With Hart

Ep. 3 | The Year That Changed Everything

• Karlee Hart • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

Karlee opens up about the often-unseen emotional side of entrepreneurship, navigating identity shifts, feeling uninspired, and rebuilding from a place of alignment. She reflects on the pressure to constantly evolve while learning to trust slower seasons, let go of old versions of herself, and bet fully on who she's becoming. Through vulnerable and grounded storytelling, Karlee shares the mindset shifts, internal work, and real-life transitions that come with stepping into your next level. This episode is a reminder to stay aligned with your purpose, lead from within, and embrace the messy middle of growth.

Karlee Hart

Beachkrew Website

With Hart – Real Talk on Entrepreneurship, Brand Building & Business Ownership

Hosted by Karlee Hart, founder of Beachkrew. With Hart dives into the highs, lows, and lessons of building a brand from the ground up. Whether you're a dreamer, doer, or in the thick of scaling your business, this podcast is your go-to for unfiltered insights, mindset shifts, and actionable advice.

Follow & Connect:
Instagram
YouTube
Have a question or topic idea? Email us at Karleehartpodcast@gmail.com

If you love the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review!!

All right. I'm so excited to be back talking about the journey of Beachkrew and evolution and just everything that I've learned along the way. I feel like each episode I am kind of walking into it, just knowing that as I start talking about the journey and the years that have gone by, I'm going to remember so many things that I want to talk about. But, as these episodes launch and, you know, I hear your feedback and what you want to hear more about or start looking through maybe some old DM's, more of questions you guys have reached out to me about. By the way, I do see them and I always mean so much to me to know that you guys are curious about my journey and again about the evolution of Beachkrew. It's really been a crazy, crazy journey and I just love talking about all this kind of stuff so much that sometimes I would try to like, record TikTok videos or want to post more online, and I would be recording these like five minute videos and I'm like, no one's going to sit there on TikTok and watch that long form content. So I was just so excited. And this has been a passion and a dream of mine for a long time to start a podcast. So I. I. If you didn't listen to the first two episodes, I kind of did one. That's an intro of me, my personality, my mindset. How it's kind of, honestly, started at a young age of me just having this drive that I almost have been scared of myself at times of like, oh, my gosh, I'm like always trying to chase for something or throw myself all into anything that I do. I'm definitely a super all or nothing. And, you know, trying to learn when sometimes that's a good thing or a bad thing. I definitely think it has some, you know, qualities, though, that definitely have gotten me this far, that's for sure. But yeah, just kind of diving into the entire first year my childhood college experience. If you hadn't listened or you don't know my story. Thanks so much for tuning in and wanting to hear more. For whatever reason that you're here, hopefully I have something for you. But basically, I started a business my junior year of college and ended up not returning to college my senior year, and, have grown and really scaled a business, to the place it's at since then. So I can't believe that I started it almost four years ago now. That is so crazy to say out loud that I've literally been doing the thing every single day for four years. No wonder I'm like, pretty tired. But, yeah. So just wanted to kind of keep diving through the timeline because I think as much as there's certain like broader topics I would love to talk about, I know that deep down, that's why I started this podcast, to get into the nitty gritty of like, literally building a business and what it takes and what tactical things to do, what, you know, personal things to do as well. I hope I can really dive into the the time that you might be in and your, you know, business journey that I was in, and that's what I think is cool. I heard something once and it's always stuck with me. But like you are most equipped to help the person that you once were. I think that that is the coolest thing ever to think about whether, no matter what battle you're facing right now, just think about getting through it, being on the other side, knowing that you put your all into it or that you, you know, used your resources, got the help, whatever it is, and now you can help somebody who's going to maybe be younger than you or more inexperienced or just going through a similar time, and maybe you'll be put in their path where you can help them. And that's why I'm hopefully putting myself out there a little bit more and putting myself in your path, or maybe on your AirPods on your walk right now. I can think of so many podcasts I've listened to on my morning walks throughout this journey and just different times on long car rides, and I'm driving 12 hours to my storefronts or whatever. We'll get into that. It's just truly changed my life. I am definitely a sponge. It's funny that I dropped out of college and don't have a degree because, you know, I could look like I don't maybe care about education in certain ways. And I honestly wasn't very great in school because I just wasn't passionate about my classes or passionate about accounting. This wasn't for me. And, you know, I think I've really been able to tell myself a different story of I love to educate myself, and I've done that in the form of podcast coffee chats with, you know, people who I'm inspired by, YouTube videos. You'll hear me say that over and over and over again because it's the truth. Like everything you want to learn, everything you need to know, all the resources you do have are out there, and it's truly going to be up to you. Whether you decide it's a choice to kind of commit to that growth and that learning and that self expansion that I'm going to be honest, most people just won't do. If you're listening to this and you may be just started posting on TikTok, to build your personal brand, or maybe you just bought, you know, your LLC and you're getting started in your business. Maybe you've had your business for three years now, or maybe for you're in a very similar place to me. Like you kind of have to look back and have that, you know, self, evaluation and kind of take inventory on your own life. Like, how have you put in the work? Are you putting in the grind and, and be able to call yourself out and be like, I am working my tail off and therefore things are working or they're not, but like, where do you need to pivot? Or you can look back and you're like, no, like, I haven't been going all in. I know I have so much more to give. And that's what I think is so cool that in those moments you have a choice. So I hope that this podcast can just be something that fires you up to continue to choose, to continue to be consistent. That's something that I definitely can say I'm very proud of is I've just never given up. And for somebody who maybe thought I had like that commitment issues, but like, I would sometimes dive all into something and then realize I wasn't great at it and then like, pull out really quickly of it and be like, oh my gosh. Like, I actually don't want to do that. This has been the one thing in my life that I've, like, fully committed to. So I also want to, you know, say that as well. Like we're all human. There's going to be things that we love or we hate. But I think you probably know deep down, like what it is that you want to commit to, that you want to be all in on and through this podcast, you'll