have had to pay to have it moved into and pay for it every month. Just throw that in there. But so I had two months to get out of the warehouse or out of her shop. The way my brain works, I genuinely thought in two months I was going to sell all the fabric. Uh needless to say, I have not even sold 10% of this fabric to this day. This is over two years ago. Um, so it started out as a hybrid of online and then opening the shop on the weekends for people to come in and buy. Since then, the fabric's moved literally five or six times. I now have a warehouse. I've been only online for the last year. I sometimes open up on random Saturdays, but this week I've started building out retail space in my warehouse. And I do plan on in the next couple of weeks opening a few days a week to the public, really as a test, an MVP, a litmus test to figure out how the retail thing works. And once I nail that down, I will then go get retail space and open a retail shop.

SPEAKER_01: 20:55

My mother sewed all of her life, and there was always fabric laying around. And what comes up for me, being a highly creative person and an entrepreneur, is fabric is a very tactile thing. You know, if I were going to shop for fabric, I would want to touch it. I would want to see the texture of it. I would want to be able to see really the true colors because on online, yeah, it's a guess. You know, every monitor registers colors a little bit differently. I would want to know the thickness of the fabric and and the stretch or the non-stretch of it. There'd be a whole lot of things that I would, is it see-through? Is it completely opaque? Things that are so hard to demonstrate digitally. I would think that the minute people can come in and actually have an experience of it, I suspect once you get the word out there and people know that you're there, that it will accelerate. I may be wrong, but that's just what my intuitive mind is is saying.

SPEAKER_02: 22:01

Yep, I completely agree. Um, to piggyback off of that, another lesson I learned from the first two businesses is they both were brand new products that had never been on the market. And so to answer your question, the main answer is I sell brand name products. So it's like me creating my own shoe brand versus selling Nikes. People know what they're getting when they buy from me. I'm not, I didn't make the fabric. It's well-known fabric that they've been buying for decades. So that helps a lot. That helps a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 22:41

Well, and I think an another thing that just kind that helps is the way that the conditions because of COVID or and because of just things that happened in the market, um Joann's is gone. Right. I mean, um I know Michael's is trying, and you know, there may be a craft quarter in some places, but um you're kind of positioned to be uh like the the the first place for people to go to get fabric now.

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

Well, and we we had a Joann's here in town. I haven't been in a while, but the last time I was in there, it was a small place with a very limited um amount of fabric to choose from. It was a little storefront. I you know, if I had to guess, I would say, well, it's been a while since I've been in there, but it it couldn't have been maybe more than a thousand square feet if just just guessing, and and and if memory serves me. Which would hold a fairly fair amount of fabric, but you know not been in much larger fabric stores, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_02: 23:57

Yep. Yep. And something I didn't know about fabric that I know now is it's incredibly difficult based on the fact that it's all different, like you stated earlier. Fabric is so different, so diverse, so diverse, yes, impossible.

SPEAKER_01: 24:17

Have you ever considered expanding and having fabric that would be used for upholstery or draperies or tablecloths or things like that? Because that would open up a whole different clientele plus a whole different income stream, but also lots more inventory and capital tied up.

SPEAKER_02: 24:40

Yeah.

unknown: 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:41

So a couple of things about that. One, originally my business name was Creative Closeouts. And the first idea in my head was yeah, I was just going to buy out fabric shops and sell that inventory. So dead stock, if you will, or you know, just things that were gonna go in the garbage. So I started with that. And a lesson I learned, another lesson I learned is don't start too wide. Start with one thing, figure that one thing out really, really well, and then go do something very similar to it. So I have been predominantly quilters cotton. Um, I changed my name from creative closeouts to so snip, trying to get away from that idea of closeouts. And I now do buy from suppliers. And so, to answer your question, yes, I have started expanding, but I still love this idea of closeouts. And I've learned that what is happening with the shops, so the whole fabric industry, and there's many industries this is happening in, there's a generational shift. So I like to say my first shop owner was Pat. There are many Pats around the country. I would say a thousand plus Pats, literally. There's probably around 3,000 fabric shops in America, and I would guess at least half are ready to retire. And so when you follow that chain through the entire supply chain, the suppliers are going through the same exact thing. The suppliers have been there 50, 60 years. They're the sons and the daughters of the original owners, and the grandkids don't want anything to do with it. So the way I was buying out small shops, which I still do, I am now buying out the dead stock from the suppliers. And the big, big thing with Joanne that I didn't even realize was sure, I got customers that went there, but I now do business with Joanne's suppliers because they have no one to buy their fabric. Because a small shop might buy one bolt or two bolts of 10 different patterns, but they don't want to buy 50 of the same bolts, whereas I do.

