We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hayley Besheer Santell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hayley below.
Hayley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Shortly after graduating with two (mostly unrelated to my now career) undergraduate degrees, I stumbled upon a blog listing this shocking statistic – new underwear is the number one most requested yet least donated item of clothing. When this fell into my lap in 2012, I could think about nothing else but that fact for months. Ironically around the same time, a family member confided in me that she was once – 30 plus years prior – a victim of domestic violence. It became an emotional time for me, and it was only then that I learned domestic abuse can happen to even well-educated women surrounded by close supportive family members, even the strongest women that you (I) look up to. After diving in more, researching how I could contribute in the realm of domestic violence, I learned that underwear tops the most urgent needs list at the majority of shelters and orgs serving women and young women globally. It’s the only item they can’t receive used, and thus, it’s rarely donated. I thought, wow – did the light bulb about underwear really just blink a second time? Here’s the problem I found: billions of people go without underwear every day, not by choice. And what’s the impact? Young women kept from school and employment during menstrual cycles, and women healing from crisis situations like domestic violence, rape and post incarceration facing lack of hygiene, lack of comfort and lack of dignity.
This basically left me no choice but to change my life and start a business. I thought, if I didn’t do something about the need for underwear, who would? I never planned to become an entrepreneur, but I started a business out of nothing, knowing nothing about this industry. What I did know and imagine early on is how hard starting a business would be.
Since day one, I realized how many areas are just broken in the fashion industry, and I set out to create change. I was adamant about one thing : if I was going to put so much time and energy into building a business, I MUST be 100 percent morally proud of every element of the model. So I formed the company based on one umbrella factor : ALL areas of MADI Apparel must make a difference, not just one.
That’s when MADI Apparel started. MADI stands for Make a Difference, and that’s just what we do – we make a difference in every area of the business, not just one.
First, We produce ethical everyday basics (underwear, joggers, pjs, hoodies, etc) and goods (plant-based plastic free-leather backpacks, duffles, etc) for men/women/unisex. Our products are designed by me to be long lasting lifetime staples that customers can keep and love forever. We make all products in our local city, providing training and living wages for locals in our city while advancing the local textile manufacturing industry. We’re part of only three percent of the world’s fashion brands to pay a living wage to our cutters, sewers, dyers, etc, while 97 percent of sewers make less than a fast food employee for a trade requiring extreme technical skill.
Realizing plastic-filled polyester garments are taking over our landfills, MADI Apparel is committed to biodegradable and wasted fabrics. We source the most sustainable and innovative plant-based and natural fabrics on the market – like the world’s first 100% plastic-free vegan leather made from plants and cruelty-free silk where silkworms aren’t harmed in the process. 95 percent of all fabrics that hit our landfills by 2025 are expected to be made of plastic (polyester and nylon). To help combat and educate around this topic, our fabrics and materials must transparently fit one or all of these criteria: biodegradable, made from plants, or recycled from the waste of larger brands.
Lastly but not least, for every ethical basic sold, we donate a pair of underwear to a woman in a requesting organization from our waiting list. The first time I saw the look on a woman’s face when she picked up a pair of our underwear donations literally changed me forever. These women are my motivation, my why. I even stood on the corner of a busy shopping area on Christmas Eve a few years ago in my underwear holding a sign that read “imagine how vulnerable you’d feel if you didn’t own a pair.” The women we donate to are the reason why I fight to keep my business alive every day. In addition to Make a Difference, MADI also stands for a woman’s name, to encourage customers to picture someone like my family member receiving the pair of underwear that your purchase initiates. She is someone you know, love, with a story. Imagine knowing your purchase could provide something so small yet so impactful on her road to healing and that could contribute to her future growth with dignity.
In 2013, I founded MADI Apparel. In 2014, I crowdsourced over $20,000 to get off the ground and then launched sales. In 2015, I moved the company to Kansas City, MO and opened our flagship store where we’ve been headquartered ever since. In the spring of 2023, we rebranded the name of our store to Slow Motion Goods. In addition to remaining the home base for MADI Apparel ethically made goods, we also reclaim used goods – like canvas paintings, custom painted sneakers and skateboards, etc – to keep them in motion and out of landfills. I’ve been able to marry my life as an ethical designer with my passion for creating sustainable art.
Hayley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I never pictured myself as an entrepreneur. Many entrepreneurs go to business school to learn how to start a business or take over a business. Before starting MADI Apparel, my learned skills and gifts sat mostly in the creative arena – painting, drawing, writing, etc. Running a business wasn’t part of the plan, so I’ve spent the last decade of my work running as fast as I can up a mountainous slope of a learning curve.