probably find out that my mindset is like, what is stopping you? What would actually keep you from chasing your dream life? Considering we have one on this earth, which is crazy if you really think about it. So anyways, that's kind of again, just like an intro into me. And but the first two episodes really were all about and why I want to start this podcast is I want you to be able to come on here and understand that you're talking to somebody who's going through it. I think a lot of podcasts that I have listened to are super inspiring, because they're somebody who is lightly touching on, you know, their journey of 15 years of growing a business, and they're sitting at the table getting interviewed on the podcast because they've, quote unquote, made it. And I think it's kind of one of those things where almost like, what even is it to make it? What even is it, you know, to be different? And I think we'll kind of go over a lot of that. But, for right now, I'm like, I don't think I've, you know, made it in any certain type of ways that I want to. There's been a lot of really awesome, you know, successes. But I have so much more to do and more to give. And, you know, I think we should always be like that is as humans again as well. I'm just, like, always wanting to expand and and grow. So I think that's what's really cool and funny. Looking back at my journey is just like I always had something that I knew that could be the one more thing that would get the business to the level that I needed it to be at. So I think I left off the last episode. So forgive me if I repeat any of my story a little bit, but the second episode. So this is the third, was all about that. Like first couple months of starting my business journey, I, started as hats by Karlee, but it's funny that I really talk about that because I was maybe only like two months that I was hats by Karlee. Honestly, maybe even like one and a half. It might not even have been a full two months until I transitioned from Beachkrew. So I did explain that story of like coming up with the name and making all the hats and stuff. But I know you're asking, like, okay, well, how did you actually get people ordering hats? How did you actually start to make sweatshirts? Like, what were those actual steps? And I'm excited to go into that and honestly, even refresh my own memory, I'm sure so many different ideas and things that I did will come to mind. But so basically I, you know, went through all of that with you guys that summer, my first summer of, being down the shore and traveling, you know, home and building my business truly out of the basement of my parents house from, you know, their dining room table. I was ironing on patches with my mom's iron in a bowl from my kitchen, and I joked, like, I could have probably just ordered a hot press at that time. There's hot presses that are out there if you're in the hat making business, go by one. But like that, just again, it shows my, my well, to just do whatever was going to be with what I had. And I do want to encourage you, I think sometimes it's really easy to like, get caught up in seeing the shiny things or like, oh, this person is doing their business this way. And social media shows everything right now, which is definitely cool, like you pick up a lot. But I also just want to warn you guys against like getting a little bit too, you know, caught up in what other people are doing because again, you it's your life and you only know what's best for you. And and different things are good for different people. So definitely take that with a grain of salt as I talked to my way is not the only way, it's just the way I did it. And I hope that it can lead you and you know the right direction in certain ways too. So yeah, I was making trucker hats and basically how I got that initial initial attraction. I will say this is like the one thing I can really remember is hats. Like Harley. I was making sure that the content was very esthetic at the time. Looking back, it's a way different version of a static than maybe I claim for us to be esthetic today. Which is okay, but it was that I can remember this one picture I took like a fuzzy rug, and I threw it over my dining room chair, and I had three hats that I made, and they probably were hats that I was using for orders. I don't think I had any money at the time to, like, waste. I'm just taking pictures. So before I sent out an order, I would make sure to get cool pictures of it. But I had this like three hats on against the fuzzy rug that was the backdrop. And I just would like, take this really cool picture and obviously add it on like Tesla or Lightroom or something and then just post it. And I remember I almost was surprised that doing something that was almost so minimal and bare, bare minimum effort was attracting like people were like, oh, this is really cute, I love it. And again, I think it kind of was a trend at the time. So definitely it was like tapping into that, okay, here's some fun hats. But I think what really was cool about it was the custom nature of it. And I think that that's something that I still really try to keep in mind today. And a lot of the colorways or the things that I do make are fully from your opinions that you give us, especially in the stores, we get so much feedback and we write it down and my girls write it down and they send it to me now, and I'm not in store as much as I would love to be. But yeah. So I think that's something that I always will kind of think, how can we keep that in the business? Because I think someone coming to my page and knowing that they could pick, like the Philadelphia patch and throw it on a hat, or they could pick a smiley face that's yellow and throw it on a blue hat. Like, that was cool for me, actually, to see what they were creating that I could create for them, if that makes sense. So I think that really dove into like this creativity thing for me that I almost never knew I had, that I was really excited about was, again, it was kind of that mutual collaboration of creativity, and it was fun for me to just like, let them kind of express themselves and just be different, which I'll kind of get into a lot as well. So that's what's fun today. Like we always feel like we have something for everyone. And what always continued to get better in that way as well. Like we've brought in a lot of different style hats now, even if they have like Beachkrew embroidered on them. Not a smiley face patch, you know. But yeah, it's it's always really cool to see what people's styles are and, and who leans towards what and for what reason is, you know, stuff that I always really take into account as I'm being creative. And that's really my favorite part too, which is cool. So yeah, people would kind of stumble across my page, and I do want to say they probably were stumbling across because I if I didn't dive into this already, I every single night or like during the day, I would look at local boutiques in my area. I would look at even like sorority pages and I would just start following like every girl. And I do have to be honest, it's funny. I'll see that some girls will like follow us on Beachkrew now today with almost like 30,000 followers and I'll see that we're following them. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this girl is probably somebody who I followed in like 2021 when I was just trying to get traction to the page. And it's cool though, to see, okay, maybe they saw us or they did it at that time when we followed them. I'm sure they did. And they probably were like, what is this Beachkrew thing? But now they're following and it's just like, so cool because it's almost like an embarrassment for me of that time where I was probably like stalking a lot of people by just like following them so that they would maybe check out my page. But that's a little thing that I just like, chose to do and chose to go all in on. I probably again joked about this in the last episode, but Instagram, I went through this whole thing with them where they were like blocking me and my account, and I still had to buy Karlee at the time. Or maybe I was Beachkrew by then. But I went through a little phase with Instagram where they were fully blocking me because they thought I was a robot, like they thought I was paying some, but like an app, I guess to follow people just because I was like mass following. But that was the only way I knew how to get people to look at my account. You know, like, how else would I? I had no idea about boosting ads and I didn't have the money for that. I so we still don't really do much of that at all. We're just figuring out like, meta and all those types of things which are just great, you know, additions to get, you know, your business to grow. But, I didn't have the resources or anything for that before. So. So, yeah. So people were, you know, coming to the page for whatever reason, whether it was more organic from a real or a post that I did, or maybe somebody was sending you know, my page to their friends. Hey, it's so cute. Check it out. But they would, DM me. And from there I would, you know, write down their orders, handwritten and. Okay. They want the, you know, yellow pads on the blue hat. And then I would make it with my mom's iron. And then I eventually bought like a little cricket iron. And I use that and oh my gosh, let me tell you, it would take hours to make these hats. I would perfectly measure them, make sure they were center, make sure they were ironed on the amount of hats that I burned and had to, like, get rid of. And the testing season was plenty, there. So a lot of them in my basement, which is like very funny to look at. And my parents are kind of like, all right, when can we get rid of all this stuff? But they're so funny, like anything that I have bought in that early stage, and maybe I never put it on or I never put something on it. My mom's always like, can I drop this off to your printer and get something on it? People will love these. But I'm just so stubborn sometimes about making sure that everything's like, exactly what I need it to be for you guys. So that's just a little side note into the reality of running a business out of your parent's house. But yeah, so that summer, I think was so obviously, like, monumental on my journey because that was the beginning of me really just fully deciding that my gut and trusting it was my business plan. I'll put it that way. I have never until maybe recently had like business plan, sales and inventory plans and a real, framework of the business as I finally am able to hire people in year four. Believe it or not, I've had one full time employee in a year's time. Like since this entire journey. Shout out Leah! Incredibly loyal and I'll get into a lot about that with her. She's amazing. And all of my girls now. But you know, I hired people for short periods of time or freelancing part time. Oh, hey, they just really want to volunteer and help out. But, that is, you know, it takes a lot to pay somebody and trust that you're even going to make the money to pay them. They're going to do what they're supposed to do for you. And that that money shouldn't be going back into like inventory of the business. Like that is a whole side of this business I would love to talk about. It's really complicated. And, you know, it feels personal. But again, I'm sure I could really share some lessons that I've learned in that area of hiring. And, you know, again, the financial kind of side of making that leap to, to invest your money into somebody who's going to hopefully, you know, grow your company with you. But the early stages were, again, my friends would come over and they would know that because they're hanging out with me, they're probably on the beach taking pictures with, you know, my sweatshirts that I had dropped at the time or on the beach taking pictures of the hats that I was making, or literally in my basement or at my dining room table, like making the hats and packing orders with me. Every single one of my friends. I can picture them helping out in some way, and that has been everything I. I know my friends know how much I appreciate them. My life has really changed since they have probably met me, or maybe they've met me on this journey. And there's a lot that goes on for me, you know, mentally and a lot of pressure and stress. And I definitely have had to make a lot of sacrifices that maybe I wouldn't have wanted to make at this age. And, I always do try to prioritize the relationships that I have, though, for sure. And I do want to say, like, if you're in that stage real quick, that is like a challenging moment of how much time do I give to my passion, my side hustle versus, you know, my friends, my family. Maybe you're sacrificing your Saturdays to build your business instead of going to, you know, the local event or the local bar or whatever it is, or maybe the you're in college and, you know, whatever it is, maybe instead of traveling home for the weekend, you're staying at college. Your dedicated to your business or to your hustle to your sport. Like if that is what makes you happy. Like please let me tell you to to do it because oh my gosh, the payoff of looking back and knowing that you made those sacrifices, you made that decision. It takes a long time and we'll get into it. I've already eaten up so many minutes of this episode, just kind of getting into again that mindset like, I can I will continue to do that because that is what chasing a dream is. At the end of the day, it's consistency is showing up. It's building that confidence. And I can think of a lot of people who have told me that they want to start businesses, or they do start, and then it's a couple of months later and nothing has happened because they're not giving, you know, what they need to into it. And then they're kind of beating themselves up, being like, I know I'm supposed to be putting more time into this, and trust me, I've I've been in the same boat where even, you know, 15 hours in a day or whatever it is will just never feel like enough. So I think that that's something that I've really had to work on is like, what is that balance, you know, of being an entrepreneur and going all in? And I think that's kind of a, again, a sacrifice and a choice that every individual makes. And that first summer of my business, my big sacrifice and the choice that I decided to make was I did not want to give up on my dream of running and having a business for my senior year of college. I know some people are checked out anyways by their senior year and kind of ready to get on with the real world. But some people are so excited to go back. And for me, I just had this like feeling of, I really want to take one semester off and just go all in and see what happens. So that was I will never forget a conversation I talked to my parents about in our living room, and I was just kind of probably crying even at the time. And I was just like, I do not want to go back to college. And, you know, I think that even taking my dad's like, can you just take a couple classes or like, why do you feel like you really have to take the whole semester off? That's a pretty big deal. And I was like, because I know if I give all my time to this, I know I can do something. Like, I just had this burning desire to prove to myself that if I went all in, kind of like I was doing that summer and I was already seeing growth, I knew, like from all the, you know, research I was doing and the things I was hearing, like I knew I was on to something if I only again stayed consistent and stayed all in. So that decision to drop out of college was literally so that I could go all in. And that