Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be.

Welcome to Boutique Chat, where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek.

We'll hear from product-based businesses of all types, retailers, e-commerce, and wholesale brands,

along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry.

I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the boutique hub, and I can't wait to chat.

Hey, guys, welcome back to the podcast this week.

I feel like I've got an OG in the house. Well, maybe making me feel a little old. Oh, wow. We could add it for a little bit. Gosh, about the same time, right? Ashley, that... Yeah. 12, 13 years, something that we've been doing this. Right in there. I feel like you were one of the first boutiques I remember, like, falling in love with on Instagram. And I was like, who's this girl and what she got going? And I love it because I don't know if everyone listening knows I come from a bit of a Western background. So your style was exactly my style. So I've loved watching your journey just evolve over the last couple of years, last several years. We're not

feeling old. We're not feeling old. It's all good. He definitely came from the same background,

I feel like, with rodeo and just that lifestyle. And yeah, I love that that connects us for sure.

Absolutely. Well, we've got to dig into it. So let's go all the way back to the beginning.

What led you to want to open a boutique?

How did your story get started? Where did it all come from? Sure. I, you know, my background

really surprises people. I have a degree in construction management. And yes, can't hammer a nail

straight. So, you know, not just timer there, management. So that's what I went to school for at Oklahoma State. I worked for a commercial construction company in Fort Worth for about four years and moved back to work for my family's construction companies. So I was doing that with, like we said, growing up rodeoing.

I just kind of had developed a natural eye for melding mainstream fashion with traditional Western wear.

And I just felt like there was this, you know, this hole in what was offered.

We didn't have a lot of stores around this area that really to shop in general, right? It was really limited. But then also, we didn't have a lot for boutiques in this area. When I lived in Texas, they were on every corner. So I missed that moving back home. And I was bored on the weekends, honestly. I was going to barrel races or some rodeos. And I was like, oh, I could set up at shows and I could still barrel race. It'd be a side hustle. It'd be fun. And so what started is just kind of a fun side job, kind of became addicting and kind of put all my effort towards that. And within a couple of years, I was doing that full time. So yeah.

Unreal. It really was a gap in the market. Like if I go back to that point, there wasn't,

like there was a lot of traditional Western. And then there was boutiques. But there really wasn't

anybody who had a great meld of the two. And it's so funny because I think about today,

and there's such a crossover.

I mean, even mainstream type boutiques pulling in some of our, you know, Western fashion.

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