Tracey St. John and Kim Jacobs love to ride quads at the desert and wanted a product they could ride in and still feel and look like women. Research was gathered, products designed, and Huchi Gear emerged. Read Tracey exclusive words about their desert riding story!
A desert riding story
A few girls at the desert at a campfire talked about starting a business—of course, a few cocktails were involved. That is where we started! At this point, there were very few clothing companies with riding gear that catered to quad riding, desert-loving women. The name was picked that evening by one of our friends who wanted the name ‘dirty!’ We had our first meeting and everyone declined business involvement except Kim and me (Tracey). We cleaned up the name and changed it to Huchi. I did research on the name and found out that in Japanese it means ‘Goddess of Fire.’ Let me tell you our road was rocky. Many fights! Honestly, we could write a thousand page book on that! We went to Los Angeles with our spouses to find material to make our pants. We spent a lot of money to come up with the product we have now, which is pretty darn good.
At first, we had our friends sell our clothing at their shop and during desert season at their booth. He got us in Dirt Wheels magazine for our first article. After a while we had so much inventory that it was too hard for our friends to carry everything and the few stores we distributed to only carried a small amount of our inventory.
So by the third year in business, we decided to try it on our own. We had so much fun—sold at the desert (won a toy hauler), Thunderboats, Oktoberfest, Off-road shows, and so much more! We met an heiress, boat racers, rode in the fastest cars in the desert while we threw out clothes for promotion, sold to bigwigs in the police force, military, you name it! We were profiled in several videos and pictures. We signed autographs, and even posed in pictures with some of our best customers. We met so many people and that was the best part. Even men loved buying our clothes for their girlfriends/wives. We learned to size a woman up by the spouse or significant others body description. We do not know how it happened, but our product has been sold online all over the United States.
There are lots of people who have asked us how to start a business! In fact, right before writing this article, I had a friend’s son ask how to legitimately to sell online. One reason that most people do not become rich selling clothing is because there are just so many clothing companies in operation, causing difficult competition.
Here is our best piece of advice—networking and customer service are critical for a successful business. A word of caution, think twice before starting a business with family or friends. It is tough!
Santa Claus is a legendary figure in folklore who, in Western cultures, is described as bringing gifts on Christmas Eve.
He is a fat, jolly man wearing a red coat and trousers with white cuffs and collar who delivers presents to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and coal to the naughty children.
Is Santa Claus real? well, of course not, but the figure is more than a legend. It is connected to the story of Saint Nicholas.
The History of Santa Claus
Nicholas was born during the third century in the village of Patara. His wealthy parents died in an epidemic and Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist people in need. Still young, Nicholas was made Bishop of Myra. Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who persecuted Christians, Nicholas was exiled and imprisoned and died december 6, AD 343.
Many stories have been told of Saint Nicholas about his generosity to those in need, especially children. This is why he is known as protector of children. To have more info about him, you can search the net. There are so many websites with interesting stories about him.
Going back to Santa Claus, surfing the Internet you’ll find also many websites selling magical greetings, gifts and Santas letters.
There is much time before Christmas, but I discovered this website just now and it is very well done. It delivers a personalized letter from Santa and also deluxe packages.
The deluxe package is a kid’s dream come true, the letter is packed with a whole box of custom Christmas goodies. You receive a huge, shiny, bright red box “directly from the North Pole” with a glossy autographed photo of Santa Claus, genuine reindeer food, an authentic collectors piece of Santa’s suit and a CD with a personal greeting From Santa Claus.
The bright red box will be addressed with a shiny gold foil shipping label, a North Pole postage stamp and a return address label from Santa’s workshop. About the workshop, the website has a “workshop area” where you can download a free countdown to Christmas module for your MySpace page, Blogger or website. It is not static, there is moving snow in the background and it is a nice addition to every website when Christmas will be near.
Jared W. Olen, founder of OlenJewelry.com, made an intense trip and his story is featured in this article. Olen Jewelry is an international retailer of high-quality, sterling silver jewelry. Jared told me a fascinating story about the campaign he will start soon and that will have the name Fair Trade Silver.
An intense trip in the profound Mexico
My idea for Fair Trade Silver came from a trip I took in May of 2006 to Mexico. My best friend, Kim, and I flew into Benito Júarez International Airport in Mexico City. We had worked since that January to plan a trip to see the “real” Mexico, that is, a trip that did not include staying in Americanized hotels and resorts.
While reading Jared story I thought, well, this is a really nice experience, in Mexico, culture and tradition are seen as central to life and society and Mexican people are profound and warm, not at all superficial. But you can’t understand their traditions if you stay in hotel. I continued to read his story…
My main goal for visiting Mexico was to visit Taxco in the Mexican state of Guerrero.
Taxco de Alarcón (Taxco) is a former colonial silver-mining center in the northern part of the Mexican state of Guerrero on the western arm of the Sierra Madre del Sur. It is located 200 km southwest of Mexico City along the old highway to Acapulco at an elevation of 1,800 m (5,900 ft).
…Taxco is known by many as the sterling silver capital of the world for it is home to countless shops that sell beautiful machine- and hand-crafted sterling silver jewelry made from silver mined just outside the town.
Taxco reminds me of quaint European town with its narrow, cobblestone streets and white-washed buildings that are perched on the side of a mountain. When one visits Taxco it is shocking to see how purely “un-Americanized” it really is. There are no Wal-Mart nor are there other corporate giants.
I love corporate giants :) and I would love to see a Wal-Mart in Italy, but this time I really envied Jared for this experience. The Aztecs founded a city they called “Tlacho”… what artistic treasures Jared will find?
…the silver trade in Taxco relies on buyers that travel from around Mexico, the United States, and the rest of the world to Taxco with cash in hand to purchase goods to bring back to their stores. I met many buyers there on their annual buying trips for stores in the United States and Canada. What really struck me, however, was the indigenous population that lives nearby.
Taxco has an “Indian Market” where indigenous people descend from the mountainside every day to display and sell hand-made goods to the citizens and visitors of Taxco. I thought to myself what a great idea it would be to establish a reliable international silver trade network between the silver shops and artisans in Taxco and the rest of the world.
As Olen Jewelry moves into the future, I am exploring the possibility of opening a community crafting center in or around Taxco where local artisans can use the workspace for free to create their jewelry. I will then bring their goods to the United States where they can be sold to the mass-market. All artisans will receive the majority of the proceeds from the sale of their jewelry. In this way, those people who do not have the money to invest in equipment and raw materials can still put themselves to work creating jewelry that truly is an expression of themselves and of Mexico.
This is admirable… well, a good business idea, of course, but also admirable, indeed. And we wish Jared to succeed in this project! We’ll post an update about this in the future.
Wally August is the owner of a gift baskets business. Since 1987, this commitment to quality, beauty and service has made Fancifull Gift Baskets Hollywood’s #1 gift basket company with a worldwide clientel. They have provided baskets and gifts for over 500 movies and TV shows.
Wally said me: I have lots of great stories for your weblog, we have trekked to little known regions of France and Italy to find foods and meet with wine makers.
And this is one of these stories, exactly, one story written by my wife, Terry, about finding a “new” winemaker in France. This happened in May of this year.
A Taste of Fate: Meeting Winemaker Jacky Blot
Many of my vacations truly are “working vacations”. Yes, we spend three weeks in France, but we are visiting wine makers, cheese producers and the like. Yeah, I know, tough job - but someone has to do it. I can’t complain. I do work at hunting out products. Much like the truffle pig, I am always sniffing around, looking in local shops, watching what the locals are eating. Of course this often means eating and drinking many things to be assured of quality - I never just take someone’s word for it - but that is another story altogether.
When I eat a cookie I like in Italy, I will find out who imports it to the U.S. I am quite vigilant. This is just the best way to bring my customers items they might not find otherwise, such as many of the wines we have in our shop. Sometimes I find them through a focused tasting or meeting wine makers. Sometimes greatness just falls in your lap, almost like Divine Intervention.
Forces were at work when we discovered the lovely wines of Jacky Blot: Domaine Taille aux Loups (whites) and La Butte (reds).
The Intervention came by way of a kindly Paris wine shop owner, Christophe Vidal. While we were buying some wine from his shop, I noticed some odd whiskeys from Japan which started up a conversation (and some sampling of said whiskeys, did I mention how nice this guy was?). In our discussion of the wine business, we mention that we are planning to visit a winemaker or two in the Loire Valley. As we are about to leave we hear a shout. He comes running up to us with an open bottle of wine. Turns out that the winemaker, Jacky Blot from the Loire Valley, had been in his shop earlier for a tasting of his wines. Jacky had left an open bottle but Cristophe didn’t need it, perhaps we could take it back to our apartment and enjoy it. We took our Taille aux Loups wine, happily skipping back to our apartment and marveling at the kindness of strangers.
The wine is a delightful surprise. Chenin Blanc grapes, light, crisp, wonderfully balanced. What a nice gift! My husband, Wally, ever diligent, looks up the winery and I can see he is contemplating - actually becoming determined - to find the winery in our travels. We move on to the Loire and are having dinner in the city of Tours when, lo and behold, the Taille Aux Loups is on the wine list by the glass. We have to order it, and yes, it is as good as we remembered. Okay, that settles it; we have to find this winery.
After a few days of trying wines in Chinon and Saumur (both great cities to visit and sample wine), we track down the winery Taille Aux Loups. We drive along curvy roads, follow the river (because we don’t know exactly where it is) along the south bank of the Loire east of Tours. Eureka, we find it! Jacky’s daughter Françoise greets us warmly as we come in from the rain, and sets up quite a tasting for us. We try sparkling wines, the whites that we love, and reds from nearby Bourgueil. It is quite fantastic, especially since we don’t even have an appointment. Jacky pops in and gives us an exuberant hello, but he is quite busy with a bunch of clients in another room. We write down the name and phone number of their distributor in California and buy some bottles to add to the collection we have amassed during the previous few days. We high five ourselves once we get in the car, feeling the excitement of another successful hunt. We rub our hands in anticipation of tasting this wine for our clients back home, and hope that the distributor, Adventures in Wine, carries the wines we want. We have never bought from them before, or even heard of them.
We return to our Paris apartment a few days later with our cache of prized wines. I really want to serve Jacky’s wine at our upcoming tasting in two weeks. I need to email my assistant Dave to find this company. As I am looking in my purse to find the business cards from the wine makers we visited, I find a card for Adventures In Wine! I have no idea how it got there. I don’t remember ever meeting the person whose name is on the card. There is no other business card from America in my bag, having cleaned it out before we left. Françoise at the winery did not give me a card, she just had me write down the name in my notebook. But here it is. Magic! That did it. We were obviously destined to have this wine in our shop.
The importer has the whites I want, not the reds, but they are ordering them for me. So with this happy set of circumstances, I am able to offer this fantastic wine to our customers. And it all began because I had noticed some odd whiskeys at a Paris wine shop and started asking questions.