was a personal choice. I actually was in like a five year, term, whatever you want to call it, for accounting to get my CPA. So I was going to be in school for four and a half years, and then that back half of the fifth year, I was just going to be studying for my CPA. So I knew that if things didn't work out in this like fall semester of 2021, I guess it was when I was, I just started my business. It was going back. I knew I could almost make it up on the back end, if that makes sense. A year later. So I was like rationalizing and again, probably being a little bit naive and crazy of just like, hey, I can figure this out if it doesn't work, I know I could go back to school like I have my whole life ahead of me, but I have something right here, right now. I feel really good about this and I'm making hats. I'm making sweatshirts that are maybe not what I would make today, but they are working. People bought them. People gave me good feedback and like, I have to keep going. So I think my parents, just knowing the way that I am and the way that I do, throw myself all into things, I think they were like, all right. Like at the end of the day, this is your decision is your life. And you know, you make it. So I'll never forget. I think I did go into this in the last episode, but like, you know, I went back to the lease, someone was able to take my place in my leave set. You know, my senior year townhouse and I moved out, and, I do want to say I hope I went into this. I was living at school for, like, a month and start taking classes and diving into my business. So that is a full episode that I probably should have of, like what I was doing every single day. So I hope I'm not being too broad. I definitely want to get into the granular, but I do want this episode to kind of be about that. Like first year, I'll call it, of really going all in and what that looks like. So let's just say I, you know, dropped out of college and was just like all of a sudden it was like, okay, I wake up that day and I'm like, like, what do I do? But I feel like that's what was. Cause I never had those moments of just, like, sitting on my bed or like sitting on the couch and being like, okay, a college, you know, drop out. Now at this point, like, I never even so today, it doesn't almost register with me because I was just so busy. And being busy did not mean getting all these orders blowing up on TikTok. Being busy meant like being in the grind, and I decided that every single morning, you know, waking up and taking a two mile walk or whatever it was and listening to at my lot every single day. And I remember like, specific podcast. I listened to a podcast with Tommy John at the time, definitely listening, you know, founder and, just so many founder episodes and it's getting confidential, so many. And, you know, that's why I love what they they're so real. And I love that because, again, I think it helps you when you are in this phase of chasing something like you, you feel really different and you feel really lonely, and you feel really like you're kind of putting yourself out there and it's all this imposter syndrome. Like, why do I have, you know, the right or why should I be allowed to step out there and do this thing? And it's like, why not? And I think that's why, you know, I kind of had to start talking to myself like that of being like your business. At this point, it's not even a business. Maybe. I don't think I even got an LLC, to be honest. Until maybe like a year or two, I probably should have gotten that sooner. I was just like a sole proprietor, technically, and which was fine. And I was using square. And then I switched over to Shopify. Like, I hope that you guys know that this journey has been so messy and it's honestly amazing that way because nothing was handed to me. Everything was worked for. And it's what I love about life is it's like those moments that no one sees are what makes you, you know, it's what makes you happy. It's what makes you successful. Whatever you know that means to you. It's what causes you bless. And I think that, you know, I've been thinking about this like Mel Robbins whole, like five, four, three, two, one. Getting out of bed like. You have to if you don't have something that is pushing you to get out of bed, almost, you know, it's like, what is the driving factor of your life? I think that's what I'm so fired up about. It's like sometimes we almost don't even know. And I think that's been something for me. Like I said, even since I was a young girl, there's always something that's been driving me. And it turned into an apparel company. And it also has had this, you know, I've had this burning passion on the side to like, connect with people and hopefully inspire people and to sit on the mic one day and just talk to you about my journey, because there's so much that has gone on. I maybe should have started this way sooner and been able to give, you know, more tips at that time. But you're always going to know what the right time for you is. And for me, you know, I always again, I just came up with this phrase while I was talking to you guys on this podcast. But it's like my gut has been my business plan, and some people might not like that and say, oh gosh, well, you know, you can't always trust your gut, but I think so many things start to happen or don't happen. So many conversations are hard, and you kind of start to figure out, like, what's going to make sense, what is like way too risky. And you kind of start to create this almost like scale for yourself of what risk feels just ridiculous versus risks that you're like, all right, this could be a big risk. But I know that we have what we need and we have the resources, and if we don't, we can go get them, to be able to do something. So, I know I tapped into this a little bit, but basically I dropped out and literally or I actually packed up and left college. I think it was the beginning of October, so it was only back for like a month that fall. And when I left, I literally moved all my stuff home. I had a cricket that I was trying to figure out how to make, like sweatshirts out of at the time. I actually vividly remember I was sitting at my kitchen counter at my college town house, and all my friends were like, going to classes. And I was sitting there figuring out how to build a business. And I looked up like screen printing. And I remember I called, this company in South Jersey, even though I was at Delaware at the time, I knew I probably wanted to do something local to home. And I called this guy and his number just came up and he was a small, business. Him and his dad were the one screen printing. And it's really funny, actually, that dot conversation, he's still with me today. There's been times where we kind of outgrew him and his face a little bit, and he didn't have all the resources that he needed to keep up with us as we started scaling really quickly and needed a lot more inventory at once. But now he's growing, so that's cool. We're kind of like using him again. So that's what's really fun is like my screen printers, my embroiderers for the most part, have also been small business entrepreneurs and people who are just absolutely hustling. And it's like, so cool that, you know, I want to support people like that. And I appreciate the hustle so much more because it's a part of this business that I'm not doing physically. But when I was, you know, making the hats and using my cricket machine, I did end up buying a cricket when I went to college that fall. Or sorry, I don't want to confuse you like so. Still, in this first six months of the business, when I was at college, living there, growing my business, I need to add pictures of everything. But basically, I did have a cricket and a whole, like, desk set up so that I could keep making hats and then was trying to make, like, cricket