My company is Southwest Legging Co. I design leggings, capris, and shorts – and soon tunics, shirts, and dresses! We have beautiful cactus and succulent prints, as well as crazy stuff like animals and food! They are made locally in Arizona, and all of our fabric is custom printed for us. We produce in really small batches, but I love that I can reorder more of whatever people love, so no one has to miss out. Our whole mission is to encourage and build women up – so making people happy is a big piece of that.

I had this crazy idea back in September of 2016. We officially launched pre-sales in January. It’s been a bumpy road to say the least.

When people ask me what challenges we’ve faced, I have to laugh. Literally everything that could go wrong has done so. Our initial sampling process was a huge disaster. When we were in pre-sales, some of my startup cash was stolen. I’ve had production batches go bad or get delayed by weeks and weeks. I’ve learned that having huge challenges doesn’t mean that you aren’t on the right path. Hard things are usually worth it!

Most of our marketing is social media. Instagram brings us about a third of our customers, and the rest are personal referrals through Facebook. I think in the future most people will be buying their clothes through online or small local shops that are small businesses! We are also starting to venture into collaborations and influencers.

I’m not really aware of anyone else doing U.S.A.-made small-batch custom-printed leggings like I am. I’d love to connect with anyone who is.. no luck yet. Everyone else produces in China, but I wanted to support our local community and provide a higher quality product.

I think it’s important that you love the grind. If you start a business thinking you’ll just makes tons of money and have a glamorous lifestyle, you’re probably going to be disappointed. You need to enjoy the actual work of doing all of these different jobs – marketing, customer service, product development, etc. and just filling orders day after day. I write a personal note in every order and I love being able to bless each customer with a little appreciation.

I made a huge leap moving our production from China to Arizona. I was so scared about the cost increases and the risk that it wouldn’t work out. But I’ve learned to lean into the hard things. It’s had massive rewards so far, and I am so excited to continue seeing the results.

Probably my favorite other boss babe is Amber Marker. She owns Declan + Crew, and she has built an amazing community around her brand. She’s very heartfelt. I learned from her that you can still be incredibly gracious and loving even when your business gets pretty big. She’s also taught me to be incredibly authentic with every part of my business.

I have a little assistant, Rosie. I LOVE setting this example for her, and taking her to meetings. Being a mom-boss is the best!