Two Moms Who Bet on Themselves and Built An Authentic Brand | With Nic + Maude Founders Ep. 24

0:00Chris Cruz:Today I'm sitting down with two women who built a business the way most people build a life, through friendship, grit, and an unreasonable amount of belief in one another. Nicole and Leah are the founders of Nic and Maude, the custom hat brand here in Franklin, Tennessee that just celebrated its first year of having a retail space. But their story didn't start with hats. It started in basements, garages, songwriting rooms, and motherhood. It started in the moments where life felt too heavy and the only steady thing was each other. In this conversation, we talk about how they built a company without a roadmap, how their confidence formed in the cracks, and how being mothers and creatives added a complexity most people never see.

0:34Chris Cruz:This is a story about risk, belief, legacy, and the kind of partnership that can pull you through the moments designed to break you. This is Anatomy of a Brand, where every week I talk with people shaping culture, founders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and creatives. And if you're one of those, subscribe to never miss a conversation. This is episode 24 with Nick and Maude co-founders, Leah Loren LaRue and Nicole Johnson. Guys, you just came on your one year. You just had your one year party for your store. But you've been in business before that. You've been making hats for how long? Five years, four years before the store.

1:07Okay.

1:07Chris Cruz:And it's been a year of having a retail space here in Franklin. Yeah. How did it feel to have your one year party? It was great. It was, we worked all day. We did. It was a bit of a whirlwind. Okay. It took a minute to sink in. Which is, it was a very you guys thing. It was like tequila, margaritas, and music. I'm like, great. Yes. We had a regular that's been coming in kind of since the beginning. Okay. Who we met, started chatting. He does music. And then we discovered, oh, wow, he's extremely talented. Which, okay, pause. That means something to you guys to say someone is good at music. Because a lot of people, some people have no clue y 'all's background in music.

1:50Chris Cruz:Right. So give us a little flyby. I know that there's, I'm going to say one word because I want to, I want to hear about it. The voice. We'll talk about it. Yes, you should talk about it. You're going to need to leave your hands over your face. You're like, oh, I've watched the clip. I've seen the clip. I've seen the clip. It's good. It's not. It's good. It's great. Chairs, chairs were turned. Chairs were turned. The story was strong. The story was strong. They were like, oh, I smell a good one here. The producers were like, wait, what? Fill us in, fill us in. So you guys, you and your husband went on The Voice.

2:22Chris Cruz:The long and the short of it is. So you guys both have been in music for a long time. Yes. And so my husband Josh and I, basically our manager at the time called us and like, hey, NBC's coming through town with a new show. And they actually allowed duos. You want to audition? And we're like, well, sure. Why not? So we go. We sit down. We're basically, it's nothing like it is in, you know, television. Okay. It wasn't like we just strolled up on that stage. Like, hey, everybody, we've never been here before. But we sit down in front of the producers, and they're like, so tell us your story. We were living in my parents' basement, struggling artists, trying to make it work.

2:59I was working. Actually, this is how I met Leah was kind of how I met her. That's how we became closest. I was caretaking her at the time. Her sister-in-law. Sister-in-law, yes, who was my age, and she had cerebral palsy. And so I came in, came really close with the family. but that also is such a like oh wow she's a caretaker and you're struggling artists and trying to make it work story just like the story you can see the producers eyes being like interesting so we get on and at the time I guess it was years after the movie but there's a movie called once yes I know exactly the movie and the song and the song like it just there's just been certain things and themes over the years but that song really stuck out to us okay the producers of the show wanted us to sing i can't remember what it was um it doesn't matter they wanted us to do a certain song we were like no i really want to do this song okay and um so against you know our better judgment we did it but it was actually, I think, what made people, or at least the people on the show, there was something about, I think, even though, honestly, we just went back with our kids and watched this audition, it was painful.

4:20Chris Cruz:It's always embarrassing to look at anything you've created in your past. And, like, always being nervous before a show, but being broadcast in front of, I think it was 20 million people. They were like, just so you guys know, all the, like, techs in the back were like, we're up to 20, 15 million. And they were like, guys, this is incredible. And I'm like, I'm going to throw up. So it sounded just more nervous than I could even explain. But I think the heart came through. And it was intriguing. And they were like, wait, there's two people. So we got, we returned some chairs. Yeah, the chairs returned.