like vinyls to put on hats that maybe said, like East Coast or, whatever they wanted to. I think I was doing some sorority order so I would DM sororities. Hey, I'd love to do a mass order for you. I only did a couple of sororities. It was honestly just a lot of work to do solo, if even like 30 girls ordered. It was still a lot of hats for me to make at once. So I kind of had to understand my own capabilities at that point. But yeah, so my cricket machine. Then I decided I was going to try to make sweatshirts via my cricket machine. And if you guys don't know what a cricket machine is, definitely go look it up at CRC. UT, I believe so like cut I guess. But yeah, it's pretty cool. You like. I also had no idea how to use Adobe. I will say that I think I was using Canva since day one. We still use Canva all the time. People I think make fun of me of how much I make work on Canva, because I just don't know how to use Adobe very well. And if I need Adobe for anything, I look for help. My screen printer has also helped me put things together on Adobe as well. But yeah, so I was trying to make these sweatshirts the cricket, and I remember my mom's friend's son knew how to make, like, graphics on t shirts and stuff. So he came over with their t shirt press, and I remember he was trying to help me like, and you have to hand peel the cricket thing off of it, which is crazy. Takes so long. It's very difficult. So I remember he came over to the house and I had like three sweatshirts that I got off of Amazon. I was like, let me just order and like, certain brands and size large or something and try them on and test them out. And then we tried to print on it and we were like, okay, that's not going to work. But I think I had a pop up that weekend and I wanted to like test some designs. So I again, so crazy for me at this point, but I know I threw a couple like phrases and graphics on to like four sweatshirts and then I was having a pop up at Playa Bowls that, summer. So I guess this is the next summer now or no, I can't remember when that was. Sorry. Oh my gosh. But, so I had a pop up at payables. I found out that they did pop ups again. I was, you know, proactive and curious and messaged them, hey, I'm, you know, starting this business. Would I be able to pop up some time? So I went popped up there, made a ton of hats that, you know, I just guessed maybe people would like based off some other orders that I had had. And, I hung up the, like, five sweatshirts. My, I remember my parents were helping, and we, like, hung them on the little metal part of our tent. And people I like, they could preorder them. So I was like, hey, here's the sweatshirts that I would love to make for you. And hopefully they're going to be screen printed. Not me with my Cricut, but I didn't know that at the time. And, I'll make them for you in the next two weeks, like, place your order and whatever. So a couple girls, it definitely was a slow pop up. I think it was a gloomy day and I think Belmar, new Jersey is where this balls was, which is a cool location, like right on the beach. And a couple girls did come and a couple people did preorder sweatshirts. And to be honest, like, I probably didn't even get to make them in the timeframe that I wanted to and just having good communication with them and like, hey, so sorry things are taking a little bit longer. I'm sure I was trying to get the screen printing done at the time instead. And yeah. So I think that all of these examples just kind of go to say I had no idea what I was doing. I can admit that still, at times today, I have no idea what I was doing, but I think that, like, I'll always say this, I feel like in life there's just these small moments of decisions to make where it's like, is that an excuse? Oh, I don't have what I need to do this, or is it your driving factor? And I think for me it has been that motivator of like, okay, wait, I have no idea how to do this. So that means that there's so much I have to learn, which means there's so much further that I can go. And I think my decision to drop out of college, my decision to, you know, put myself at these pop ups with not even a technically like full blown brand. I had no LLC at the time. I probably didn't even have a business bank account at the time that was doing half these things, to be honest. Yet, I don't even know if we had QuickBooks set up. Like, we probably weren't tracking my costs as well as we should have. You know, day to day we had to keep looking back at Amazon orders placed or Etsy orders placed, and I could go back and say that I wish that we did it all better or more efficiently. But it's it is what it is. And, you know, it's gotten us to where it has. And maybe we've done things to late, but I think that that's what the best part of the story is. You know, you could sit here and sit with me here and see that I have three stores and, you know, growing a team and onboarding people and everything, you know, can look good from the outside. But on the inside, it's just every day. It's what we make of it. It's we have a decision of what kind of conversations are we going to have on our meetings, what kind of, you know, lifestyle am I going to choose to live? How am I growing my mindset? You know, this morning, honestly, before I even came to this podcast and sit down and talk to you like my imposter syndrome was crazy, I almost actually canceled feeling like I didn't fully know how I wanted to hop into this. And knowing the advice I'm giving you, and knowing the steps that I have made and the growth that I have had, the confidence that I am building to do. This is why I, you know, came and sat down this morning, regardless of the confidence or the imposter syndrome, you know that maybe I am struggling with. And I think that's why I just hope that I always hold myself every time I show up, or every time I do a little bit more. I hope that I'm putting myself in a position to encourage someone else to do the same. And going back to what I said in the beginning, like, you know, you don't have to know it all, but you know a lot and you've grown and you're, you know, getting so far in your own life that you have what it takes to do what you need to do it. It literally is a decision. And I do want to say I am not, you know, the smartest or the most creative or the most equipped to run a business. But I'm not going to let the voices in my head. They try. Trust me, but really stop me from doing what I know it is. And I'm called to do. And I have a business coach now, which has been incredible. I actually bumped into her at a coffee shop, and I think a lot of prayer and, you know, hope that I would have, you know, a female mentor and just somebody who's not in my family like another person to be able to talk about who kind of doesn't have, you know, any, certain view of the situation and can kind of just come at it from a stance where she's just hearing me and my struggles and helping me through it. But yeah, we definitely talk so much about all just the confidence and scaling. You know what it takes and the decision to make. And again, the voices in your head and the story that you tell yourself. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there a little bit before. There's so much always in my mind about this business. But, we talk a ton about the story that you tell yourself and that you have the ability to rewrite it. And I think that that is scary. But it's also such a powerful moment of, you can sit here, I can sit here right now and tell myself, you know, I have no idea what's going to happen. I have no idea how I got this far. I haven't been the smartest. I've really let myself down. I've let my team down. Maybe, you know, this person doesn't think the best of me. Or I can totally rewrite that story of, you know, we haven't had all the resources that we've needed, but we do now. We weren't able to invest time in this specific place of the business, but now we can. And just because we are now doesn't mean that what it was wasn't good enough. And I think that's just, again, such a powerful opportunity that you have as a human being every single day when you wake up that first thought in your mind instead of, oh, man, you know, I have to go to work today, or I really wish that I was going to this job, or I wish I was traveling like that person on my social media who I just looked at. And it's like, first off, you know, being grateful is a wonderful way to start your day. I do really believe, and I've seen the direct effects of those, you know, writing down the 3 to 5 things you're grateful for. Tony Robbins has an incredible 15 minute, meditation guide on Spotify to, I think it's on Spotify. Yeah, that I've been listening to that even has you, like, think of moments in your life that you've been proud of, moments in your life that you're grateful for, and things in the future that you are going to be grateful for once they happen and really seeing them, you know, visualizing that come to fruition. And I think where also part of it that I love is like pouring love out to people I every morning, like, think of someone in my life who I just, you know, want like healing and all of that over as well. And again, this might sound weird, but if I don't have this mindset and if I don't let myself feel gratitude, then trust me. There's been times over the four years where I've been living out of a place of I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so stressed out, I can't do this anymore. And you know, the panic attacks set in, the frustrations, the confidence, you know, is completely drained. You're totally pouring from an empty cup. And I think what's been nice is I feel like I'm actually really in a phase of my life right now where I'm not allowing that to be okay anymore. I'm not allowing that to be the story, and I'm telling myself that it's safer to follow your calling than you think it is. I think we feel like as humans, that chasing a dream and going towards something just feels like this massive risk is this big fear. You're putting yourself out there. You could be spending money that you know, you're not sure if you'll get it back, and maybe you have kids, or you have a mortgage and all these things, like, it just seems like these this big. What if oh my gosh, when if you know all of that came and I think I'm really understanding that and starting to believe more and more that it's okay to be different. It's okay to step out in faith. It's okay to take the leap, you know, to jump whatever the metaphor is, because it's what your calling is. It's what your purpose is. It's what you're here on this earth to do. And imagine if you don't do it. And I think for me with Beachkrew, yeah, I'm making a parallel, but I see it as so much more than that, because the apparel that I'm making, what I'm actually feeling and witnessing and experiencing is the connections and the relationships that I'm making. There's people who come in here who are just so excited to get a high quality sweatshirt that they can wear for forever. That is a replication of the place that they love. Or maybe they come in with their best friend and they're both getting matching tanks and shorts. And now those girls have that memory forever. Or maybe, you know, my best friend's getting something from me because I'm just dragging her out to a photo shoot, and now her boyfriend stealing it. And like, they have that fun moment. And what's most cool and always exciting for me is when people ask me about my story and they really want to hear more about it. That's what fires me up, because I know that what I'm doing matters to somebody else. And again, it might be one person, it might be ten. Who knows? You know, when you decide to kind of start putting yourself out there, you have no idea what you're going to get or walk into from it. And that's always scary. But that's what's so exciting to me. I think I've just definitely had a perspective that's one of putting yourself out. There is not a problem and being different, that's okay. And allowing yourself to be who you want to be no matter of your family, your history, your background, your opportunities, the resources that you have, you know, you you get to make that decision. So when I was deciding to go to the pop ups with, you know, 20 hats that I had made, I would wonder, oh my gosh, you know, am I making the wrong ones? There's no one actually like the combos that I'm putting together or oh, I shouldn't bring these sweatshirts because I only have one of them and they have to preorder them. Like all those thoughts go through my mind totally. Even today. Oh my gosh. You know, do they even like this color of this design that I'm putting on this sweatshirt? Are they going to like the fit of this, or is it just something that I like? All of the things, all of the things for sure go through my mind again. It's all that imposter syndrome and the fear of just putting yourself out there. But I think what's kind of been cool too, is like it might be an all or nothing mentality, but I heard this recently from my coach and it's like, imagine you your got your calling. Whatever is telling you that you need to go to Washington DC, let's say from I don't know where in Charleston, let's just say we're going to Washington DC. These are what came to mind. Are you going to fill up your tank halfway to get to Washington DC and have to stop in the middle of the road? No. Like you're going to give yourself what you need. You're going to fill up. You're going to, you know, pack up your car. You're going to give the things yourself, the things that you need. You're going to fill your water bottle, get a snack. Like as funny as these analogies are, it's like, that's what going into a business is. You honestly can't just get in your car with no gas and start to go. You have to every single day be like, okay, the tank runs out now we need more gas. It's just like, I'm going to be honest, I think, I hope I'm not just saying, you know, fluff in this podcast right now. This is just again, let's kind of coming to mind and, and what I want to share with you. I hope that you turn this podcast off today, and I truly want to feel like I'm talking to someone specific right now. But I hope you turn this off and you go like I have many a times, oh my gosh, I am standing in my own way to get out of your own way and to just start moving forward. I know that there's a lot of people on podcasts and rails and TikToks out there today that are already telling you this, but now, you know, you can see what I've grown, you can see what I've built, and you can truly know that it's just from my decision to fill up my tank every single day. And trust me again, sometimes I've been pouring from an empty tank, an empty cup and. And that sucks. And it hurts and it's painful. But like, I would rather, you know, do what I have to do to continue moving forward and put in an effort and work, then let my tank completely run out, throw up that, throw in the towel, decide that all this is way too much, which at times, you know, it definitely has felt that way. But I always say, okay, maybe I need to go hire somebody. Maybe I need to go on Upwork, maybe I need to finally sit down and set up that business bank account, finally set up QuickBooks, understand and talk to maybe some other boutiques about what platform they use for schedule ING and hiring. You know how to set up a retail store. That makes sense. Like we're still figuring that out today. There's been, you know, things that have happened in this store. We've had floods that have come into this store, and I decided to redo the flooring just to give it an extra kind of, you know, lift up