SPEAKER_01: 27:03

So you've turned in to be a much better customer than the actual store was. Yeah, well, I'm I'm no Joanne, but you know a lot of what you're sharing is really, really gold. And when you talked about, you know, start narrow, you're you're talking about what marketers will say about niche markets.

SPEAKER_00: 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:27

Work one niche until you've got it solved. You can have as many niches as you want, but you need to bring them on one at a time, and that's what you're talking about is it's it's an it's a niche market. People who are buying fabric that is for clothing would have no interest in fabric that is for upholstery, right?

SPEAKER_02: 27:47

Yep, so exactly. And and thanks to social media, I started with my with my ideal customer, and now they ask me, they ask me, they say, Hey, can you get me knit fabric, jersey, uh, upholstery, lycra, lace. So now I know I don't have to guess anymore. I just go find what they want, and I'm in with the supplier. So the plot supplier says, Hey, I've got a palette of this. What do you think of it? I will literally put a video out and say, What do y'all think of this?

SPEAKER_01: 28:18

So you've got it sold before you buy. Yes, for the most part, yes. Wow. Okay, okay, let's back up a little bit. Let's let's go. I mean, you're obviously like a creative entrepreneur. That's you know, if we're gonna put people in boxes, there's artists and there's dancers and there's musicians, you're a creative entrepreneur. But that was born somewhere else. There was some at an earlier time in your life, some introduction to creativity. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02: 28:58

Yeah, and it I'm very cliche in that where like I was the kid, like, oh my gosh, I have an endless amount of stories of of hustle in me. So I've been a hustler since the I was the kid pushing the lawnmower through the neighborhoods, and I could sit here for an hour and tell you, I'll just tell you one one quick one. One of my first jobs in like eighth grade, I was a paper boy. And for the young listeners, there was a thing that was delivered to your house every day called a newspaper, and it was a physical piece of paper with the news. And on Sundays, the paper was bigger and it had coupons in it, and it had all the deals for the week. And so, what I figured out at in eighth grade, when I would put the newspaper together, I'd see the items that were on sale or the items with coupons. And back then we had a thing called Classifieds, which was another paper. It was basically Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. So people would list use items they would sell in this paper. Sometimes it was in the back of a newspaper, sometimes it was a magazine or a catalog, no internet. So I would find items in the newspaper and I would list those items for retail price in the classifieds. So, for example, I remember one week there was these two way walkie talkies, and you know, they retailed at$200 and they were on sale for$125 at Costco, and I listed them in Classified for free or maybe 50 cents, and someone bought them. Someone called me and wanted to buy them. And I had no Costco membership at the time. So I remember scrambling around town looking for someone to take me to Costco. I eventually found someone to take me to Costco. So, you know, people around me, my teachers, people would see me do this, and they were always just amazed at like, what is that? Um, so I always had hustle, and then my stepfather was a computer engineer in the 90s, and he worked remotely in the 90s. So I moved around a lot, and it wasn't military, it was literally just him asking my mom, where do you want to go this year? And she'd say, Let's go to Hawaii. I literally went to Hawaii, and he worked remotely and he always had a computer around. So I was very lucky that I always had a computer around. I always had computer books, I always had magazines. So I was very into computers. Um, I dropped out of high school and I tell people I stopped going to high school in eighth grade. I literally skipped school to go to the library to program on the library computer. I would ride around with composition books and programming books and write code while I rode the bus and had my little diskette. And wherever I could find a computer, I'd put my little disc in, render my code, boom, boop, see what I need to tweak and leave. I had a newsletter, a website when I was in ninth grade. So I've always been into hustling or business, and I've always been into computers. And in eighth grade, again, when I said this, I remember we got the internet. We had a computer lab, we got the internet for the first time, and I purchased this little device in the back of a computer magazine that you could plug into the computer and it would record the keystrokes. So the first day of us having the internet, I recorded the master keystroke, and I literally took over all the computers in the school within the first 30 minutes of us having the internet. And it's so funny, they brought me into the office almost immediately and they sat me down. My mom was in there and they said, We know it's him because he's the only person here that could do this. And that was the day where I looked at everyone in the room and I said, I'm smarter than all of you here because this internet thing is going to be the biggest thing we've ever known. And they were all like, Yeah, right, whatever, the internet, sure. So I got lucky, I gambled, I went all in on the internet thing at a pretty early age. You know, um, you brought it up earlier about people saying, I wish I would have done this at that age. I think that all the time. I wish at 18 I would have just gone all in on my own thing. Um, but yeah, I always had the hustle, I always had the computer knowledge, and I've never been good with authority.

