John Davids (0:00)

This is Paige. She sells hoodies, and last year she made $130 million doing it. Her company's called Aviator Nation. This is a fashion brand with a cult following. And Paige owns the whole thing. A nine figure business owned by one woman. This is an amazing story. I'm going to tell you all about it today and there's a lot to learn from it. My name is John Davids. Welcome to the podcast. You can call me J.D. if you're a fan of the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, leave a review, wherever you're listening. Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and of course, tell a friend I think they'll like it too. Get my best stuff to your inbox@johndavids.com and now let's get to the show. You're listening to Making it with John Davidson. So the Aviator Nation story starts all the way back in 2006. That's when young Paige decides that she wants to be a fashion designer. Just one problem. She's got no formal training. She doesn't know how to make clothing. She's got to find a way in. So she spends 500 bucks buying a sewing machine. Then she heads over to the Goodwill store, the thrift shop, and grabs some T shirts. Then she tears them apart and sews them back together, remakes them with her own hand stitch patterns. She wears them out, wears them out and about. And suddenly people are actually stopping her on the street, asking her where she got these T shirts from. They like them, they want to buy them for themselves. And Paige realizes that she's actually onto something. So she goes back to the thrift shop, buys more and more T shirts, tears them apart, stitches them back together. She's got this hand woven design, a signature look that she's developing. And she sets up a booth at a Venice Beach V. Okay, so she's going to sell them at the beach. She takes action quickly and in that first day, she makes $8,000 selling these t shirts. That's real cash money for a startup business. So now she's got proof of concept. She knows there's something here, there's a seed of an idea and it's time to go all in. And she hustles. She starts selling it more and more of these beach fairs, these places, these sort of boutiques, a bit more small town feel. She doesn't want to go to the malls, she doesn't wanna go big box. She wants them to feel very local. California made the downtown LA vibe with her signature designs. So she spends the next few Years, selling at local stores, trade shows, that sort of thing. And in 2009, a few years later, she scrapes together just enough cash to open her first store on Venice Beach. And this is just the beginning. So now she starts to build a cult following. Aviator Nation, to be clear, is not for everyone. If you look at this clothing, the price point, the design, it's actually pretty niche. The clothing is very pricey, and the designs have a very specific look. You either love it or you hate it. It's pretty polarizing. Now, this works to the company's advantage because between 2006 and 2020, Aviator Nation experiences steady growth. Not explosive growth, but just enough. Every year, they're ticking up. They're growing on cash flow. And because Page is operating at a pretty high price point, she's got a decent margin. Now, you have to understand this is also locally made clothing that's hand stitched in California. So she's not mass producing this in China, having it shipped over by cargo, and then selling it at rock bottom prices. The hoodies are like 196, $200. T shirts are 60, 70, 80, 90 bucks. Prices have obviously gone up over the years, but she's making enough money to grow on cash flow. She's bootstrapping this whole thing, and she's making a few million dollars by 2020. And what happens next could destroy the whole thing. So it's March 2020, and y'all know where this is going. COVID 19 forces stores to shut down, putting Page's 300 employees at risk. By the way, this is not an essential service. These are high priced luxury T shirts and hoodies. You know, these stores are not staying open in California, especially when the whole state is shutting down. So she's got to make a move fast. She cannot keep 300 employees on payroll. She cannot keep her warehouse open, her stores open. She's got a fast growing but bootstrapped company. What's she going to do? Well, she makes a decisive move. She tells her head of E Commerce to sell everything. Fire sale right now. Get everything out the door, everything in the warehouse, every piece of clothing that we can possibly sell. Get it out that single day. Aviator Nation makes $1.4 million in online sales. That's 46x more than normal. So they 46x their sales in a single day with this decisive move. And what happens next is pure retail magic. It is a total social media blowout. Product is flooding the market, and everyone is stuck at home. So suddenly, Aviator Nation is taking over Instagram, then TikTok then Snapchat, then Facebook. The feeds are on fire. Aviator Nation is everywhere. People are buying this stuff left, right and center. And what are they going to do? They're stuck at home. They're sharing it on social media. Hey, check out what I just bought. Aviator Nation blows up. The word of mouth amplifies the brand like never before, catapulting it to a whole new level. It's an overnight success about 18 years in the making. And that's pretty