#42 | Thomas Gleason: Buying an 1889 Boot Company

Two of the oldest names in cowboy boots, founded in 1900 and 1889, cost Thomas Gleason closer to $100,000 than $100 million.More on Thomas Gleason and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/thomas-gleasonHe never left the oil business. It still pays his bills, and it funded both brands: Olsen-Stelzer, founded in 1900 in Henrietta, Texas, which he bought in 2018, and Dixon Boot Company, founded in 1889, added in 2022. Neither came with a factory, meaningful inventory or a boot maker. He has never taken a salary from either one, and is now finishing a merger with a larger western boot company, stepping out of the chief executive seat and taking his first paycheck.The economics are refreshingly plain. Their alligator boot runs $5,500 top to bottom, and he says the identical boot from a bigger label sells for $16,500. The real edge is a three month turnaround on custom work when a Fort Worth competitor quotes 18 to 24 months. Western wear is a $60 billion industry growing 8 to 10 percent a year, and he expects the Taylor Sheridan effect to hold through 2029 or 2030 before it plateaus.Also here: the CEO candidate who took the offer letter back to his own employer, corporate boot orders as a channel, meeting Jane Seymour in a nearly empty airport club and putting her Open Hearts boot on sale inside a year, and Boots for Warriors, the nonprofit built around a boot maker in his 80s already making zippered boots for veterans with prosthetics.Thomas Gleason owns Olsen-Stelzer Boots, founded in 1900, and Dixon Boot Company, founded in 1889, and still runs his oil and gas business. A fifth generation Texan who started as a field landman, he founded Boots for Warriors, a nonprofit making custom boots for veterans with prosthetics.KEY MOMENTS00:00 He only wears his own boots now01:21 Oil and gas first, as a landman04:57 Olsen-Stelzer, founded 190006:31 Why custom boots do not scale11:43 The merger with a bigger brand21:13 Closer to $100,000 than $100 million32:21 $5,500 here, $16,500 elsewhere33:00 Three months against 18 to 2440:45 Boots for Warriors50:30 The Jane Seymour bootNewsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connectLane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElWFollow The Deal Table: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, XThe Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.Sponsored by Capital Southwest.