SPEAKER_01: 33:20

I can relate to that. I've never been great with authority because most of the people that have authority abuse it, you know, or or they treat the people that they're have the authority over poorly. And I don't have any uh patience for that. No, there's no bandwidth for that. I I've been self-employed my whole life, with the exception of four years. Four years I worked for someone else out of an entire lifetime. And that was uh the most challenging four years of my life in many regards.

unknown: 33:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 33:52

Because both of them treated me, you know, less than what I believed I deserved to be treated.

SPEAKER_02: 33:59

Yep. Yeah, yeah. And that's that's why I say I make I make a horrible employee. I'm a very poor employee.

SPEAKER_04: 34:06

Oh, how how long did you stick it out and and uh uh uh go accept the golden handcuffs?

SPEAKER_02: 34:15

Over a decade. I did it for over a decade. I I climbed the corporate ladder, so that was my game was like I quickly learned within the first couple of years of graduating. I eventually went to college, I got my GD, went to college, valedictorian, computer engineering. I excelled, no surprise there. I already knew what to do. Um, and then when I got into the actual corporate world, I realized that the work is the work is not what gets you ahead here. It's the game, it's the corporate game. And so I'm a I'm a big games guy, I'm a big systems guy. In fact, that's what I was working in a restaurant, and I would always I worked at restaurants for a while before I went to college, and I always hacked the system. I always would figure out a way to hack the system, and I I would always figure something out, and they always knew it was me. So I'm a systems guy. You give me a system, I will break that system down, I will improve it, I can do whatever. So once I got into corporate America, I realized this is just another system, it's just another game. Who do I need to talk to? Where do I need to be? And I always put myself in those positions. Um and that eventually bored me to death.

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

Wow. Yeah, I can see. I can see that. So it sounds like most of your creativity has been centered around business, uh, the the hustle, as you say, it was it was how to generate income and how to do what you wanted to do rather than what somebody else wanted you to do. I'm curious, not not that this matters, but does creativity show up in your life in other ways than that? Or is it really, really focused?

SPEAKER_02: 36:02

It it does show up. So I love to write, big time writer. I've got a few screenplays I love to adapt at some point. I love to write a couple of books. Uh music was my passion. So before I went to college, I attempted music. And in hindsight, I didn't go all in on the music. Uh if you know, it I was always one foot in, one foot out. But yeah, I'd say music, writing, I'm a big movies guy. I I would love to act one day. So I I really like that form of art. I love entertainment.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

Well, and I think that probably shows in your social media stuff.

unknown: 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:47

Yeah, you really bring it. Yeah, thank you. Yes, I I enjoy it. It's like I am a talker. You can't get me to shut up. Uh I love it. And you know, to sort of backtrack a little bit, another part of me is like I I like to give. I'm a big, big time giver. I don't really need anything from anybody. I I just like to help. I genuinely like to help. And there's this cliche of, you know, once you get money, you realize it's not the money. And that happened to me. You know, once I climbed the ladder and I got the money, and I thought that was the plan, I thought that was the goal, and I got it. And I sat in this big fancy house with all these toys and was like, this is stupid, especially when COVID hit. It was like, this is stupid. Like, I don't need this. I'd much rather be out helping people. And so, you know, that drives me a lot, and that's what I eventually realized it takes the more money I have, the more I can help people. The more status I have, the more I can help people. And that's a big motivating factor for me to grow my business now, is that I know once I get the right resources, I can make a difference much more than I can if I'm working for someone else.

