We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Johnny Person. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Johnny below.

Johnny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I absolutely love being a business owner. I was never great at being an employee, i always thought “I could do this better” at any place I’ve ever worked. I understand thats a double edged sword and has its pros and cons to it. With that being said, being a business owner comes with a lot of stress, and comes with a lot of risk at times. Recently, I had the thought, “I wonder what kind of salary my resume could procure me having run multiple businesses”. Sometimes the stress becomes a lot, and you wonder into lala land thinking “it would be nice to just have a cushy job that pays $250k/yr with great benefits and you dont have to bring work home with you all the time, but then i thgink to myself that it actually sounds miserable. I think the most important thing for me whenit comes to owning a business is being able to operate how i want to operate, being able to work when i want and how i want (which is all the time and dilligently). But just being able to have the option to say “f*ck it, today is not the day, pack it up and go at it again tomorrow” is perhaps the most valuable part of being a business owner. OR being able to travel and operate the business from wherever I am at, and not having to trade my time for a dollar amount. I directly get back the amount of work i put in, and not only that, i am building a vision I’ve had a desire to build my entire life. Its truly invaluable.

Johnny, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

So I own and operate Aug11 Co, a premium headwear brand. We sell Direct To Consumer via our website www.aug11.co for now and have had an absolute rocketship growth trajectory since we launched in November of 2023. I initially started in the fashion space as a model, then i interned as a graphic designer for IMKing clothing in SoCal. This led to me becoming a sales rep for The Leverage Showroom and eventually led to me becoming Director of International Sales there. I then left TLS and went onto start Liberte Trading, my own 3rd party wholesale agency. I stopped running that company in 2021 and got into the blockchain technology space where i started 2 companies and did well in that space. The economy tanked, and I took a year off before deciding to start Aug11. My knowledge of fashion from spending the previous ten years in that space has informed every decision i have made in operating this company.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had stepped out of the fashion industry in 2021 when the opportunity came to start a company in the Blockchain Technology space. Everything wad firing on all cylinders and we were making money hand over fist, and I thought to myself “This will be my career for the next 10-20 years.” and then in late 22 i believe when the economy crashed anc crypto took a dive along with it, I had to pause, take a steop back and really re think what I was going to do next. I realized that space was not something stable that i wanted to operate within and that I would need to find something else. Thene verything clicked for me at the end of 2023 when I finally decided to take the leap and do what i have always wanted to do, which is starting an apparel company. Since then I’ve realized that this feels like what I have always been meant to do, the vision ive been given by God to release into the world. I almost wondered why i waited so long, but looking back, i had to go through the businesses i went through previously in order to get this company to where it currently is, there is no other way it could have happened.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I have been lucky enough that I have had to put almost zero of my own dollars into this company. I started a holding company in 2021 initially meant to be for Blockchain Technology marketing and consulting services. I never touched the company or did anything with it, so when it came time to launch Aug11, I had a company that had already been around for 18 months, so I opened up 4 business credit cards in order to fund our first round of production, set up our softwares etc. I may have put 1-2k into the business at the beginning, but since then weve essentially been running the business entirely on our own cash flow. Maybe not the best way to go about starting a company, but i was scrappy and willing to do whatever i needed to do to get it off the ground. Its worked so far.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aug11.co
• Instagram: @aug11co, @johnnysays.eth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnyperson/
• Twitter: @mnmlty

Image Credits

@gyjcbs for product photos, @johnpaulw for model photos