Al Doan ’08, is changing the face of his community in Hamilton, Missouri, with his family-based quilting business. Doan, who graduated with a degree in information systems and a minor in political science, was recently recognized by the Small Business Association with the 2015 Small Business Persons of the Year Award, for his fast growing and successful family company, the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
As the company approaches its seven year anniversary, Doan reflected on the start-up that grew from his “Mom doing some extra work,” to involving family, friends, and now the community of which approximately 200 are employed by the quilting company. Doan not only has several Missouri Quilting Company stores and buildings based in Hamilton, but he also owns three restaurants, and a hotel/event center.
Starting out with an idea to help their mom and dad work towards retirement, Doan and his sister Sarah Galbraith, bought their mom a quilting machine and a building to keep it in. Through this they began to offer small-scale quilting services to the community. Doan and Galbraith also teamed up with Doan’s former mission companion David Mifsud. From there, Doan tapped in to the online community by producing tutorials on YouTube, and the company grew to what it is today, being recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration, as well as receiving an award for Rural Economic Development.
“We had a lot of challenges,” reflected Doan, noting the struggles of a start-up business. “We couldn't afford to pay anyone a paycheck for the first year or two. My whole family worked for free for the first two years, and then we [partners] had another year for free on top of that – that's not easy. We had pretty dramatic tech issues as we tried to scale up, taxes and accounting were a learning curve, local community, real estate development, etc. There are a lot of problems we've run into, but it's not supposed to be easy I don't think. The struggle and the learning are what make the journey interesting.”
Doan sees the importance of community, network and mentors in achieving the company’s goals. “Management requirements and skills change dramatically from 10 [employees] to 25 to 70 to 110 to 150 to 200 and so on. Learning how to lead a team this size has been really tough, but thankfully we have great people on the team that help us figure it all out, as well as very meaningful personal mentors that I lean on heavily. We have to have the support of our community to succeed, and that's a big part of the story that we and our customers care about - the town making a comeback. We work really hard with our community to make this place amazing.”
Learning to lean on others, and how to make the most of a network and community, is something that Doan shares from his experiences at BYU–Hawaii. “The beautiful thing about BYU–Hawaii was that I could create educational experiences in whatever form I wanted,” he says. “I could take classes from ivy-league caliber professors and be challenged. Some of my favorite professors were people like Randal Allred, Troy Smith, Don Colton and Randy Day. They are some of the smartest people I know, and I still ask them questions to this day. I found a great mentor in then Assistant to the President Bill Neal who helped guide me in my career aspirations and expectations coming out of college, which was extremely helpful.” He added, “BYU–Hawaii has some of the greatest people I know, and if you get to know them, and work with them, and talk with them, it becomes a network of wonderful people all anxiously engaged in helping you succeed in life. Pretty powerful stuff if you take advantage of it.”
Doan emphasized these types of extra-curricular learning opportunities from the BYU–Hawaii community. “Discussions with professors outside the classroom helped shape my critical thinking, and experience in growing and motivating teams of volunteers [through work with SIFE, now Enactus] produced a network of friends and supporters that I lean on to this day.”
“What stays with you is how you learn, and then the network of people you interacted with. Most of my friends I found while doing projects for classes or volunteering. The ones I've stayed in touch with impressed me in some way or were supportive and helpful. This network stays with you. They go and succeed in their own fields and then we call each other with questions or for help. From BYU–Hawaii I have a network of experts in HR, data science, software engineering, legal, recruiting, and so on. It’s a network of friends excited to help me succeed.”
Doan points to other important aspects of the company’s success related to the “family-feel,” good humor and warmth of the company’s image. “Being a real person has made a huge difference for us,” he says. “We are honest and transparent with our employees and our customers. When we make a mistake on screen or in an order, we own up to it, and then we show you how we'll fix it. In quilting, this is a big deal.”
The Doans’ family company has made sure to share the benefits of their great success not only through the economic growth and employment opportunities that it offers the community, but also through charitable work. “We have a scholarship we offer to students in our local high school, we helped start our local Chamber of Commerce,” says Doan. “We also do work with charities: Quilts for Kids, Linus Project, Wounded Warriors, and many others. We donate fabric and quilts, and support groups that do the same. This is a big part of our big vision as a company and as people.”
As Doan contemplated the company’s most recent awards, he mused that the SBA’s 2015 National Small Business Award was “an incredible reward to receive,” he recalled. “To go to the White House and spend a day there, then getting Hamilton, Missouri, Missouri Star Quilt Company, and our names read from the podium, it was really surreal. We sat in a big room in the Eisenhower building after our reception and just wondered ‘how did we country bumpkins from Missouri end up here?’ It’s so humbling.”
To read more about the journey of the Missouri Star Quilt Company, click here.
Visit the company’s YouTube channel here.