spirits and hair a little bit after my floors are ruined from flooding. Like, I don't know, there's so many things that I think could have been easy opportunities for me to throw in the towel. But I do want to say I feel like those were always more mental than they were actual problems in the business. I think there was times where my dad sat me down and he was like, you know, you're not making any money from this, right? Like, I'm not sure that you fully understand that. And I said, no, no, no, dad, like, I understand, but I have to tell you that I know that I will make this work. I know that I have that pop up two months from now that I can go do and make, you know, this makes sense. I know that I can get a little bit better at posting on social media every day, and it was always, again, just that choice, that choice over and over, you know, this isn't working, but I know that I can do this thing. And, that's what was really cool about when I went to the smoothie shop that day. That was not even a week after I decided to leave college. I went to the smoothie shop, started talking to the owner. I was interested in wholesaling with her anyways, so that's how we had kind of know each other and we got talking and she was like, yeah, oh my gosh, I would love to sell apparel in here. Let's do it. I had no idea how to run a retail store, and I had no idea for the demand that we were about to have. I think I was ordering the bare minimum of sweatshirts that you can order at the time, which is maybe 12 per design. So I was ordering 12 and then, you know, that became 36, and then it became 48, and then it became 200. And all of a sudden I was like, still scared to even order more than 200. And now it's like thousands. And I think that, you know, it's funny for me, knowing that that in itself has been a whole journey that I've had to learn and, you know, evolve and again, to start to trust my gut of, okay, it's time to start ordering more because our people, we're selling out too fast. And it's a frustration for the customers who come in. And it felt like a real failure to me when I only didn't order more upfront because I maybe didn't have the money at the time, to be honest, or just trying to budget correctly. Maybe I fully didn't believe in myself and what I was putting out there. Or maybe I was just playing it too safe. Maybe there's, you know, products in the past that I have ordered too much of and certain ones that didn't work. So just kind of putting that into my mindset. But I'm sitting here today with, you know, four years under my belt and I finally have someone who's helping me with all the data, where she has a lot of experience. And, you know, again, I just want to say, like, I think in the beginning there was so many things that I knew I needed help with and I had no help. I was building this all myself. And I just said, one more day, one more sweatshirt, you know, one more opportunity, one more pop up, one more Instagram message, one more post. And that just led on itself to so many things I will say in the beginning, first year or two, like before, I had committed to this smoothie pop up, starting a smoothie shop pop up, starting in February of 2022. So not even a year after I started my business and, at that point, I don't think I was really posting on TikTok at all, and I was just posting on Instagram and that was working. But, I mean, I was selling enough to, like, still be living at home with my parents and not to, like, make a living, that's for sure. So I was only selling so much. But I just really believed in my dream at that time. And then at the smoothie shop, that's when I started posting, on TikTok. So I realized the power of TikTok. And I still feel like we don't put as much effort today, even as we should. Just knowing that, you know, our audience is really on there, and they expect to see a lot of the things that we haven't been showing. I think just being so busy and doing so much, even out of my bedroom and, you know, on the plane or in the car or so today, I, we don't have an office. So sometimes it's, sometimes it's hard to show all the behind the scenes. And again, it's literally me sitting in my room all day long on my laptop. But I know that you guys understand that. But yeah. So I started every single night. I would just take this content that once again, just like the beginning. It was what I thought was a setback at the time. And I just started thinking to myself, okay, so I know I have to post a certain amount a day to maybe get with the algorithm. So I research that how many TikToks do I need a post every single day that I researched? What are the times of day maybe that you're supposed to post on TikTok? That might work better. So then I literally have this written down in my OG like order notebook, but I wrote down for TikTok and IG for Instagram, and I started like the best times to post for my target audience. So I started making sure and setting like little alarms on my phone. Okay. I drafted the night before in bed three TikToks, and now the next day I'm going to post them at those exact times. I don't know if that's what worked or just posting so much in general, but there was one TikTok. I decided to set my phone up and have it on, time lapse, and I was showing myself hanging up the sweatshirts, getting ready to launch, and the smoothie shop, which was just on a wall that was like ten feet wide in the corner of a smoothie shop. The set up was like perfect with the way that the build out of the store was right in the front window. And I had made a couple new designs on Canva, and didn't know if they were cool or not, or if the designs and the colors, you know, were great, but I just decided to set up this camera and feel myself doing this. So then I decided to post it and I said, point of view, you're 21 or 22 and your, brand launches in your beach town or something of the sort. Well, thank goodness for that TikTok, because that went kind of viral. I think it got like 100 or 200,000 views, so viral for me. And people went crazy commenting on it. Oh my gosh. Ocean city, new Jersey I recognize that. I think the cafe that was in the background across the street of the video too, might have like really shown people where it was. And of course I like hashtag Ocean City and stuff. Because that's where I go to the beach. It's where, you know, our houses. And so all of a sudden, you know, everyone's commenting, oh my gosh, I can't wait to come this summer. I can't wait to come. So I think that was an April that, things kind of started taking off. So I was like, oh, like, this is awesome. I really hope people come and show up. Well, long and behold. Like, I'm sure enough people just started flooding in as soon as, like, school break was out and summertime hit and we were selling out very quickly. People were running in and saying, I saw you on TikTok. Oh my gosh, I had to come in or my friend told me that you were here and I wanted to come in. And again, I was selling out of a smoothie shop, so I don't even think I had my own like POS at the time. We had just all the items that went into her, POS machine for smoothies. So I know, like, all the little ticket codes and like a restaurant business, like, you know, when someone orders a smoothie, the ticket goes to the back kitchen of like, strawberry banana smoothie or whatever. So because it was going through her register, it was like flow bloom or Beach State sweatshirt. So like all these tickets would go. And then it was funny because I remember we would take is so cool for me to just remember all of this. Oh my gosh. But like, we would take the little tickets that said like flow blue, size small or more beach days, yellow size medium and we would the girls would notice, stack them in the front so that we knew what to restock because oh my gosh. Like again, all of this for