hey friends we're back with another episode of the fulfilled podcast this time we welcome Casey schultes the founder and front man of he would love first here how a simple answer to a famous question would birth a movement with today's generation stick around this is one episode you won't want to miss all right man before we get too uh too much into the details I know that you guys are expecting your first so tell me at this moment What's going through your head oh man very excited very nervous scared just um I think I'm I'm really close to my sister and brother-in-law and they have you know a I think almost two-year-old and we've got to be really close to them and so just seeing like how amazing having a child is like I don't I don't know if there's anything better so I'm super excited and you know a little backstory as well is we um actually went through a miscarriage um beginning of last year and so I think you know when you first find out that your wife's pregnant it's like what does this mean and I you can't even like wrap your mind around it and then I think that going through that type of loss was like I don't know it gave you a whole different perspective on like what it means when you know there's a little person growing in in your wife's womb and just craziness of of life so I'm so excited we're so thankful and pregnancy is hard not for me but for my my wife you know and so um it's been a long journey but like obviously especially like I said when you go through you know a miscarriage um you're so thankful for the all the Pains of pregnancy because it means that you know you're it's it's it's happening so super excited Super thankful and just yeah so excited what's the countdown we've got March 8th is the due date um gotta figure out a name okay baby boy so we had like three girl names ready ready to roll and then we I was a boy and we're just like I got nothing so we got we got to figure that out a lot of pressure I have issues you know ordering my coffee making a decision on that so picking a name is GNA be tricky well you just think about in the future when he orders his cup of coffee from Starbucks or whever what's gonna be the name on to see that's what I gotta think about those things that's right maybe just do some mockups and just see what what look right so exactly I I've I had the pleasure of knowing you for a little while uh I'm I'm I love your story I'm a big story guy and just to hear how you know God took you down this path probably unexpected path that you were kind of set out to do but for for those that haven't heard your story you are a founder of he would love first to tell me go go back to the beginning and just tell me um how that happened and where that took shape yeah crazy crazy it's almost seven eight years now um yeah I I played soccer Georgia State I had a lot of um friends from overseas obviously um a lot of soccer players come from you know different countries and stuff to play and so I remember a specific time in school you know as a Christian on a on a sports team in locker rooms and stuff you're always trying to work in conversations about the gospel and how do you do that and things like that um but I remember one specific week there were like some hate preachers on campus that were you know yelling at my teammates in between class and stuff and in the locker room they're all talking about it and what they were saying and just terrible things um and then that same week uh I was wearing a wwjd bracelet and one of the guys asked um what is my wwjd bracelet stand for and I grew up in the Bible Bell everyone knows what wwjd is so I was like caught off guard like stand for what would Jesus do you know and I could see his mind kind of churning like is that is that it you know like I don't know what you do you know and I thought he was gonna ask me what would what would Jesus do you know like keep going and uh so in my head I was like how do I just kind of lead in into the gospel like what Jesus did while we were still Sinners you know he loved us when we couldn't love him um he bridged that Gap sin separated us you know so I'm just trying to Quick you know what am I going to say he didn't ask the question but I kind of left like seems like I grew up my whole life hearing you know what would Jesus do or seeing that that bracelet or question whatever but it hasn't necessarily had anything um hasn't really been used to like maybe start a conversation about the people or with the people that don't necessarily know what Jesus did and what the cross is and what the cross means and while we were still sinners Christ died for us um because of his great love for us you know and so um we were like maybe we could start conversations with the people around us just with that simple you know reality and so we had a couple bracelets made and like started passing them out um teammates classmates things like that and we were actually able to like really start conversations you know like Point people back to the Cross um and it was super cool like all of a sudden we were getting these conversations that we would try and you know get into um were coming like more naturally and so we're like let's maybe we should get more bracelets you know and so we we ran with that a little bit and it just kind of kept you know progressing and so we kind of realized we had something to run with and so that's you know kind of turned it into make clothes you know so it's obviously on the mission to kind of start conversations through clothing and bracelets and things like that um to point people back to the cross and um so conversation and use what was a famous bracelet movement for you know in the of use that huge platform that's already there to just point people back to the cross and U talk about you know what he did while while we were Sinners so well that story never get crazy uh yeah it's been it's been a journey you know so but it's been fun so this is an assumption but I'm I'm guessing you're so you're play soccer at Georgia State right and I'm guessing at that point you