good for a $500 investment and a sewing machine. So reportedly this brand did like $110 million in revenue in 2023. I think it did about 130 million in 2024. These numbers are all rounded because it's a private company. But there was an article, I think it was either in Forbes or Fast Company or it was in a magazine and it said that in 2023, Paige wrote a dividend check for herself her for something like 30 or 40 million dollars. So obviously this company has done so well over the last few years, or it's just been growing steadily over time and she was able to finally cut herself a nice paycheck. I love hearing stories of bootstrapped founders that are able to cut themselves big checks. That gives me butterflies in my tummy. It gives me tingles all over. I absolutely love cash flow that comes from good old hard bootstrapped growing. And the interesting thing about this business also is we're talking about a physical goods business, manufacturing, retail. Like this is a capital intensive type business. In fact, kind of funny, when I was researching this story, remember that first store she opened on Venice beach back in 2009? Well, that store is still opened and Paige Mikowski now owns the whole building. Quick break. So I can tell you about Influicity. That's the little marketing agency I started in my apartment about 10 years ago. Well, fast forward, it is not so little anymore. Influicity works with some of the biggest brands in the world, building customer communities that drive revenue. We do this through influencers, podcasts, paid media, social media, content, AI and so much more. You can learn more@influicity.com and hey, while you're there, check out our case studies. We have a lot of them. That's influicity.com so I shared this story on social media. I probably shared this story maybe six or seven times across social media over the last couple of years since I first read about Aviator Nation, millions and millions of you have seen it. I've gotten thousands of comments over the last few months, especially since I put it out on Instagram and TikTok. And mostly positive. Some people just say it's overpriced clothing. They'll never buy it. I think that's kind of the point. It's very polarizing. Some people absolutely swear by it. I know that people in my family do. But what I will say is this. A lot of people go for the same point. Not a lot. Some people go for the same point every time. And I'm going to tell you what that is. I'm going to tell you why it's not a good point to go for, in my opinion. They will highlight that Paige's brother is Tom of Tom's Shoes. So she has a very successful brother who was successful probably around the same time or maybe a few years earlier than Aviator Nation. I think Tom's was big in, like, the 90s, early 2000s. Fair enough. But they'll say that to make an excuse for why Paige is successful. Oh, she's only successful because her brother is successful. Now, I got two things, two remarks here. Number one, I absolutely despise this line of thinking because all you're doing is making excuses for yourself and letting yourself off the hook as to why you can't do it. So this just reinforces negative thinking when you say, oh, they were only able to do it. This guy was only successful because his uncle ran the company. This gal was only successful because she's attractive and she was able to get that first job. This guy had money. That guy had connections. Here's the reality. Knowing a lot of people who are very wealthy and very successful, in my circles, most people who are born into money can actually just live a rich life, a wealthy life, a life with plenty of cash, without working. Right. It's easier to actually just live off the inheritance than it is to go out and roll your sleeves up and build a company and bust your ass for years and years and years. So I don't take anything away from somebody who has. And by the way, in this case, just one more thing. We're not even talking about a rich family. I have no idea who Paige Maikowski's parents are. Maybe they had money, maybe they didn't. The fact that her brother was rich, what does that have anything to do with her? She is independently successful. Was he there to counsel her and mentor her and cheer her on? Yeah, sure, maybe. Maybe she had some friends who were in her corner. Maybe she had people that were like, that's all well and good. Do you honestly think her brother was like, oh, Paige, here's a check for $10 million. Go out and do something. Or do you think people walk into the Aviator Nation store and say, oh, you know what? I don't like the clothing, but your brother is Tom, so I'll buy from you anyways. That has nothing to do with it. So I just think in general, it's a crutch. I think people say it to make themselves feel better. And my whole thing is, listen, if you don't want to do this, if you don't think you're not impressed by her story, that's totally fine. But it's not respectful to yourself, and it's not helpful or productive to yourself to say, oh, she's only able to do this, and I feel better that I don't have to even try. Now, guys, you want to go out there and take action, take action. Don't look for excuses. One of the big takeaways I get from this story is that there's nothing like a product that just hits. And this doesn't happen