We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful DeAndrae Douglas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with DeAndrae below.
Hi DeAndrae, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
When I first started this company, my wife at the time had given me a book called “What’s The Big Idea” and it was a collection of short stories that detailed how major companies had to overcome certain obstacles on their journey to success and eventually becoming major well known companies. This book prepared me for what I knew I would have to endure in order to make it. I knew there would be obstacles and set backs from the very start and no matter how I would try to avoid these, something was going to happen out of my control that I would have to mitigate in order to be successful. I started viewing setbacks as a “rights of passage” as opposed to a “woe is me”.
This attitude allowed me to keep pushing through the rough times because my eyes were on the prize, but there was someone else that I always used as my inspiration to keep me driving forward toward my goal. It was my uncle. My uncle went to prison for a few years while I was young. He was all about making easy fast money and it cost him his freedom. When he got released, his employment opportunities would be limited so he became an entrepreneur where he had more control over his own destiny. He had the drive, determination and the resilience to bounce back from his past to now owning a million dollar company that he came up with by himself. This example is what I will always defer to when I start to feel the pressure from the outside in. He is my living definition of resilience so that is the main reason why I never quit when things get difficult.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Andahoodie is a firefighter owned company that specializes in making a unique style of apparel that can turn any outfit into a hoodie. I came up with the idea and patented it when I was on my way to pick up my son from preschool school about 11 years ago. It was raining and I had a nice waterproof jacket but it didn’t have a hood on it so I attempted to wear a hoodie under the jacket but couldn’t get my arms through the sleeves. It was in this moment that I began to think about a piece of safety equipment that we wear into fires that protect our head, neck, and ears called a flash hood. The concept was that this hood comes down to the chest but is worn under our turnout jacket. I thought to myself, if we can do that with safety equipment then why can’t we do the same with fashion and regular hoodies and it was then that Andahoodie was born. Why do we call it Andahoodie? We call it this because the product allows you to wear any outfit And-A-Hoodie. We wanted to it to be a name you would never forget so we named it after it’s function. Andahoodie has evolved from the time we first came up with it with just basic colors to now coming out with numerous patterns and colors as well as the ability to make custom orders and although we cater to individuals, our mission is to cater to schools and teams as a form of spirit wear and swag wear.
Our hoodies are perfect because it’s lighter than wearing a full hoodie but still uses the best parts of the hoodie. It allows you to custom outfits, it keeps the sun off of your neck, and it’s easy to remove when you are done using it. Athletes love it as well as hoodie lovers. Football players wear them under their pads and soccer players use them to warm up in and simply pull em off without having to remove your jersey when you’re ready to start playing.
As unique and effective as our current version is, we are starting to expand the line into using different fabrics and different sizes. Our current size is one size fits all but soon there will be a smaller kid version as well the use of lightweight moisture wicking fabrics for the summertime. The addition of the moisture wicking fabric will ensure a hoodie for all seasons.
Lastly, another part of our company we are proud of is our charitable giving. These were principles I was raised on that my mother instilled in me. I have family who are homeless so every year in the wintertime we donate a percentage of our sales in the form of hoodies that we hand out to the homeless to help keep them warm. Winters where I am from can be harsh so we see it as a blessing to us knowing that our product would be able to help people through those rough times.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
When I first started this journey I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I had no previous history of fashion experience. But what I did have was determination, drive, and a no fear attitude. You have to have these in order to move forward on your idea. If you don’t know something in this industry, you go and find the answers.
I took my hoodie prototype to someone who designed clothes for a living and had them make me a professional pattern. I then took the pattern to a patent attorney to protect the design, then went to the garment district to find fabric. Took almost all day to find the type of fabric I was looking for and we finally got it, we googled where the nearest fabric cutter was, and walked about a half mile with these huge rolls of fabric to their office. We walked in there, no appointment and they asked us what we needed. I told them I wanted to get hoodies made but I needed my fabric cut. They asked for a marker (a roll of paper that has your pattern evenly spread across the fabric so the cutter can cut it) I told them
I only had a pattern and not a marker so they used the pattern to hand draw a marker. I then asked if they knew any sewers and they say they did and sent the pieces there after and notified me when every thing was done. This was my official first batch of Andahoodies and from there we kept expanding.
In this story above we exhibited all the traits I mentioned but we have also given you the process of how fashion works in general if you have ever thought about starting your own line. You don’t have to run through the streets of downtown with rolls of fabric on your shoulder like I did because there are companies that will do everything for you from prototypes and patterns to final products and production, but I wanted to experience everything myself because I felt like I had more control over my own product this way.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I have always resisted the urge to feel like I would need a celebrity or a sports star to make Andahoodie well known because I wanted the hoodie to speak for itself. To a degree it has and judging from the sales we have made up to this point without any help from big namers, I think it’s perfect in that it allowed us to expand based on our capabilities to produce as needed, but you eventually get to a point where you want your brand known everywhere. It’s hard to do this without a major advertising budget so the next best thing would be to hope that someone with a large following sees it, likes it, and wears it not only at home but in the public space and lets others know about it.
Someday this may happen but in the mean time we have to keep hustling on the ground level and can’t put all of our effort in the hopes that a big name individual finds us. We believe in our product and if we believe in it then others will too including those who have already, like schools, youth and adult sports organizations, clubs, other fire departments and so on.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://andahoodie.com/index.html
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andahoodie/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/andahoodie/
Image Credits
Photos Taken by Priscilla Ellerbrock, Charles Sells, and Christine Wilson
