You probably know that every year, IKEA invites children from around the world to submit their idea for a new stuffed toy to be sold at the store. The 2019 SAGOKATT collection has now been rolled out, and we love the results! We also love that the design giant is so committed to inspiring young people to be designers and to have creative outlets, and to be rewarded for it. We’re pretty partial to the Rainbow Kid in Socks! Which is your favorite?

When Kyle Strahl founded KEYLAY in 2008, his dream to use the creative process he loves to help people grow their businesses was finally realized.

KEYLAY started out as a one-man band. Kyle did everything, from designing to account management to billing, project management, client cultivation and more. He was motivated every day by being able to build every aspect of the business by himself.

But Kyle soon realized that to take the business to the next level, he needed to bring on help. He recruited talent from there to build the stellar team he has now. While KEYLAY is still a boutique design firm (which we’re proud of and count as an asset!), Kyle no longer has to do it all himself.

We found a kindred spirit when one of our employees directed all of us to a Reddit AMA by Jimmy Findlay Hickey, the founder of Findlay Hats. For the uninitiated, AMA means “Ask Me Anything,” where the writer tells their story and then invites the Reddit audience to ask questions.

Findlay is a Portland, Oregon-based company that makes uniquely designed hats that, as the company puts it, “fuse together fashion and function.” The hats stand out because they have laces and pockets, they tie in different styles and they have a lifetime warranty. They even have a patent on their “stampede lace” system.

Jimmy founded Findlay in 2013, when he was just 22 years old. The company has grown from a two-person team working out of a living room to a 12-person team working out of a warehouse. And they’ve done it with no outside funding, investors or famous influencers. Their customer base is 100,000 strong, and their hats are worn around the globe.

This line in the AMA stood out for us as well: “We stand behind our product, put our customers first, and are working hard everyday to build the greatest brand we can.”

That sounded very familiar to us here at KEYLAY! Different industries, but a similar ethos.

Jimmy ended up fielding over 150 questions and comments in the AMA.

We spoke to him about it and he said he was motivated to do the AMA because he had posted a photo of the three stages of the company, from living room to garage to warehouse. A lot of people saw it and started asking him to do an AMA.

“A lot of brands I look up to for inspiration have had their founders do AMAs, so it was cool to do that for sure,” Jimmy told us.

He said he “absolutely” enjoyed the AMA experience. Jimmy’s the kind of guy who will talk business all day to people who care about it — which sounded a lot like Kyle! Jimmy valued being able to share his experiences with people who were curious, and maybe even provide some guidance to aspiring entrepreneurs.

We had our own follow-up question for Jimmy though. He said in the AMA that he had had no formal business school training and that he learned through trial and error. We wondered what memorable errors he made in those early Findlay days that he learned from.

Jimmy said that when they first launched, they sponsored way too many athletes in one small town.

“By saturating the town with sponsored athletes, the actual top-tier athletes no longer wanted to be involved with us,” he said. “So we lost a potential Olympian due to that.”

He’s able to laugh about it now, especially since he knows — and we agree! — that you have to learn from your mistakes in order to improve.

We were also curious what the latest was on Findlay since Jimmy did the AMA earlier this year.

He told us they’re trying to maintain momentum, and that they’ve been working heavily on a video series with a Portland production company, so they should have some really exciting videos dropping soon.

Findlay has also collaborated with the X-Games, so that’s big news!

But Jimmy keeps his feet planted firmly in the ground and keeps grinding.

“For sure a challenge coming up on the end of our fifth year,” he said. “but love the intensity and using that to fuel our jets, onward and upward!”

We like to look out for interesting entrepreneurial stories like Jimmy’s at Findlay.

You start seeing threads through which to identify, no matter how different the business is or what industry it’s in. It’s so interesting to see how other businesses — especially small businesses like ours —have done it and compare it to our lives here at KEYLAY.

We’ll be keeping an eye on Jimmy and Findlay to see what they do next. And we’ll be watching out for other intriguing entrepreneurial stories we can talk about here on the KEYLAY blog. We hope you enjoy them, and that you get a little glimpse into what goes on here in the process.

And don’t be surprised if you see Kyle pop up with an AMA on Reddit soon to talk about the journey of KEYLAY!