SPEAKER_01: 38:07

So this is just a curiosity, and it's a little bit off of creativity, but it'll it'll work its way in in a minute. It sounds like you love to give to others, but I what you're not saying that I'm sort of hearing is that you struggle perhaps to let others help you in in times when you need support.

SPEAKER_02: 38:33

Yes and no. I've I've gotten good at it now. I'm ultra competitive, I'm a very competitive human being. And so I would say younger Blake, yes. Current Blake, I seek out help and mentors every chance I get. I've got a handful of people right now that I talk to almost daily that I go to for support. And you know, another lesson I learned in the first two businesses was like learn from other people's mistakes. Like, don't chase your tail if you don't have to. So I would say older me, younger me, yes, but currently I love advice and help from the people I trust.

SPEAKER_01: 39:21

So we're we're we're now this is where I kind of wanted to take us full circle. You're talking about community now, right?

SPEAKER_02: 39:29

Yes, oh yes, oh yes, yes, yes. And that's one of the greatest things about this fabric job business is the people are so friendly. I mean, I'm helping them do what they love to do. So, you know, sure you get some people who nitpick, but overall, this is a fun thing for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 39:46

Well, and and you're are you talking about the people that are buying, or are you talking also about the people that are selling the the fabric providers, the companies?

SPEAKER_02: 39:57

Yep, and and from the from the seller perspective, both. So, you know, we we talked about this is a predominantly female industry, that is true, but the upper ends of it are mostly male. So, you know, the people who own the manufacturers, you know, upper management, a lot of these are older males and they love me because they see me and them, and there's not a lot of people my age who want to be a part of this industry. So we get along incredibly well, and then you also have the seller who a big customer of mine is the person that buys fabric that makes something that sells it a tote bag, a hat, Etsy, farmer's market. So those people also gravitate towards me, and I love talking to those people. And then you have the shop owners, you know, the shop owners who either just bought the shop, just started the shop, or want to retire. So, yeah, there's a lot of people there that I can relate to because I've been doing sort of all these things at the same time.

SPEAKER_04: 40:59

Yeah, it sounds like you're living a version of um the AJ Jacobs uh book, uh Thanks a Thousand, where he traces, you know, he's thanking all of the people that led to him having a cup of coffee. And it's like you're right in the middle of it and seeing all those inner workings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:20

So so you commented on being hyper competitive. What does that look like? Because I I I mean, I I have this thought of what I know what what I think competition looks like, but I I also think that um where where is the the balance between competition and collaboration? Because there's there's I think there's healthy competition, and then I think there's really unhealthy competition. So so share with us a little bit more about that, please.

SPEAKER_02: 41:54

Agreed. And I would say from my experience, at least in business, you will get higher and further with collaborative competition. I can argue that's how you'll go the furthest. There's this old saying that I absolutely love that says, if you want to move fast, move by yourself. If you want to move far, move together. So yes. So, for example, there's there's shop owners that I work with, and they'll they'll message me, hey, did you see my latest video? It got 10,000 views in 24 hours. Okay, note taken. Note taken. So, what am I doing the next week? I'm making sure I get 11,000 views on the video, and I make sure they know that I got that. Now I'm not saying, oh, I'm going to make sure that you don't get 10,000. I hope I get 11. I hope you get 12. I hope I get 13. You know, so it's that friendly competition of let's make each other better. And I'm not hiding secrets from you either. Here's how I did it, here's how you can do it.

SPEAKER_01: 43:04

You're you're talking about, well, although sports have been corrupted, sports at one point in time were like that. Now sports have been monetized, and so it's very corrupt in many ways. And and it's it's not friendly competition. People will will die to win because there's millions of dollars involved. Um I love what what you're saying. So you're not necessarily trying to be the best, you're not necessarily trying to be the one that makes all the money, but you have it's a game. Your your competition is a game, you said earlier, you're a real, a real gamer. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_04: 43:41

Yeah, another way of saying it is using uh I've heard it expressed that you in order to have the tallest tower, um, you're going to build it up without knocking down someone else's.

unknown: 43:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 43:56

Yep, yep, yep. There's two ways to build the biggest tower. You knock down everyone else's, or you just focus and build your own. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 44:02

What one of my favorite sayings is to get what you want in life, your best way to get there is to help others get what they want.