had limited knowledge on the manufacturing process and then seven or eight years ago I mean now you could whatever you want you could go find it online on uh find a manufactur it's it's a a lot easier now to go and and Source the things that you need but tell me what was that like when you're like hey I have this idea to make this BRAC tell me yeah what was that like for you and how how hard was it to accomplish what you were looking for yeah um yeah and it's what's kind of cool about the stories too is like I was never or like I wasn't really like this is a good business idea and like let's go see what our margins are and what's our go to market strategy and things like that like I said it was like this would be really cool I don't know if anyone's ever used the bracelets like this you know what would it look like how much would it cost um and so yeah just started searching online funny story honestly I looked for 15 minutes excuse me and um couldn't find anyone and I was like cool whatever like this fun idea and um my mom my mom kept looking and find found a manufacturer that could customize these bracelets and so she found she's like hey let's talk to these people and I was like all right I guess I will do it so it would have been done 15 minutes in if my mom hadn't kept looking but yeah just kind of looked online you know just Googling like crazy for 15 minutes till my mom did it but um yeah no idea about any manufacturing and what that looks like um just Dr Goo searching around thank God for the moms right they don't give up on us exactly so well um this is random did are you have you switched manufacturers since that day um yeah well I think we have I think that it came to a point where we had to say like hey we need a little bit something different and they were like you know I mean maybe six months in they're like we know another manufacturer that does similar but can you know do what you're looking for but since then yeah we've been with the same manufacturer for the longest time sozy it's pretty crazy like I've been yeah with them for a while so I've been in the creative space that's been kind of my career path as you know graphic designer eventually become creative director and then owning a creative agency at one point um and it it's it J changes the the older that you get but you know when I see my work out in the public it's still is kind of like oh I think it's sweeter for me now as a dad I'm like hey Daddy got to work on that you know like there's we rebranded a big uh logistics company we'll be you know six hours away and I'll see that logo that I you know worked on painstakingly like driving down the interstate so it's really cool but um I I see your bracelets everywhere now like I I'm still I'm not just doing this for the podcast I rock mine here um but like going through like Chick-fil-A I'll see somebody rocking it and I think about you all the time tell me what is it like uh personally but even like spiritually um what is it like seeing seeing your stuff in the wild yeah I mean it's still it still has that like surreal feeling because I mean as you know like I was there when we were licking envelopes and like had no idea writing everyone's address and trying to figure out what it looks like to ship things and just from the very beginning um and so seeing it now I just like I still have that picture of the first the beginning and so it's still just like unreal you know like proof that like God has his hand in it because it's not like you pick some guys that are some marketing or business gurus like literally we had no idea so proof that we it wasn't like some skill or knowledge that we had we just kind of were available so just available for what guy wanted to do right yeah yeah so but yeah super super surreal still when I see it so um any big names that you know of rocker gear um I think Tim TBO wore it for a while we were pumped about that I'm a Georgia fan but I'm still AO fan but um I think I think Justin Bieber had the bracet on for a little bit we have a picture of that yeah um Lauren dagel I know she wore it for a little bit maybe still wears I don't know yeah but we've seen a couple a couple pop up you're like wow that's crazy pretty cool huh they came across it yeah so that's awesome so uh more on the business side as a e-commerce um founder business owner what would you say you know seven eight years in what's been the the most challenging part of running the business and what's been the most rewarding the most challenging part I would say I mean I guess just kind of like I said like we had we had no idea it's not like we were like okay here's what we have to do and then and just go do it all it was like you're figuring out what you have to do as you're doing it you know like I growing up you know I played soccer and I you know focused on school and so it was like I have to show up at this time and I have to run these Sprints I have to do this drill or I have to study this and it's all in front of you um and you you still have to apply yourself you know to Crazy levels and work really really hard but then if you just took out like you have to figure out what you have to do and now like figure it out and do it at a high level it was just like you know we lived in one of the guys like his parents let us like stay in their basement and like fulfill everything out of their house and so we're just like living in this basement paying minimal rent trying to figure out you know like what do we do how do we what's the next step just talking to people um and so I think just kind of working that out just being like we don't know what we're doing we don't even know what this next step is but we're gonna we're just going to figure it out um so that kind of unknown of like this could very easily fail like we have no idea that this is a sure thing that's going to work out um might need to get a job next month who knows you know um so just those times of like man we don't we don't know what we're doing um and Keeping the Faith and like believing in like I believe in