If You Can Make It Here

For more than a decade now, we’ve been talking about the changes
brought about by e-commerce and how fewer and fewer of us are
venturing out to malls and shops and opting instead of the
convenience of e-retail platforms.


As this brave new world of online shopping continues to evolve,
we’re seeing an ever-growing and fascinating landscape of
entrepreneurs who are using pieces and parts of the new
technology, mixing the old with the new, the virtual with the
real, and coming up with new iterations of retail.


Nathan Pearce is CEO of Pearce Bespoke, a Baton Rouge clothier
that is making custom tailoring more accessible, affordable, and
easy, by using some of the digital  tools that have made
e-commerce so popular to create old-fashion, handmade garments.


Pearce Bespoke offers tailor-made suits and separates through a
mobile shop. They come to you, get your measurements, and whip up
a designer piece of clothing for you in just a few weeks.


Nathan has been in the clothing business for much of his career.
He launched a custom T-shirt making business while fresh out of
college and founded Pearce Bespoke in 2021, which now has brick
and mortar locations in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette.
He is also franchising the brand and has more than 50 locations
across the south. 


If you listen to radio shows and podcasts about business, you’ve
probably heard entrepreneurs talk about the success of their
business, describing almost gleefully how they initially failed
before they made it.


Well, failure isn’t always as much fun as these success stories
make it sound. Not every failure is followed by success.
Sometimes it’s followed by a career change.


Take, for example, Conrad Freeman. Today Conrad runs the
fabrication lab in the LSU College of Art and Design. It’s a lab
where faculty and students can design and build stuff using a
variety of materials.


Before that, in 2020, Conrad founded Freeman Handcrafted designs,
which made contemporary furniture by hand for commercial and
residential customers. While Conrad’s furniture was beautiful,
the market for his high-end products was very small in Baton
Rouge and running the business was challenging, which is why he
left just two years after founding the company for the position
at LSU.


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the
Boulevard. You can find photos from thois show by Brian Pavlich
at itsbatonrouge.la.


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