There’s no area left untouched by me in my business – I care about it all. What I didn’t know or feel comfortable with as a budding entrepreneur, I learned – even down to scary things for an artist like me like filing taxes, reconciling quickbooks transactions, and payroll. But my greatest strengths don’t lie in what I know and what I’ve worked to learn,. Instead, my strengths lie in HOW I run my business, how I make decisions and treat my team… In my option, to operate and design an ethical brand means the leader of the team must be morally sound. My best “angle” is the fact that I truly know myself, I enjoy my own company, and I know what I will and won’t budge on. For example, I’m always listening, learning, growing. I’m always trying to figure out how I and my company can be even more impactful. I constantly search for new innovative sustainable fabrics and materials to hit the market. For example, last year we started sourcing the first and only plastic-free non-animal leather alternative, made from all natural materials like responsibly sourced natural rubber, plant-based oil, natural pigments, and minerals. I won’t settle on unfair labor or plastic-filled non-biodegradable fabrics for the sake of a higher profit margin.
I don’t just care about our core team and the people making our products, I care a lot about our customers and the recipients of our underwear donations. When customers walk into our store, it’s our job to make sure they’re comfortable, seen, heard. We want our customers to feel truly special and at home with us. We want our customers to find lifetime love in our products – the ones they can’t live without. The cool part is, our customers are the ones actually donate the underwear. For every item they buy, we get to donate a pair of underwear on their behalf. I love that part – it’s empowering customers to feel proud of their purchase.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The number one piece of advice that I’d share with a new entrepreneur is this: Don’t give up. You know what they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Or, “It takes 20 years to make an overnight success”. I have a story about a time I ALMOST gave up, and the blessings I wouldve missed out on if I had…
Last year (2022) was hard – personally, I went through the worst year of my life. Around June, it turned around and my husband and I actually lived abroad in Florence while I took a few fashion design continuing education classes. I came back home, and it felt a bit like I continuing to hit dead ends with my business. I’d been in talks for a few years with buyers for the Kansas City International Airport, and we signed a letter of intent that they planned to carry our products in the airport when the new terminal opened in early 2023. However, after six months or so of crickets, I began to feel concerned about whether that would fall through or not. I started to fill in my team and family that we may need to consider closing down in spring of 2023. As much as we’d been growing, our expenses were too, and it was beginning to be too hard to turn a profit – especially if the promise of being carried in the airport fell through. Around December, however, my plans changed when I heard from the buyers once again! They ended up placing the largest wholesale order with us that we’d ever experienced, and since then two more re-orders! Other amazing doors have opened since the beginning of 2023 like being accepted into the North American Adyen Accelerator in Chicago. A couple friends or acquaintances with super new small businesses have since reached out asking how I got our products into the airport and wondering if I could offer advice for how they might be able to do the same. The only advice I could think of (and the only reason we were approached to be carried by the buying team) was this : “Grind it out for ten years, and likely a similar opportunity will fall in your lap, too.”
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The second piece of advice I’d share with a new entrepreneur is this: don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Work with the money you HAVE before trying something untested with money you DON’T have. It’s necessary to take risks, but in the small business world, taking risks can cost you a lot personally, so make sure they’re worth it and that the risks have been heavily studied and planned first.
Here’s a story of when I took a risk with borrowed money – expecting it to pay off and work in our favor – but instead, it failed and I keep it as a learning lesson for myself and to teach.
From day one, we’ve operated debt-free. I raised $25,000 of debt-free funds through an Indiegogo campaign and an in-person fundraiser. And before that – for early small business costs – I worked hard to push my own money (and family loans) through for cash flow. I’ve never had to give up equity in the business. We were virtually debt-free and operating successful (although small) inventory turns and small profits on our sales. But, I made a mistake when I didn’t go with my gut and listened to convincing team members and friends about taking a risk that put us in a bit of credit card debt that was hard to pull out of. These convincing voices promised me that if we invested in “showing” at large trade shows and convention center shopping events that the fees to enter would pay off big time. Events like this cost thousands of dollars for retailers to “pop-up” to sell. We invested in a few of these – pretty much solely using a credit card to upfront the entry fees, expecting that we’d turn a profit quite easily to pay off these borrowed fee funds, plus more to re-invest. We signed up for a few all within a year or two to make a big splash, thinking “this is what we need to do to make it big and get in front of shoppers and retailers”. Turns out, this was a big mistake for us, and it never paid off. Instead, we were stuck in some credit card debt and in addition to our tight startup budget, we had to worry about paying that balance down. I’d recommend ONLY using the cash flow from sold products/services and working within that cash flow only. Only use personal loans and crowdsourced funds to get started. I honestly wouldn’t touch a credit card, unless you use it wisely for the tiniest purchases that are paid immediately like a debit card.
I’m currently writing a series of books and offering consulting services for how to start your own ethical retail business. I’ll be diving more into how to avoid mistakes like this, how to get started from nothing, and how to and scale organically. Please reach out if either interest you!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.madiapparel.com
- Instagram: @madi_apparel / @hayleysantell
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madiapparel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madi-apparel/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@madiapparel8215
- Other: DM me on instagram for more info on my “how to” ethical retail startup books and consulting services
Image Credits
Ali Happer Tara Shupe Fallon O’Connor