very often in business, but when it does, it's just like putting on a perfect pair of jeans that just fits everywhere, feel good, they bend at the knee, they got that great waist. You guys know what it's like to put on a great pair of jeans or a great pair of shoes. When you get a product that people are actually asking you for that's being shared virally that people are telling their friends about, you got to listen to your customers and you got to really open your ears up and open your mind up to what's possible when you don't have to force feed your product, you know, down someone's throat. So what made this product so successful? Well, listen, I don't have a. I can't go back in time and tell you exactly, but I can tell you a few things based on my assumptions. Number one, it was a different style and a different aesthetic for what was big at the time. So if you think about the big clothing brands around this period, you had Juicy Couture, Abercrombie and Fitch Hollister, American Apparel, True Religion. The thing that Aviator Nation did that was a little unique. It's really 1970s inspired aesthetic. So Paige has a different kind of look. It's hand stitched. Everything's made in California, very artisan premium, exclusive. They didn't sell in big malls. Instead, they went small boutique, beach fair, direct to consumer, trying to make it artisan premium feeling. And finally they leaned into the love it or hate it factor. Creating a strong loyalty, niche audience. You don't need to be H and M, you don't need to be Walmart. You don't have to try to please everybody. It's actually a good thing if some people don't like you. Something Paige did that I find so common in these entrepreneurial, fast growing business stories is people take action quickly. There's nothing like taking action now to get the momentum going, to get your mindset in the right space, to get your head in the right spot. And this is a theme, like I said, in so many entrepreneurship stories. You know, I get a lot of people asking me questions in the DMs in my comments. One question I get a lot is, hey, how should I start a business? Or what business should I start? Or how do I create a successful business? And the right question to ask yourself if you're at the beginning of your business journey is how can you make a hundred dollars this weekend? Like, what can you do in the next two or three days to just get something done and make money now? And the reason speed is so important at the begin is because that constraint forces you to get creative, to get resourceful, to not spend your time and energy on the dumb stuff, right? Like, what font should I use? What does my logo look like? Let me create the perfect social media channel. Let me spend 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes tweaking this one little thing that makes no difference to the outcome. When you say to yourself, I gotta make $100 and I gotta make it in 48 hours, you move faster and hopefully that inspires you to take that same energy into whatever you're going to do next. Don't ask yourself, how can I build a big business? Say, how can I make a bunch of money right now? And once you do, I promise you, you will have the confidence that you're not going to need to ask JD how to start a business. You're going to know exactly how to do it. And the last big lesson, the big game changing lesson, I think out of this story, certainly the one that took Aviator Nation over the top, is that you find the most opportunity in moments of crisis. Again, it goes back to the constraint when you are up against the wall. I know this for myself. The biggest gains I've ever made, the moments that were transformative came when I was up against it, when I was against the ropes, when I had no other choice. And you move fast and you move decisively, with action, with intent, and you get the job done. And your fears kind of melt away. All those Stupid apprehensions, those voices in your head. What would it have been like to have 300 employees and dozens of stores open and you realize that in a matter of hours or days, you're going to have to shut everything down? What do you do? You say to your head of E Commerce, hey, sell everything. We need to get all the merchandise out the door. We need to get all the cash in. We need to do this now. Could Paige have done this in a moment that wasn't a crisis? Sure, she could have, but let's face it, she wasn't going to. You don't do rash things when everything's going hunky dory, when everything's good. Big things don't happen in times of peace. They happen in times of war. Those are the most monumental moments. Those are the moments that transform you and that change. And that's why it's important to shake things up. It's important to take risks. And sometimes it's important to ask yourself, hey, if I was down to my last dollar, if I was down to my last day, what would I do then? What decision would I make if this is the only decision I could make? Ask yourself that question. Be honest. You might come up with an answer that you would never have gotten otherwise. And it might be just the answer that you need. I want to know what you guys think. You can get me@johndavids.com if you're a fan of this podcast, make sure to subscribe. Leave a review, tell a friend, and I'll talk to you all next.