#380 - Paul Hedrick - Founder @ Tecovas - How Tecovas Became A Western Wear Empire

Paul Hedrick is the Founder of Tecovas, the leading high-quality western footwear, apparel, and accessories brand.  In today’s episode, we discuss: - the origins of Tecovas and early founding stories, - what it takes to build an incredible brand - Tecovas’ retail “moat” - radical hospitality - how they managed through COVID - and more As Executive Chairman, Paul works with the Tecovas board and executive team on brand, product, and marketplace strategy so that Tecovas fulfills its mission to steward the next generation of western. Tecovas is in its 10th operating year in business and now operates over 40 retail stores in over 30 cities and 20 states, with total annual revenue eclipsing $250 million in 2024. We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links:  Tecovas - https://www.tecovas.com/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:35) - Starting Tecovas (00:13:01) - The Mission of Tecovas (00:16:29) - Finding Manufacturing (00:24:55) - Moving from Online to In-Person Retail (00:32:27) - Store Design (00:38:23) - Radical Hospitality (00:42:22) - "Don’t Say No to the Customer" vs. "The Customer Is Always Right" (00:45:12) - Scaling Radical Hospitality (00:52:47) - Surviving Covid (01:01:27) - Developing a Great Brand Support our Sponsors: BetterPitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts