We we're recently interviewed by Market Place Money's Chris Farrell for a piece he put together entitled "how to build a second act business with your millennial kid". The article touched on some interesting points and was featured on Time.com and Next Avenue.

“It’s awesome working with my dad,” says Case Bloom, 30. The feeling is mutual, says his father, David, 58: “We are good complements to one another.”

From ‘You’ to ‘We’

The Blooms, and their business manufacturing highly-crafted messenger bags targeted at the DJ market, are a prime example. Before opening shop, David had spent his career in bag design and was director of travel products for Coach in New York City before he lost that job. When Case was in college in Nashville, studying business, he’d offer pointers to help his dad’s venture. “His logo was so bad. Horrible,” laughs Case. “I’d tell him, ‘You’re doing it wrong. Do it like this.’”

Eventually, Case says, it became “We should do it this way. The business happened organically.” Today, father and son each own half of the company, which has seven employees. David handles design and product development; Case is in charge of anything to do with the brand image and online sales. He’s also the one making frequent runs to Home Depot for the business’s factory and to the Post Office for shipments. “I have a different set of skills than my father,” says Case, who is also a part-time DJ.

When Kinship Is Friendship

One reason for the growing second-act-plus-child trend: surveys repeatedly show that today’s young adults generally get along well with their parents—and vice versa. “The key is an attitudinal shift in the relations between generations,” says Steve King, founder of Emergent Research, a consulting firm focused on the small business economy. “Boomers are close to their kids and the kids are close to their parents.”

Take Amanda Bates, a Gen X’er, and her mother Kit Seay, co-owners of Tiny Pies in Austin, Texas. “We’ve always had a close relationship, feeding off one another, finishing each other’s sentences,” says Kit, 73. They’d long wanted to do something together.

Several years ago, Amanda got the idea for making handheld pies from her son’s desire to take pie to school. So she and her mother began selling small pies, based on family recipes, in local farmers markets. They now sell them throughout the state, mostly through specialty stores, and opened a retail storefront at their wholesale facility in March 2014. Kit focuses on the creative and catering side of the business; Amanda’s in charge of the basics of running an enterprise. “The trust is there,” says Kit. Amanda agrees. “Yes, the trust is there. If she says something will get done, it will.”

Teaching Your Child Trust

Trust and complementary skills are also themes for Lee Lipton, 59, and his son Max, 25, and their Benny’s On the Beachrestaurant in Lake Worth, Fla.

Lee, the restaurant’s principal owner, came out of the clothing manufacturing business, moving to Florida after the Calvin Klein outerwear line he ran with a few partners was sold. He bought Benny’s a year ago. Max, who’d wanted to get into the food business, is one partner; the other is chef Jeremy Hanlon. Lee’s the deal maker, Max manages the restaurant and executive chef Hanlon handles the kitchen. “The three of us trust each other incredibly and when one person feels strongly about something we tend to do it that way,” Lee says. “Very rarely after talking do we disagree, and that format was identical to my past partners. I want to teach Max and Jeremy that closeness.”

For second-act family businesses, creating boundaries between work and home is advisable, but easier to say than do. Speaking about her current relationship with her mom, Amanda Bates says: “We used to go out together and have fun, go to garage sales, that kind of thing. Now, when we get together, the business always come up. Even at family dinners, we end up talking business.”

The Win-Win of Multigenerational Businesses

But in the end, it’s family that makes these businesses succeed.

Bianca Alicea, 26, and her mom Alana, 46, started tchotchke-maker Chubby Chico Charms. in North Providence, R.I. with $500 and less than 100 charm designs at their dining room table in 2005. They now have roughly 25 full-time employees and sell several thousand handmade charms. Alana is the designer; Bianca deals more with payroll and other aspects of the business. “It’s important to remember you are family,” says Bianca. “Things don’t always go according to plan, but at the end of the day you have to see one another as family.”

Intergenerational entrepreneurship, it turns out, can be a win-win for boomers and their kids. For the parents, it’s the answer to the question: What will I do in my Unretirement? For their adult children, working with mom and dad provides them with greater meaning than just picking up a paycheck.

Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor for American Public Media’s Marketplace and author of the new bookUnretirement: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and The Good Life. He writes twice a month about the personal finance and entrepreneurial start-up implications of Unretirement, and the lessons people learn as they search for meaning and income. Send your queries to him at cfarrell@mpr.org or @cfarrellecon on Twitter.

We we're recently interviewed by Nashville based Native Magazine about the founding of our company, the development of it, and the difficulty the interviewer, Jon, had finding our facility. 

Design is a odd balancing act, over reaching design statements may lead to an un-appreciated product, while staying with conventional design themes can be seen as unimaginative and boring. I prefer to break new ground by building on what has been, a historical perspective with the knowledge of how to make it contemporary. The fashion industry, it’s designers and retailers, are often at odds with one another. The retailers know what sold well last season and generally speaking they prefer , while designers want to create something new. I suppose this is why so many private label collections are put together by non-designers who design by credit card (buying bags to knock off and modify). The industry is alive with knock off artists, because the best predictor of what will sell is the recent sell through data. For me, I have come to terms with the sweep of history in Bag Design by understanding what the trends are doing, knowing what shapes are selling, and knowing bag construction well enough to add my own twist. I despise the knock off artist, but have accepted them as reality. As a mature designer, I am comfortable creating well constructed bags that are elegant in their own way. You can fake a design, but you can not fake design experience. We hope our friends and followers are drawn to the spare design statements with the combination of function and small touches of color that make our bags unique.

-THE BAG MESSENGER

The Vagaries of the fashion industry and the value of hindsight

I have been a participant and student of the bag industry for over twenty-five years. When I started in the industry my heros in the industry were Judisth Lieber, Bottega Vennetta and Myers. Myers has gone out of business, Judith Lieber’s company isn’t the same since she died and Botegga Vennetta remains strong.  Back then product was mainly made in the US and Europe. The designers (like Judith Lieber) designed product from the experience of being sample makers and were people that knew the history of bags.  In the in 80’s better bag price points started at $120 and topped out at $1,500 (with exceptions for exotics). Now remember, the majority of made those bags were made in high labor countries. If you were to go into any department store today those prices are in the main still viable; though the top end has continued to climb. The majority of manufacturers are now importers; mainly from China. You may ask what is lost in this bargain, the consumer gets a good value and importers are able to get able to get their products in a timely manner, plus make money. The losers in this picture are the economies and people of the countries like ours. Young design/entrepreneurs are less informed about the possibilities of new designs and it takes a lot more money to start a new bag company as an importer. There is a value in supporting companies like ours. You are not only making it possible for our family to make a living but you are supporting all the good people that we work with to pay their bills.

- David Bloom

Nashville Style in the BAG

David Bloom and his son Case definitely have the best-looking bags in J.J.'s coffee shop on Broadway- this despite the fact that we're surrounded by Vandy students and young professionals with their designer-brand briefcases and laptop totes.  Boom's been a "bag nut" for years, and says the first time he ever worked with a hide of leather he felt like he'd been reborn.  In the early 70's he befriended a Greek handbag-maker while living in Boston and studied the traditional craft with him and other skilled European artisans there and New York, knowing it was what he was meant to do,

    From these experts he learned the fine art of leather-crafting, based on complex European techniques passed down over decades.  "I leaned from a lot of the old school guys in the industry in New York" says Bloom.  "I worked side by side with the last of a dying breed, many of them survivors of the concentration camps, who do things in a way we don’t in this country today".

    His son and business partner Case interrupts, reminding me that true craftsmanship is a fading art, and that the few people who still practice those old skills have an obligation to take back what bags once were from the hands of the mass manufacturers and return them to a level of high craftsmanship and durability.  Which s exactly what their company, Tucker & Bloom, aims to do.

    Bloom has built a long career on his bag design and construction skills.  His first company, Bloom Fine Leather Accessories, produced a much-in-demand roll-top bag that made the New York Times fashion section and sold at Macy's. Henri Bendel, Saks and Neiman Marcus.  The small company (Bloom, his wife Dru and one additional employee) eventually closed when the births of their children Case and Maddie meant the couple couldn't keep up with demand.  During that period Bloom began working with handbag companies including Etra, Sirco International, L.J. Simone and Ishihara Industries, which held the licenses for Courreges and Valentino.  In the 1990's the family moved to Nashville, where Bloom headed the design team for Hartmann Luggage for five years.  Independently, he's designed for Valentino and Perry Ellis, at one point moving back to New York to work for Coach, heading their travel line in 2000.  Following 9/11 the travel industry slumped, however , and Bloom left Coach.

    In 2006, Bloom and his now- grown son decided to give it another go family-style and started Tucker & Bloom (Tucker is Dru Bloom's family name and Case's middle name).  Together, they decided to capitalize on David's exceptional design and construction skills and MTSU grad Case's promotional abilities, building a middleman-free business in Nashville.  The Key is e-commerce, which allows them to reach out to the community, craftsman to buyer, in the old world tradition-just online instead of in a private atelier.

    The target audience for the bags is wide, though common traits are discerning taste and the desire to differentiate themselves from the herd.  Bag designs are separated by lifestyle needs – work, leisure or travel.  Styles are not gender-specific; there's something to appeal to every customer.  Fabrics are both sturdy and attractive, with leather, cotton canvas and ballistic nylon in a wide assortment of colors.  Lush trim like calf-skin is obtained as food by-product from the agriculture industry.  Checking out the website, you'll find an exciting assortment of messenger bags, laptop cases and other bags suited to all urban and suburban professionals.  Neoprene product lines focusing on travel and leisure are expected to be available shortly.

    The Blooms are hoping their band becomes something the public is looking for, and there's every reason to believe that's possible.  The next step online will allow customers to customize each bag's color and materials.  There's no question that e-commerce has changed the way we live and buy, and Tucker & Bloom provide an example of the best sort of e-business. They make cutting edge products available to the public without a middleman, working from a very forward-looking model even as they revisit the old values of craftsmanship and design.  No brand name can give you that.

Published in Nashville Lifestyle Magazine June 2008 – By Stephanie Stewart