SPEAKER_02: 44:12

I mean, that's if I that's gonna be the name of my book. I mean, that's it. I mean, that's it. And and I mean, you just go back to to what I said originally with Pat, with me going to Pat and saying, Hey, I'll make you a website, I don't want any money, and then her giving me the idea of do it this way. Whoa, light switch. Another thing that happened to me is quick after I met Pat and after I started rolling, I created an email list. I just started literally making a spreadsheet by Googling all these fabric shops. I made a giant spreadsheet and I just started blasting out emails to these shop owners. And a lady, Jenny, shout out Jenny, she replied and said, Hey, I don't want to get rid of my fabric. I'm a new shop owner, but I inherited a lot of fabric I don't want. Would you sell it on your website and then I'll ship it out of my warehouse or my shop? Again, I never even thought about that.

SPEAKER_01: 45:07

That's collaboration. I mean, that is, you know, it's it's amazing how competition and collaboration are both very misunderstood terms. And if we would just sit down in circles and define them, you know, unpack them and define them, then we would know how to proceed forward because you're telling amazing stories of collaboration that wouldn't have happened if you were leaning too far into the competition.

unknown: 45:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 45:34

Yep, yep, yep. And you know, I love the term hater. Like I'm not a hater and I don't like dealing with haters, but I'm also I'm ultra competitive. I want to do better than you, but that doesn't mean I don't want you to do well. I just want to do a little bit better. And I'm not gonna win every time. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 45:55

And and to me, that's that you're you just defined healthy competition because it's about a game. Yeah, it's about something that makes it fun, and you cheer each other on, and the may the may the best man or woman win. I mean, you're you're you're sharing something now that is not really not a conversation we've had up to this point. And we talk about collaboration a lot and we talk about competition, but there's kind of an unpacking here that I don't recall. Dwight, do you recall us really kind of getting into the weeds with it like this?

SPEAKER_04: 46:28

No, this is beautiful. Uh I I love the way that um your your approach to things uh because of all of the the fun ways that you had to navigate growing up in a a different place from time to time, I think made fertile ground for you to appreciate uh just how um uh how important it is to just embrace what is and and move forward and you know, ask what if and see what's possible. Blake, you got a book in you, dude. You got a couple of books in you for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 47:07

Definitely. I mean, you said you like to write, but I just this part that you're talking about right now, your your the the hustle that you started out with as a as a kid and the directions that you took, but this part about bringing it all back in where there's this healthy competition and there's this collaboration where you're striking bizarre deals that who would have ever thought, you know, who would have ever thought this would work, and and yet it is. You definitely have a powerful book in you, and like Dwight said, probably more than one. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 47:51

Yeah, I I read somewhere, I don't remember exactly where, but I read that there's there's essentially two types of games. There's the games that have a winner and a loser, which you could think of like sports, and then there's a type of game where the the goal is just to keep the game going.

SPEAKER_04: 48:09

Yes, you were you're what you're talking about are games of competition where there is a winner and a loser, and then infinite games.

SPEAKER_00: 48:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 48:20

Exactly. Unfortunately, in the West, uh we are indoctrinated to all to always go for being the best to win. And when in order to win, someone has to lose. Right. But when you break away from that, when you go to places that have not yet been corrupted, they are are naturally going to try to figure out how it is that they can keep it going.

unknown: 48:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 48:51

You know, a really wise person shared with me one time, and I have shared this on this podcast in earlier episodes, but it it never gets old. It's it's just such a wonderful thing. And I don't remember now exactly who it was that shared this with me because I've studied under so many people, read so many authors, and been to therapists and coaches, and you name it. Um I've been on a growth pattern since 1985. That's that's when I actively decided to work on me and and and who I wanted to be in the world and how I wanted to show up. And I've I've worked now, you know, um, what is that 40 years? Yeah, 40 years this year. Um he said don't try to be the best. So there's only one spot for the best. He said, try to be different. Look at ways that you can set yourself apart from everybody else that's doing what you're doing. Things that will make you stand out in a crowd. Not because you do it the best, but because you do it the most uniquely. And I took that to heart. And it was literally, I would have to say, in in my 40-year career as a beauty professional, it was the number one piece of information that changed the, it was a game changer for me in the biggest way. I would just sit and really brainstorm about what I could do for the people that I serve that the other people that are offering the same services are not doing. And I and it wasn't huge, grandiose stuff. You know, it was the the simple things that really got a lot of attention. But they were simple. They weren't things that I had to charge extra for, they weren't super time consuming. They were just little details that made me stand out.

