Another small business success story we thought was worth getting inspired by:  

Originally Published by The New York Times

Katie and Wes Lyon, along with their college friend and business partner, Max Berry, quit their corporate jobs in March to work full time at their start-up, selling American-made American flags.

“We’ve seen exponential growth this year,” Mr. Berry said.

How much growth? “It’s not a number anyone believes when we say it, it’s so crazy,” Ms. Lyon said. She paused before answering: “4,000 percent.”

A year earlier, they weren’t sure their e-commerce business would fly. They started the company in late 2018 to “crickets,” Mr. Berry said. “We’re not one of those companies that turned our website on and orders flowed in.”

He and the Lyons originally thought handmade American flags sewn by American workers using materials sourced in America would be an easy sell. That’s what they had personally looked for, and couldn’t find.

“We had two options: We could buy it on Amazon or from a big-box store,” Mr. Lyon said. “And either it was imported from China — which is ridiculous to us — or, if it was made domestically, it is mass produced with cheap materials.”

They set out to create a better flag and found a production house in South Carolina that could make their star-spangled banners.