4:56Chris Cruz:But then you, how many, how long, I don't know the rest of the story. How long did you guys last in the voice? We made it through to the next round, the battle round. The battle round. We went on Blake Shelton's team. Okay. And we did not make it past that path, which was a total blessing. Okay. Because we were, like, kind of panicking on it. I'm down. We probably, this is maybe not the path that we want to go down. So we got out, but it gave us enough exposure and a long runway of, like, doing music for a long time after that. And you've been songwriting and playing music, too? I don't know fully your music background as well.

5:30I yeah my story in music's a little interesting but my ex-husband was in a band called LaRue okay which was a big Christian band he did with his sister is it the 90s early 2000s help yes 90s late 90s early 2000s she said help line call a friend yeah and that was like my intro into music was through ham but I was the songwriter as a kid played guitar starting at like 12 years old I always wrote music and then we got married and I was 19 and then we started doing music probably three four years into marriage started like writing together and we did a couple little records together okay it was called us and our daughters okay and I will tell you right now you can't find it anywhere we tried we're gonna do some deep diving you can find youtubes you can find some old music videos and stuff.

6:25Listen, for all the, for all the craziness of the divorce, that stuff's cute.

6:29Chris Cruz:That stuff's cute. It's cute. But we, my biggest, like my, for me, like my musical career moment was like, I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe this happened, was the show Nashville. Okay. They were always pulling from songwriters and artists in the Nashville area. Okay. And so he and I wrote for the show through Concord Music. Like, we both were simultaneously. Like, her and her husband, me, and my husband at the time, we were writing songs for the show Nashville. Oh, that's awesome. Yes. And we all would, like, you know, there was even times competing for the same spots and the same, yeah.

7:06But we got one song called Borrow My Heart that ended up being, like, it's still to this day, the cast goes on tour, and it's, like, their number one song that they play on their tour.

7:21Chris Cruz:That's awesome. But they played it at the Grand Ole Opry. The whole cast played at the Grand Ole Opry on stage, filmed for like live ABC show, and they honored, like everyone stood up and clapped for like each songwriter. Okay. So that was like for me. That was crazy because we were both at that event. We were both at that event. We were sitting, we were like, And you guys weren't making hats yet together? Oh, no. No. Okay. This was, oh my God. Yeah. Okay, so take me fast forward to hats. Like how do we get to you guys making custom hats? We basically, after, we'd always been very close, but when she was going through divorce, we became bosom buddies.

8:00You linked out. Yes. We really, she became a friend. It was also super cool during COVID. Real fun. Not a lot of people were willing to show up or risk lending. Exposure. Exposure and all the things. And so we didn't care and we were around each other quite often. And she was the friend that was like, I will help you move. I will help you do this. I will be in the trenches with you. And I just was like, I have never had a friend like this. Like you are blowing me away. And I, she changed the idea, the concept of friendship completely shifted during that time. I was like, I thought I had friends, but now I really have a friend.

8:42Chris Cruz:and this whole podcast was to actually bring you guys together just to talk about it yeah

8:52Chris Cruz:there's a phrase right people say they don't go into business with your friends oh yeah like you've been doing this for a while now five years then you have now a year under your belt of retail like even last night i saw you at a restaurant in nashville and you guys are like we're going on our date we can't talk about business yeah and you're like so your moms your moms so we'll get into motherhood and some of those details as entrepreneurs as moms but yeah you're friends and you're doing business together okay so walk me through even why are you going on these dates with to talk about not business stuff yeah well because the friendship is i mean it's why we're here it's it's what started everything and being able to i think show it for each other in really hard times and we laid we just were laying a very good foundation we didn't really and he realized there was going to be more to it.