SPEAKER_04: 51:03

I think a big pillar of that is what's represented in the big word above your head. And if you can lean into just being authentic, if you just try to be you and not try to be a version of something that you've seen someone else do, then you're gonna naturally attract those people who really like you. So it's gonna be really easy for you to continue being you.

SPEAKER_01: 51:35

Well, and and love the people that you serve. It's just important to just love, love them and love on them because most people don't do that. You know, every client that came in the door got a hug. And every client that went out the door got a hug. And if they headed towards the duh the door without giving me a hug, I would say, mm-mm, get your butt back over here. Do not cheat me out of my hug. And even that made me stand out. It was such a simple thing.

SPEAKER_04: 52:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 52:10

Now, did it make retiring really hard? Oh fuck, can we talk? You know, I had invested so much emotionally in these people that when it was time to turn the key and the lock and walk away. Ooh, I grieved hard for over a year. Hard grieved. But I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it for anything.

SPEAKER_02: 52:35

Yep. And I I give a lot of credit of that in my life to my mom. Like growing up, we always volunteered, always. Like we were in a soup kitchen. We were my mom, my family comes from Cuba. I'm born here, but you know, my mom translated, she still translates her whole life, and you know, a lot of it was volunteer work, just helping people. And you know, we did a lot in the church when I was growing up, and so yeah, that's I that's where I operate from too is how can I help you? Everything else falls in place. If you just do the thing you need to do, everything else falls in place eventually.

SPEAKER_01: 53:16

Like it does. You are very, very fortunate to have gotten that the way you got it. I didn't get it that way. You know, my my parents were kind people. My dad was an employer and he treated his employees really, really well. But they they both watch. I mean, I'm I'm very much a highly sensitive person, and and I'm I'm an empath. And um, my caring, my as a child, my mom would shake her head and say, Lord, you just care so much. And and she just didn't understand because she and my dad weren't like that. She couldn't figure out where that came from. She could recognize it, but she she just didn't, and it's it's been the theme in in my whole life. You know, I I had a partner at one point, partner number two, way back there, who would say, Do you have to stop and help every person on the street? And I said, Yes, I do. And he was like, Well, why? And I said, Because I never know when that person on the street that needs help is me. And I'm hoping that someone will stop and help me. So if I'm not willing to stop and help somebody else, then how can I ever expect the universe to serve that up for me when my night when my need comes?

SPEAKER_03: 54:47

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 54:48

Bless his heart.

SPEAKER_04: 54:49

He can get well this has been a fabulous uh conversation, and we really enjoyed getting to spend a little bit of time with you, Blake.

SPEAKER_01: 55:04

It was just as much fun and exciting as I thought it would be. Your story's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 55:09

Yeah, we didn't even touch on like the crafts and fabric industry at all. You know, this was awesome though. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 55:17

You know, I I think that it's uh it's great the way that um you just got to share a little bit of yourself with with our listeners. And you know, like I said, there's there's plenty of it, plenty of that kind of uh deep industry knowledge served up in a way that's palatable on your site and and in your Instagram feed.

SPEAKER_01: 55:43

You know, and I don't I don't do this very often, but you know, for for those that are listening, if you find your way to our website, you won't be able to find this through Apple or Spotify, but if you find your way to this episode on our website and click his profile link. Now there is a place in the profile in any of the platforms where it said it'll say Blake's profile. Click on that button and it'll take you to his profile where you'll see all of his social media handles. And I mean, Dwight has already clearly demonstrated that following Blake on Instagram will be worthwhile because he's very entertaining. And as you can tell, he drops lots of wisdom bombs about entrepreneur creative entrepreneurial ship.

SPEAKER_02: 56:32

Yep, yep. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I love it, I love it, I love it. I I literally wake up every day and I think that again competitive, but I think no one's going to beat me at this because I love this.

SPEAKER_03: 56:44

I love this.