this I want to do it I'm going to apply myself work really hard and having that faith that you know it'll it'll work out and just learning every day so and then most rewarding I mean I think the fact that I mean it was four of us that started it all you know really good friends and then another friend of ours runs our social media and we knew her in in college and she we literally in college we're like we don't we're not really good at social media do you want to run it and so now she has a social media agency she's like continued in that so just growing it um as a friend group and a family and learning like I said going through that whole process of you know when when you're working with people and you don't know if you're getting paid and you know how what we're gonna be doing next month you know you got to have a good Bond if you have disagreements you got to figure out how to get over those disagreements quickly and so like we've learned how to fail together you know like we've learned how to have disagreements together and know what um what hill to die on and when to say like okay you can you you decide on this I'll decide on this and so now we can have disagreements on whatever it is but it's not a falling out you know we've already had too many times too many ups and downs together to to let some little disagreement be bigger than it should be so just growing with with people and seeing God take it um just use our availability to to run with it that's probably the most rewarding is um just that whole process with friends and family that's awesome there's two things that I kind of really took from that I love that you mentioned the girl that you went to college with you guys went to college with how you saw um kind of a gifting in her and how like it kind of goes back to that you know 15 minutes in you couldn't find a manufacturer but if it wasn't from your mom seeing like this Vision in you and it may not be here same way with this this young lady too like if you hadn't asked her that would she have this I mean maybe God would have brought her there anyway but it's cool just the progression of like hey I see this and this person can they help and now they're not only like doing a good work for you but they're also like fulfilling that thing that God put in them like early on so I love that and then love the just realization especially with your buddies like you know you hear like never going into business with your friends because it doesn't end well yeah but the fact that you guys have have sent hey is this really worth you know destroying what we have and what we've worked for so I love that and that's a uh I think a good segue so if you could speak back to casy seven years ago so I'm really thinking about people that are starting a new e-commerce business uh maybe they're about to start just start or maybe a few years in what what wisdom what's what were some nuggets that you would share with them today yeah um I mean be available you're gonna have to learn a lot you know you have to every I mean still today it's like you have to have the mentality of like I could learn something today that will make a huge impact you know on what we're doing what we're trying to do in every uh facet of business and stuff like that so if you think like oh I'm not ready I need to learn more before I can start you know stepping into things like you're you're never going to be ready you know I mean you'll probably be more ready than I was but um yeah you're gonna you're not going to feel ready you just have to start like taking steps and learning and making mistakes and learning from mistakes um yeah and then I guess as far as like team wise like they say don't go into business with your friends I think I mean people ask me now like if you could do it again like how would you have done it and and is it do you would you go into business with your friends and I mean it's easy now I guess because we went through those hard times and now we're at the the other side of it it's like yeah of course you know but I mean I really do like if we had failed we would failed together we would we succeeded we succeeded together and and we were in business with people it's like you know I I wouldn't change it you know I would I went to battle I wanted them to succeed as much as I wanted myself to succeed I wanted you know all my guys to to be able to do it full-time and be successful as much as I did you know and their families I'm close to their families and so you know picking people that like you want to fight for and you're okay with failing with you know like having times where like this is really hard they're going to have my back I'm gonna have theirs and that you know compliment you there things that you know one of my business partners Jared that he has skills that if I was in charge of our warehouse like it would be a disaster you know and maybe he would say vice versa if he was in charge of more product stuff it might not be as well you know whatever but we all have skills that kind of like complement each other um and so I think picking a team like that that you know it doesn't have to be your friend and it doesn't I don't think it doesn't have to not be your friend just go find someone random but having people it's like they compliment you and we're on the same Mission you know we believe the same things um and you know we love the Lord and that's we're brothers you know so um those are probably two big things like you got to be willing to apply yourself maybe like you've never applied yourself before and learn every single day and for me you know having a support group and a support system around you that you know you can Bounce from bounce back from failures and succeed with um and kind of you know keep you levelheaded and stuff like that so that's great wisdom I remember my wife and I went into business together and then we you know the there's a multiplication thing you have one kid then when you had we blinked and we had fours and my wife was a little more limited and then yeah I was really