Al Doan: $100M+ Quilt Mogul Who Bought Two Towns

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
All right, there's this amazing book called Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got. I read it a few years ago and it changed my life.
And the reason I loved it was because it basically talks about how to get and make more money using things that you already have.
Coincidentally, today's podcast is brought to you by Business Made Simple. It's a podcast by Donald Miller, who I'm gonna tell you about in a second, but he has this amazing episode that's all related to this book and the things that I learned in this book. It's called How To Make Money With What You Already Have. It's an incredible episode. Talks about all the stuff that I learned in this book. The host is Donald Miller. I didn't know who Donald Miller was up until recently, but over the last 12 months, this is totally by coincidence. It was all separate people. They said you have to check out Donald Miller. He's amazing. So I'm happy that he's part of HubSpot's podcast network. You can check it out, Business Made Simple Podcast. It's where he coaches you on how to build your business like an airplane, where the cockpit is your leadership, the body is your overhead, the right engine is your marketing, the left engine is your sales. You have to check it out. This guy's amazing. It's called Business Made Simple with Donald Miller.
You're so bad at telling your own story.

**Al Doan** (1:04)
Well, you just said the intro. This isn't my story. You want me to tell?

**Shaan Puri** (1:08)
Well, I would say, yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.

**Al Doan** (1:13)
Missouri Star Quilt Company.

**Shaan Puri** (1:15)
Missouri Star Quilt Company.

**Al Doan** (1:17)
It's a behemoth of a quilting company.

**Shaan Puri** (1:19)
Can you say what the revenues are?

**Sam Parr** (1:21)
Yeah, it's the biggest. Let's first start with that. It is the biggest.

**Al Doan** (1:23)
It's the biggest. It's the biggest. It's a, let's see, we're, we're 400 some employees over a hundred million in revenue. Like it's a, it's a big old, it's a big old wolf.

**Shaan Puri** (1:39)
We're live, by the way. This is it, this is the pie.
How did you meet him?

**Sam Parr** (1:43)
Well, you gotta keep the Hoobastank story in. At least it'd be like one of our, can you just, did we get it?

**Al Doan** (1:49)
Say it again, funny, and we'll laugh.

**Sam Parr** (1:52)
Exact same way.

**Shaan Puri** (1:53)
The joke was, when we started the hustle, we would, for some reason, I picked Hoobastank as the band that I liked.

**Sam Parr** (1:59)
You don't have to pick a band when you start a company. I was like, there's no form you gotta fill out.

**Al Doan** (2:07)
What's the flower?

**Shaan Puri** (2:09)
It was like our insider's joke. And we, in the email, we would be like, this young kid who just raised a bunch of funding, he's gonna be one of the greats, like Elon, like Steve Jobs or Hoobastank, or you know? Slip it in.

**Al Doan** (2:22)
Wait, would people notice? Would you get replies like, what the crap are you talking about?

**Sam Parr** (2:25)
Every once in a while.

**Shaan Puri** (2:26)
So I put it on my LinkedIn, I put that I'm the webmaster of the hoobastankfanclub.com.

**Al Doan** (2:32)
When you endorse a skill, it's like hoobastanking.

**Shaan Puri** (2:35)
Well, and when I wanted to make a joke with someone, I would email them from sam at hoobastankfanclub.com.

**Al Doan** (2:40)
You owned it, of course you owned it.

**Shaan Puri** (2:41)
Yeah, I still have it.

**Al Doan** (2:42)
What?

**Sam Parr** (2:42)
I still have it, keep renewing it.

**Al Doan** (2:46)
That's $9 for a great joke, that's still going.

**Shaan Puri** (2:49)
Wait, so dude, you gotta give your intro. Who are you?
What would you say you do?

**Al Doan** (2:53)
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm Al Doan. What do I do?
Not as much right now. I just shut down a software company. I own the executive chairman of Creativity, Inc., which is, it's got a quilting company, a big quilting company and a knitting company and an art company. A lot of stuff in that space.

**Shaan Puri** (3:14)
Dude, you're so bad at telling your own story.

**Al Doan** (3:16)
What you just said to intro, this isn't my story. You want me to tell the hook?

**Shaan Puri** (3:20)
Yeah, I would say I started a quilting company called Missouri Quilting.

**Al Doan** (3:25)
Missouri Star Quilt Company.

**Shaan Puri** (3:26)