9:38But then as time went by, my kids were getting older. I was kind of getting the bug of like, okay, I'm coming up from air. I can do something else besides, I want to do something else besides just be a stay-at-home mom. I loved being a stay-at-home mom for a great majority of time, but I knew there was something in me that was like, I'm too creative. I want to do something. And then we were like, we should do something together. Maybe we make a band. Maybe we write music. We did a couple. Okay. We wrote some songs together. We were like, maybe it's interior design. We love decorating. Maybe it's that.

10:16And then we started traveling. We took a trip. We started traveling a good bit. And we always wore hats from boutiques that were maybe$200 or$150 here and there. And then we would do things ourselves to them. That was just a natural thing happening while we were like, we should do something together. Like we worked so well together. We're such great friends. Like there's something. We got spice. There's something going on in this mixture. And yeah. And then it was, we went out to Wyoming and we, it was in Jackson Hole, which sounds so cliche, but truly it wasn't Jackson Hole. And there was a hat maker.

10:54You're like, this is the truth.

10:55Chris Cruz:I know it sounds like a joke, but it's the truth. It's the truth. It's the truth. And he was like, you guys want to come down and see like where the magic happens and the workshop. We were like, yeah. and he brought us down there we're like wait like yeah what we could do this this is cool and we're already we're doing I mean no names are gonna be said we were like we could do we're already kind of doing this we could do more than this probably make our own we're like what if we like I don't know what if we start making our own hats that was I also feel like that there was a couple trips where we started noticing and I'm not was that six years ago I'm trying to remember yeah I think that was in 20 2019 yes that was 19 and then we took one in 2020 we took a few but i'm not some like out there major woo-woo person okay but i am definitely into i believe in in energetics and energy and you know what's happening right now at this table yeah for sure and we started to really notice that when we'd be on these trips like we'd be in the car like man i wouldn't it be so great if we could find this kind of little dive bar where we could meet some locals and like, man, where could we do this?

12:09And we'd start to envision what kind of experience we'd really want. And it would happen on every single time. We would get ushered into the back super VIP places of things, and we were like, how did we get here? Oh, it's because something about the two of us, we have the ability to manifest some really cool stuff together. And I think those little, like, the trip and, like, meeting the hive makers and being like, we should do something. And then there's this, like, boldness that kind of came over us of we're both strong-willed, stubborn, determined creatives that when we start, I feel like when the vision kind of started to come to us of, when have we just like actually started at Hat Company?

12:58Chris Cruz:So you're doing this thing together. You're realizing hats are going to be a part of the equation. Whether it was just like boldness, naive, not knowing, also like just trusting your creative guts, all of those together. You still go in together. So I see you last night at ABBA. I'm there with my reservations. You guys are coming in going like, all right, we're going to go sit at the bar. We're coming in. I chat with you guys. And then you're like, we're doing this because we have to do this still. yeah yeah that that's something i think that's really unique and special to how you guys are approaching your both your business partnership and your life friendship why are you doing that though like what is the sauce there that's actually keeping this healthy i think well we well we already the foundation was laid so we know what we have together we adore one another we have fought the good fight together but i think like the concept of like you know don't talk about business let's just you know let's just focus on personal and connecting and keeping the friendship and the spirit of who we are alive because just like a marriage yes we're not married but there's a business partnership that creates like a sense of marriage and you do have to have a good foundation for the rest of this whole thing to flourish yeah we can't we can't do that if we're if this is cracking and breaking then what is nick and mod you know and we really are married yes in so many ways there's some documents signed together I mean there are you got some least documents signed together you know it's like we are we have we have entered into a committed thing that's like okay if we're gonna make this work yeah um what's the foundation what are the key points of keeping it so do you guys do that regularly like is that like a thing like you guys just are routinely going we're gonna go out do life together in a moment and then like that keeps keeps a sense of, cause I would imagine with running retail as moms, which we'll get into like as parents, like you guys are not in the shop always at the same time.

14:58No.

14:59Chris Cruz:So there's that, there's that like, Hey, if I don't see you for three or four days, like how are we, how are you doing? Are you doing like, right. And then all we're checking in and talking about is work. Yeah. Hey, did you hear the old metal button? It's like, which can lead you to get short, short, snappy, frustrated. If you don't have that relational, like greasing of the wheels almost, it can make it feel real tough. Yeah. And knowing where her strengths are and mine are, weaknesses, weaknesses, it really is like a marriage. It's wild. Because that, again, we will not function the way we need to function, and the whole operation will fail if we don't make that priority.