SPEAKER_02: 56:45

Like I have brutal days. I have days where I have to move 1500 bolts of fabric from one place to another place in 100-degree weather, there's an accident on the freeway, I'm running out of gas, the cell phone doesn't work, and I want to scream and I love it.

SPEAKER_04: 57:02

Well, it's it's clear that you have you have definitely passed over an obstacle that dogs a lot of people that I've I've worked with, where you know they're they always have this thing where they say, Well, I know I'll be happy when I'll be fulfilled just if. And it's like they don't get it. You just needed to stop when you say, I'll be happy. That's a choice.

SPEAKER_01: 57:28

It is a choice. You know, how are you ever going to be happy then if you can't be happy now? Because the now is what creates the then.

SPEAKER_04: 57:36

Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 57:37

Yes. So I think Dwight has uh one big question to ask you before we wrap it up.

SPEAKER_04: 57:45

Yes. So the big question is given the way that things unfold in the universe, there are you never know who might be listening or what might be around the corner. But we have to wonder what would it take? What would be the one thing that uh if uh someone offered it or if if you happened upon it would be the thing that would change your life for the better, the the one thing that would unlock everything for you. What would that be?

SPEAKER_01: 58:27

It it also could be a challenge that gets solved. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 58:33

All right, I'm gonna say something absolutely insane. Okay, please. I'm ready. All right, this is crazy. I've never thought I'd say this in a public domain. I want to take over Cuba. I want to be the president of Cuba. That's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01: 58:53

Well, with your hustle, I I I I don't have any doubt that you'd be a strong contender. You know, we never know how the people are going to vote, but yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 59:05

Wow. I'm very passionate. I mean, I have a lot of family there, and I literally, literally get messages constantly from family members that are begging for help. That place is it's very, very bad there right now. So I'm very passionate about that. And you know, we don't need to get in the history of Cuba, but it's possible it's been done before. Yes, it has. Well, it's been done before.

SPEAKER_01: 59:33

I I think that you saying it out loud is gonna put all kinds of things in motion.

SPEAKER_02: 59:40

Agreed. Yeah, hopefully it's not the CIA coming after me. But yeah. My father tells me to be careful, be careful, boy, be careful.

SPEAKER_01: 59:50

Well, and there is that, you know, when things aren't all running above the line, uh we're seeing that right here, right now in the country where uh things are not all above the line and there's some scary shit happening. So you do have to be thoughtful about what you what you put out there. But I think it's important to really speak our truth. And um, you know, I I I could I could see you doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:16

Well, thank you. Yeah, it's uh a very, very long road. We'll see what happens. I don't yeah, the the low. Hanging fruit here is I volunteered a local farm, a nonprofit farm, and they basically just build, they do farming the most minimalist way possible, and then they just give it back to the community. And so I I joined that because I really believe in that program and I would love to implement that in Cuba. And I think they're gonna help me do that. So that's kind of the first step of you know, working my way there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:49

I just want to say I really love your message of giving back. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:54

Yeah, it's man, and you never know how things you never know how things are going to unfold. Uh I announcing your candidacy on our little podcast, uh it's you're definitely placing a stamp because this is gonna be out there for a long time. And we never know what what the future holds. You know, just this past week we uh finished uh uh dinner um with of all people Mike Pence sitting at the table next to us. Random, very random, very weird.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:31

Yeah, it says you know you never know because our audience in six months has grown by 860 percent.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:40

Wow, congratulations, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:43

In six months, love it, love it, love it. Proud to say that, very proud to say that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:47

So, yeah, y'all are definitely there's nothing like this. I've been listening, I love it. I can't wait to hear more. This industry needs something like this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:57

If if you haven't already, would you rate and review us? Yes, certainly, yes, please, definitely, definitely that would be amazing because that helps us get the word out there more, the more ratings and reviews we have. So please, please, thank you. So, like this has been amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:15

Yes, it went so fast, it's like yeah, too fast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:19

It did time flies when you're having fun.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:21

Yeah, y'all are out in Dallas. We are we are yeah, I'm I'm gonna take a Texas tour very soon, and I'm gonna stop by and check y'all out because you you look us up before you before you come.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:31

Let us know you're coming, and we'll make plans to meet. Agreed for sure. That'll be awesome, yes.