049: Professional Snowboarder reflects on his Sold Clothing Business (Josh Sherman of Yea.Nice)

Background on Josh Sherman of Yea.Nice:

Josh Sherman was the co-founder and business owner of Yea.Nice. His clothing company was included in the Inc. Magazines 2016 top 1,000 fastest private growing companies in America. Josh is also a volunteer for the Beanies4Life, which is a program under the Yea.Nice brand. The program is all about helping the homeless individuals all across America in battling the winter cold elements through a high quality, fleece lined beanie. To date, this cause has donated over 100,000 polar fleece lined beanies.

Josh has a Bachelor’s Degree in B.S. Business Management at Western Governors University from 2014 to 2017. Josh, along with his Yea.Nice co-founder JJ Thomas, used to be a professional snowboarder. They came up with the idea of donating beanies for homeless people when they found out that thousands of these people were dying from hypothermia each year and Josh knew they had to do something about it. Many people know Josh as a professional, driven, passionate, intelligent and perseverant individual.

Currently, Josh Sherman is a Human Capital Management Consultant at ADP. He provides SaaS and people solutions to organizations. His main responsibility in ADP is to fully understand his client's business and make specific recommendations based on their needs, timeline, and budget. Josh works with businesses that want to focus on organizational improvement, develop cost reduction strategies, stay in compliance, and unleash the potential of their employees.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:08] Josh was a previous business owner and now working as a Consultant.
[1:42] Josh used to be a professional snowboarder for 7 years.
[2:37] His contract as a professional snowboarder was abruptly ended.
[4:01] Prior to getting cut from his contract, Josh was already planning to start his own business.
[5:57] “I had no experience in business, I’ve never started a business before, I had really no business mentors, I didn’t go to school for it and I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
[7:07] Finding the right product vendors was a challenge for him.
[8:58] Josh, with helped from a friend, made his own website and did some free marketing.
[9:58] While doing his business, he also got a job in sales and excelled at it.
[11:42] In their 2nd year in business, Josh decided to look for Angel Investors.
[16:21] During the first year, after getting a $150,000 investment funds, their sales were close to a $1million.
[19:43] Josh found a company in China, which can make their products at a low-cost price.
[23:28] Despite his success in that 1st year, Josh started looking for another investor but ended up selling the business.
[26:08] “I probably would not have sold the business”- Josh talking about what he learned from his experience.
[27:53] Eventually, Josh got bored from working as an employee and decided to move on.
[31:53] “When you’re an entrepreneur, make sure that your people are constantly growing and being up skilled and pushing them.”
[32:58] “Think of every way that you can possibly can to bootstrap. Don’t think of outside funding, you don’t necessarily need their money. More money might not necessarily lead to more sales.”

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖📚 Favorite Book(s)? The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Glass Whiteboard
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Salesforce
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Having a personal life.