15:37Because we started realizing that, I think it was probably a couple months in, we were like, oh, we've been so busy, and all we've been texting and messaging each other about is like, hey, did you order that thing? Did you get back to that customer? Did you make sure that that hat got blah, blah, blah. And then we're like, wait, sorry. How are you doing? Are you okay? Are you okay? How's life? I'm sorry. Are your kids good? Or is your marriage good?

15:59Chris Cruz:I mean, I've walked into your shop, and you and your husband, I've sat with both of you for like 40 minutes being like, man, parenting is so hard. We just talked for 45 minutes about parenting in your shop. And it's like, this is great. Yeah. Yes. Life is, life do be lifin'. It does be lifin'. Let me ask you a question here. So we have a video we've done with you guys about the hat making process, how you got here. So if people are interested in that, they can watch that video, learn a little bit more. But what was the breakthrough moment for you guys with hat making? Like, was there a moment where you're like, dang, this is going to work?

16:33Chris Cruz:Like, what was, is there one? Yeah. I mean, the first one that comes to mind for me would be having these, a couple of really bizarre, not bizarre because of what they were but like the way they came to us opportunities to do massive custom fittings at once like we had I can't even remember the first one was I think it was Ellen Mike and Ellen Hollis yeah I think so friends of hers but friends of mine but they he he's worked for a couple different big companies and corporations would go hey why don't you come out for I think the first one was pilgrimage. We're talking about Michael Hollis. Yes.

17:16Yes. I know Michael Hollis. Yes. Yeah. Well, the wild story is with him is that my daughter's, my daughter went to school with him. Okay. And so her son, their son, sorry.

17:26Chris Cruz:I figured that. I went that way. I was like, Michael Hollis is quite old. So I'm like. Her son. Anyways, daughter went to school with their son, Hunt, and they were really good friends in elementary school. And it was a big deal because their son, it's a whole thing. But anyways, he has a disability, and my daughter has this way of just, I don't know, didn't see it as a disability, and they were like best friends. That's awesome. And it was the cutest thing. So precious. So you guys made a bunch of hats for them. Made a bunch of hats for them at a pilgrimage event, and we met. And pilgrimage is this, for those that don't know anything about pilgrimage, pilgrimage is a music festival that happens in Franklin.

18:01Chris Cruz:Lots of, like they just had John Mayer. The year before was who? Zach Bryan. Zach Bryan. And then who else was there? Oh, man. Things of Leon last year. Oh, yeah. Noah was great last year. And then the year before, I think it was Zach. Anyway, that's the festival that you guys made the hats for. Just to give people context when you use the film image. And their house backs up to the field at that. So they host a party at their house. Gotcha. And so we just set up a table, brought what we had, did some fittings for people. But at that event, we met someone who was like, hey, I'm going to fly you out to Florida and do this for my company.

18:39Very cool. 40 custom hats? And we were like, about a half? 40? I'm like doing the math. I'm like, yes. Yes, we can. The answer is yes. I will figure it out later. And then at that one, I was like, oh, will you do this for my company? And so we got a couple of really big chunks up front. And like, that would give us the money to like, oh, we can buy more equipment. Oh, we can buy more hat blocks. We can buy more things that we need so that we can actually start making this like a really viable business and around that time it was when people started we had a couple of buddies um had a store in downtown franklin at the time and they're like hey we'll put some hats on the wall and yeah hey we'll put some in here and people started oh you guys sold a hat and we're like oh we did okay and oh someone wants to actually come see you because they liked that hat on the wall but didn't fit them can you make them line and it just organically started growing and then on top of the events that we were getting we're like okay i think this is actually really really really a real viable possibility this and there was nothing in Franklin yeah and the retail like we both knew we wanted to do and retail yeah so in there I want to ask you a question so this is how you guys got

19:55Chris Cruz:that like moment of like okay this is going this is a viable business we're seeing traction here and it started trickle which I think is really cool because I think sometimes it's recognizing like okay there's one key event another key event another key event and it starts to build momentum momentum. What, what was a wall that almost broke you in this process? A wall that almost broke us? Yeah. You're like, this was a really hard process in this. I would say that the wall, you're like, I got one. I got, well, I'd say the wall that almost broke us was one. It was not at the place where we could do it full time.