like looking for a partner at that point and a few of my friends that I would approach about partnership I think they were hesitant because they didn't want me to give away something unnecessarily and one asked like why why do you want me to come on and I said I just need somebody to like fight and grind with because it's it's a lot and doing that alone is a lot so hearing you speak to just having someone that has your back that can go through the ups and downs together that's that's huge so that's great wisdom so uh so he would love first what's uh what's the future look like for you guys yeah I mean again like I said we're still learning still trying to figure out you know tons of stuff every day in the direction things like that I think the last two years has been like you know we're growing we're figuring out you know where we're at and what we're really trying to do and and nail down our strategy and a bunch of stuff that we feel like you know we've grown quickly and now we're just like okay let's figure figure out how we can you know have our model that's not you know necessarily has to grow at a certain rate um and you know who can we partner with who can we um Ministries that we can do you know more work with and then how can we expand and add some um you know other other brands alongside what we're doing you know we've gotten to a point we've been able to delegate a lot of roles to our warehouse managers and Warehouse team that just crush it um help us a ton so we're kind of like you know we've been doing this for seven years um are there kind of like sister brands that are similar but you know different um that we can we can step into and kind of grow um and then there are other people that we can help as well they're you know on the same Mission as us that we can kind of um give some of the you know Insight that we've learned if if there's like us seven years ago there's so many things that are just seem simple but you know we've just learned through trial and error that we could pass on to people who are in it right now so kind of Step stepping into you know maybe that coaching or not even coaching but just you know trying to help you know people in the same position that we were in that's another yeah great piece of wisdom there so that's awesome so we're getting closer to the end we have a big question that we like to ask everybody this is called the fulfilled podcast so what does uh being fulfilled look like for you I think um man that's a big question isn't it um I think being because what's hard about it is like sometimes you can feel not fulfilled because you want to grow and you want to learn and you have that mental you know all your life you're like today's the day I'm G to get better and all these things and also having that balance of like contentment like like I can look at where we are now and be like you know we could be doing this so much better and this so much better um but at the same time I can look back and be like gosh a year two years six years ago this would have been I wouldn't have been able to even imagine like how well this is going so having that perspective like contentment like Lord You've like provided for me in a way that I could I didn't even dream of um and balancing that like I'm I'm available and when it's time to step I want to step and I'm I'm I'm ready to work and you know put my nose down and but also having the balance of like if I never do anything else again and I have to give up and I just do something new with you and that's what you have for me I'm content with like how you've provided for me um I think that's a balance of you know fulfillment that I've had obviously just being able to do all that with family and and in community um but yeah sometimes it gets too lopsided you're like I'm ready to grind I'm ready to work I'm G to start five new things and the Lord will be like just slow down and realize how I've taken care of you but then if you get too content you know on the side of like he has something that he wants you to step into and you're not you know available kind of like the parable of the talents you know sometimes there's times that you're called to step and if if you're too lazy or whatever you want to call it then you might be missing out on you know something God has for you so I think having people in your life that um can speak into that and be like I think you know you you have the capacity to step into this or you need to pull back and you know spend more time you know with your family or whatever it may be um yeah that balance of just being like Lord search me know me tell me when to step and when to slow down um and just contentment and availability so that's so good and I resonate especially as a business owner entrepreneur I feel like I have five new ideas every day and as I've gotten older there's some Seasons where God's just like every door that I try he just shuts it down and thankfully he does before I get too far then yeah other Seasons it's just like he's just it's just like you can't move fast fast enough to you know exact exactly yeah to be that so and just I mean whether you're slowing down or speeding up like feeling like you're doing it with him and and you know being obedient like that's you know you could start something and fail but if you feel like you've done it with him and obedient um then you're GNA be fulfilled because that's the main thing so um you know for those that want to kind of keep up with he would love first and what you guys are doing what's what's the best way to do that um our Instagram is just at Hew would love first website is he first.com um and then my Instagram is Casey schultes 14 um so yeah those are the main the main ways awesome man well I know again as being in business you know how limited your time is um so I know you especially with the holidays you got a lot going on so just want to say thank you for being with us today opening up your heart and just sharing some goodness with us today dude thank you I always love talking to you so thanks for having me.