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!

• Has the internet changed your life? Corrie Petersen is a WAHM wanna-be. She and her husband Kevin run a successful Christian jewelry business that can be found at http://heavenlycrosses.com. You can also check out Corrie’s other businesses at http://corriepetersen.com. Here's Corrie article for us. Has the internet changed your life? The internet was an amazing technological......
• Clothing, Jewelry, Computers This is an interesting Weblog about online shopping and, to be more specific, about clothing, jewelry and computers. So you'll read articles about online shops, shopping experiences, consumers stories and also reviews. But there will be much more than this, as example we'll talk about the online shopping phenomenon and......
• Love for Vintage This is a nice personal story written by Elizabeth Burn, a kind entrepreneur in the vintage clothing industry. Love for Vintage My love for vintage began when I was a poor college student in NYC, basically out of necessity, it evolved from a hobby and passion into a business. At......
• An exquisite online Art Gallery Today we interview Michael Goldstein, the owner of RockPopGallery.com. Michael, what can you tell us about your Art Gallery? RockPoP Gallery was launched online in December of 2005 to showcase the best graphic art and photographic talent working in all areas of today’s music industry. I had the privilege of......
• Star Wars loves Cycling Primal Wear is a cycling apparel company out of Denver, Colorado and has been in business for over 16 years. They have the most technical fabrics with original jersey designs. Besides being in over 1500 Independent bike shops across the United States, they are in some of the bigger retailers......

• Viral Marketing - Top Methods One of the ways to promote your website in the Internet is viral marketing. It is a popular marketing method among many online marketers, who use it for branding their business, products and themselves in order to generate more traffic and increase the number of sales. There are many media......
• Weekend Links - Donation Button Edition Observant readers may have noticed that I added a donation button. I was (and still am) a little conflicted about this change. On one hand, I do make money from advertisements. On the other hand, a reader suggested that I put it on the site. I'm not opposed to making......
• Surf Skate Expo Experiences 20th Year in Orlando The Surf Expo is an annual surf and skate trade show that is put together every year at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. This is the most popular surf and skate trade show for the last twenty years, and the most recent year was absolutely no exception......
• Distilling the Ingredients of Successful Account Management - Part 1 Ask 10 business owners what makes a good supplier or distributor, and you'll get 10 different answers. It's an interesting question; one sure to give rise to all kinds of opinions no matter what industry you spend your time. As the owner of one of the nation's most prominent......
• How to cope with being fired? Do businesses look down on people who are fired? I might be fired from my job. How do I cope with being fired? My Dad was fired twice. For eight years, he worked for a business and he was fired. He worked for a different business for six years and he was fired for arriving 30minutes late on a......