20:28So I was still working like two other jobs at times and then still trying to make this happen.

20:34Chris Cruz:All while being a mom. All while being a single mom yeah and of three children and trying to juggle day jobs afternoon jobs and then doing this and we would get like you know a big check and i'd be like okay i can back off on this one job and work with you a little bit more maybe two days a week and we'll get all these hats done and then because it started where i was like oh people were like coming to my house to the garage where we had this ridiculously wonderful messy makeshift no climate control set like you guys are wearing masks in the summer in the summer freezing and we had like winter we had football players and famous people coming in and i would be like i know you got celebrities coming in people coming in and wanting and they're coming to this garage and it was what they were like this this is awesome.

21:29Actually, we love it. And it's sweet. And we're like, I'm glad you think so. But that was, it was such a whirlwind for probably two or three years where it was like, oh my gosh, I would, sometimes I'd quit all my jobs and then I'd be like, cool, now I can do this full time. And that would happen for four months. Then I'm like, wait, we ran out of money. Gotta get another job. And doing that while trying to like, what do you have inside of you that kept you going?

21:49Chris Cruz:Like, what is the thing that you, like, that is a really, really hard thing to do. Single parent, mom like doing all of that and trying to write like what do you like what do you think if you could give somebody advice on how you got through that what would the advice be that is a fantastic question i i when i think about it it was like the hardest moments when i would be like ball of tears going how am i going to make rent how do we do this am i doing the right thing am i putting her through hell am i putting myself through hell is it a hat company god like what are we doing? And then I would go, no, I know, I know that I, I know the value of who I am as a person.

22:31I know that I was created for something bigger than just selling life insurance. And I mean, you name it, folding people's laundry to make a dollar. I was doing everything I could. Um, I was like, I know I'm made for more. I know that there's more in store and I want to build a legacy i don't just want to keep coasting and going from job to job to job job till the day i die like i'm about to curse but like hell no i was like i that can't be the story and it needs i i know that there's more and i think the knowing and the like going the legacy is it for me i it kept it kept me going like and it kept her going too because this was this was bigger now at this point it got to the place where like wait we have something we know we do there was no question about the creativity the connection between her and I what we the product we were making and what we wanted ultimately at the end of all this but we knew we knew it was also legacy and there's it

23:35Chris Cruz:that was the that was the North Star I would say wow and the so like Nicole like even for you like What would you say was your way of navigating? What was your North Star that pulled you through all that pulled you through? I know you have your story, too, and the things you've had to navigate to be where you are and stay in this as well. What was your North Star that you would tell people? Yeah. As she was talking, I'm kind of thinking, what really was it? It was a couple of things. A lot of it, truly, truly, truly in my heart of hearts. at the time, right around the time that I was, when everything first started, like in 2019, when the idea was kind of coming around to do something together, was right at the time where I was like, okay, my husband and I, Josh, had been in a band together, the one that we went on The Voices, had for a long time.

24:33And I was getting to the point where, in my gut, I was like, I don't want to just do this. I feel like I'm a solo artist. I've always wanted to make music on my own. So we had just decided to kind of pump the brakes there and start experimenting with doing our own individual music projects. And so I was like feeling the creative buzz of, okay, I'm going to go do something. And then when this started happening, as much as it was not going toward what I was initially thinking, okay, I'm just going to go toward music, it was there was something being born in me of confidence that I could achieve something beyond what I'm necessarily set up for like I did not graduate I was homeschooled I didn't graduate high school I don't have a high school diploma I didn't go to college I am dyslexic ADHD tons of learning disabilities basically like shouldn't I was not set up yes I was not set up to be a business owner.