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Episode 17| August 30, 2023

From Goodwill to Goldmine- Thriving in Thrift Fashion w/ Nate Smidt

He Found a $3 Windbreaker Worth $130. A Year Later He Had a Storefront Downtown.

Nate Smidt came to Cal Poly with not much money and a simple goal: spend less on clothes so he could spend more on everything else.

So he started thrifting the Goodwill bins with his buddies. One day he grabbed a Stussy windbreaker for three dollars and looked it up. It was worth a hundred and thirty.

He was under twenty-one. So were all three of his business partners.

People laughed. He opened a store anyway.

In this episode of the Happy Healthy Hustle Podcast, Cal Poly student and thrift entrepreneur Nate Smidt shares how a resale side hustle became a downtown storefront, the doubters he pushed past, and the dad whose sacrifice he is only now starting to understand.

Someone’s trash became his treasure, and his customers’ too.

If you are building something before anyone believes in it, this one is for you.

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“They gave up their dreams to help us achieve ours.”

– Nate Smidt

Fast Skim & Timestamps

0:00 Meet Nate: A College Student With a Storefront
2:15 The Superpower: Multitasking a Full Life
3:55 Nobody Took Four Kids Under 21 Seriously
6:10 The $3 Windbreaker That Started It All
8:16 Cinderella Finds: Levi’s and a Prince Tee
10:48 Pricing for the College Customer
11:06 The Story Behind Every Piece
14:04 His Dad, and the Dreams His Parents Gave Up

Key Takeaways

A small habit can become a business. Thrifting to save money turned into a storefront.
Doubters come with the territory. Perseverance is what separates an idea from a store.
Look closely. Value hides in plain sight, a three-dollar windbreaker worth a hundred and thirty.
Be selective with the big money, and price for the customer you actually serve.
People buy stories, not just products. Every piece carries a history.
The people who sacrifice for us often do it quietly. It lands later, when we are older.

Three Petite Practice® Questions

1. What small habit of mine could be the seed of something bigger?

2. Whose doubt have I been letting slow me down, and is it worth the weight?

3. Who sacrificed something so I could chase what I am chasing now?

Transcript Chapters

0:00 Meet Nate: A College Student With a Storefront

[00:01:23] Nate Smidt: My name is Nate Smidt. I am going into my last year at Cal Poly. I am an agricultural business major, and I just recently opened up my own store in downtown San Luis Obispo. [00:01:35] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: You can immediately see the tie to the happy healthy hustle. A full-time college student running a store downtown, which is not an easy or inexpensive task.

2:15 The Superpower: Multitasking a Full Life

[00:02:15] Nate Smidt: My superpower is multitasking. I am not the best at it during a single day, but spacing out what I do across a week, between my duties at the store, school, my girlfriend, my family, and hanging out with friends like a normal college kid, being able to balance all of that in a week is super hard, but multitasking helps me make it a little easier.

3:55 Nobody Took Four Kids Under 21 Seriously

[00:03:55] Nate Smidt: The biggest challenge is that we did this so young. I have three business partners, and all of us were under twenty-one. When you start a business, everyone says do not do that, why are you wasting your time. One of the biggest moments I remember is walking into Bank of America to open a corporate account. The receptionist asked what we were there for, and when I said we were opening a business account, she laughed at me. Then Mr. Ramirez came out, and he was super cool. There have been multiple moments where people did not believe us because we are young.

6:10 The $3 Windbreaker That Started It All

[00:06:14] Nate Smidt: I came to Cal Poly without a lot of money and wanted to spend less on clothes so I could go eat with friends, surf, and do events. So I started going to the Goodwill bins with my buddies. One time I found a Stussy windbreaker, my favorite brand, for three dollars. I looked it up and it was a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty online. It is crazy how, if you look right, you can find stuff that people really want. A friend and I did a pop-up with clothes from our closets, made a little money, and thought, maybe there is a market for this.

8:16 Cinderella Finds: Levi’s and a Prince Tee

[00:08:16] Nate Smidt: Everything has just kind of worked out for us, we got the store within a year. One story: we bought a pair of Levi jeans off a guy who came into the store, big E Levi’s, which are a rarer form, and we ended up selling them for thousands. Another time a guy came in with old rock tees, including a Prince tour t-shirt, and we bought it for a little money and found it was worth a thousand or two thousand dollars. It is crazy what you can find.

10:48 Pricing for the College Customer

[00:10:48] Nate Smidt: We are very selective with how we spend the big money, on things like the Prince tee or the Levi pants. Then we are semi-selective into a price range our customers will actually buy. Nobody is walking in to buy a twelve-hundred-dollar shirt. We try to hit a thirty to forty dollar range for college students, when those pieces sell for sixty or seventy online. We want you to find something you actually love, not just a random shirt you wear on a Tuesday.

11:06 The Story Behind Every Piece

[00:11:06] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: What you are doing is a repurposing strategy, which is very green, and there is meaning behind each piece. [00:12:24] Nate Smidt: We think about that all the time. We had a jacket last night that we got in LA two weekends ago, dated 1944, with air force lines on the inside, and we wondered, was this an actual pilot, or a remake? We cannot ask the clothes, so we do not know. If clothing could talk, it would be amazing to hear the story.

14:04 His Dad, and the Dreams His Parents Gave Up

[00:14:04] Nate Smidt: Definitely my dad. Growing up he would always talk about different things, and I got the entrepreneurship characteristic from him. My parents had me when they were really young and went right to work to provide for me and my three little brothers. They gave up their dreams to help us achieve ours. That hurts, because you do not really get it until you are older. A year ago my dad started his own brewery, and twenty-one years later he is finally getting the chance to do what he wants. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and held down the pack while my dad worked out of state. [00:16:26] Nate Smidt: You can find us on Instagram at centralcoastbtg, and our website is centralcoastvintage.com. [00:17:36] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Thank you so much, Nate.

Meet My Guest

Nate Smidt

Founder of Central Coast Vintage & Cal Poly Student

Nate Smidt is a Cal Poly agricultural business student and the founder of Central Coast Vintage, a curated thrift and vintage store in downtown San Luis Obispo. He turned a money-saving thrifting habit into a storefront before turning twenty-two.

He runs the business with three partners and shares their story on Instagram at @centralcoastbtg. Find them at centralcoastvintage.com.

Meet Your Host

Dr. Christiane Schroeter

TEDx Speaker & Leadership Strategist

I’m Dr. Christiane Schroeter, TEDx speaker, leadership strategist, and host of the Top 1% ranked Happy Healthy Hustle Podcast. I help leaders think clearly, speak with conviction, and take the next step during change.

About Dr. Christiane

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