so long. But we used to take the so I had one shelf of inventory back stock in the back of her shop, and then I had the sweatshirts in the front of the shop, and then I had my lovely garage where all the boxes of inventory stayed in the garage. We would organize them, fold them, count them and everything, and probably every single day and every morning we would grab what we needed from my garage and bring it to the back of the shop so that we could be like restocking. So the amount of times being in there, the amount of, you know, inventory that flew in and out and I just constantly was calling my screen printer, being like, hey, oh my gosh, like, we need more. And I would order them from a site and just ship them right to them. And then he would print on them. I was picking out the colors, the sizing, all of that, again, just kind of guessing and checking as I went and picking what I thought would be cool. There is some where maybe I've like, not loved them over time, but maybe it was somebody else's style. And I loved that. That they loved it. Like. And we're all unique, which is fun to see. So yeah, that was a crazy, crazy summer. I think I wanted to dive into a little bit more now. There's so much to get into. But basically that summer, I think what was really cool is I can probably even think of moments where I looked at, you know, my dad and one six months prior we had a conversation. I'll never forget where it was, where, you know, we sat down and said, hey, I don't really know if this is working. And hey, I don't know if you're actually running the business that you think you might be here. And I think that, you know, I do want to say my dad is the biggest, you know, supporter and and the biggest blessing, honestly, in my life, of how much he listens to my dreams and encourages me to move forward. And he's also so, you know, tough and and really realistic. And he, you know, puts me in my place of being like, hey, like, this is how I know it's supposed to go overall. And I understand you're trusting your gut here and you think you're supposed to do this, but here's what you know, it actually looks like in the numbers. And here's what it says. And and that's tough to hear when you know, you're you're feeling all the positive feedback. You're feeling like you have something. It's it's going somewhere. But it's like to actually build a sustainable business, you know, you need to be seeing that the dollar signs and, and that side of it as well, which is hard because I know it looks like, oh, you know, I'm trying to make money for this type of thing, but every single dollar that goes into the business is what can scale a business as well. Being an inventory based business is incredibly difficult. You have to spend all the money up front and pray and hope, you know, and that people come in and support you so that you can continue to give them more and more of what they want. But yeah, it's a huge risk. So that was a real growing lesson of, okay, I'm ordering 12 sweatshirts. That's not enough. I need to start ordering more. And, I do want to say for the first, like year and stuff, it was really cool where it was kind of a domino effect where I put out, you know, $5, $10 for a couple of hats that turned into me making, you know, money off of that, where I could then go buy ten hats for the next ten orders, or I would get a big wholesale order, where I was making her 90 hats at a time and in my basement, you know, making all of them for her and shipping out and getting a bigger payment and that then paid for maybe, you know, the table that went to the pop up shop, all of those things are really interesting, you know, to think about and were really hard to manage, but it's all of that same kind of stuff every single day. It's just on a different type of scale now. So I would say, like, you do get kind of comfortable with the bigger the risks get as you keep growing, but it only gets harder and and more difficult to manage, for sure, which is why I'm trying to bring in a little bit more of professional and experienced people, for sure, which is nice. But yeah, I would just say, like, you know, those early stages of me, my parents, Leah, who was my intern that summer, who's now with me full time, she was in between, you know, her junior and senior year, a year younger than me. And I pulled her in and she started helping me. We would literally be going from my, house, 30 streets down. We would be making and packing and shipping orders from my dining room table. Then we would go down in the garage and load up a couple boxes of merch, or we would just put them in the back of my Jeep, go down to the shop 30 streets down, reload, you know, all the inventory into the store, hang out in the store, talk to customers, be ringing people up. Leah was in the store a lot just because we couldn't fully rely on Disney. These shop staff, like they were super busy with everything they were doing, and then we needed them to do a bunch of things there. So I definitely learned a lot about what was needed through seeing how, you know, the smoothie shop ran and the staffing and what went into that, and then also understanding what our needs were on the apparel side. So I will say that once I started having those moments of like, oh my gosh, this is working is when I started realizing that I had a choice to decide what I wanted and what I didn't want for Beachkrew. And I really liked the sip and shop mentality. It was so much fun and like, really entertaining, almost and very beachy. But unfortunately there is sides of it where I like, you know, chocolate yogurt would be on my sweatshirts or people wouldn't have the room that they needed to shop. And there was times where it really worked. And then I just kind of had the decision where I was like, okay, I think I know that I really want beach gear to be its own thing. I really want to take beach Cruise to the next level. And as much as I love this dynamic overall, I don't think it's sustainable for where I'm trying to go, where I'm trying to build the brand. So from there, even in that summer, is when I started realizing that I did want to, start to look for my own location, and I started reaching out to some realtors and understanding how that works. Getting my first retail commercial lease was very interesting. The amount I've learned about leases and contracts, deals, what goes into it, you know, term lengths, renewal periods, like all of it. It's so interesting, the knowledge that I have now, just based off of pure experience and getting them in front of me and having to read them, so that's been interesting. But yeah, I just knew that I really, deep down want a Beachkrew to prove itself to be its own brand, to kind of pave its own way and that's why I decided to then sign my first lease as our own location in the same beach town of Ocean City, new Jersey. So that is a whole story that I'll probably get into next. But again, thanks for tuning in. I know these episodes are a little long. Have so much I could talk about. I just want to be able to share as much as I can with you and hopefully inspire you that, you know, again, I'm sure you're realizing this. You do not have to have all the tools or resources. You really just have to be fully committed to yourself, your dream, your mission. The community, the people that you're serving, the people who you're onboarding and, you know, bringing into your environment, no matter how unstructured it is, that's okay. And again, it's just okay to step out and be different. I really I want you to I want to be there for you in that journey. And, you know, there's been people who have supported me and mentored me through that as well and gotten me where I am today. So I would love your feedback moving forward of what more you want to hear. And I can't thank you enough for tuning in like.