A Conversation with Jesse James

this is the spur leadership podcast I'm Mac Rashard and in this episode we're going to see how one man turned a business that he began in his mother's garage into a global icon Jesse James turned his passion for motorcycles and hot rods into the multi-million dollar world-famous iconic brand that is West Coast Choppers in addition he's going to share with us some of the pitfalls and mistakes along the way that helps shape not only his business but his life we sat down with Jesse at his workshop in Dripping Springs Texas just outside of Austin a shrine to craftsmanship attention to detail and the Second Amendment as he was forging Damascus steel into a Jesse James firearms pistol he shared how a troubled teen with a tumultuous home life became a household name from a very young age Jesse displayed an entrepreneurial spirit at eight years old he was running the concession stand selling hot dogs for his dad's furniture auctions a self-described punk kid with a rough home life Jesse found structure guidance and mentoring from his football coaches but it was ultimately his grandmother who had the greatest impact on his life I ran a concession stand at one of my dad's furniture auctions in California when I was like eight really yeah and I'd go to like stater brothers I'd buy hot dogs I bought a crock pot for water and bonds and then I'd sell them and like make a little profit on it what was your worst job try working a sizzler house the Busboys where you really yeah for like I don't know not even a month I think I was like 14 or 15 okay and I really honestly quit because I hated like the brown polyester pants that they made me wear early life was football like I didn't really have a tight family and like my parents were seventies family liked kind of post beatnik era they were before the hippies so kind of man his kids are a drag you know like that type of situation with a lot of seventies kids experienced and then so I my grandma was like force in my life till I was 12 she passed away which is still the most traumatic thing ever in my life football coaches became my like mentors and family and like and I needed it I needed the structure and needed to be yelled at and needed like to have the coach like ride up on my face mask it's yelling at me so much that he's spitting on me and every curse word in the book and all that but that's what I needed I needed that brutal structure I don't think you could do that with kids now your grandmother's passing when you two were 12 was the most traumatic thing that you've been through because you've got to live your life on this public stage yeah for a while now and so you know you've been open about going to jail about divorce about all these things but that was the thing that you feel like was the most traumatic I mean I've been through broken a lot surgeries and bones and car or motorcycle accidents and like but like losing like I just remember like I had I have one like story about her that's - probably my favorite I had the stepmom that was really young like I'm friends with her now but when I was like you know nine ten years old she was like 20 and my dad was like 40 and like yeah I hated her like I couldn't stand her and like she would hit me like she backhanded me one like I was late coming out football practice cuz I'd take a shower and I was like you know it's kind of a punk kid and she just reached over wham like belted me in the face and like I hit her back and like she got mad and everything and stuff got really heated and so I went home and called my grandma and told her to come get me and so where we lived was like the 91 freeway in California and I went outside and sat on this rock where I could see the freeway and I saw my grandma coming down the freeway in her little like Vegas station wagon just like not even touching the back of the seat like that and I remember seeing your like out in the park in the driveway just poking her finger in my stepmoms chest and then like that's yeah that's love my dad was there's some abuse and stuff like that which I've already like kind of tackled when I was 40 but like you know it didn't it's crazy life growing up like but for as much damage as it did it also did a lot of good because my dad worked me like a dog when I was a kid and didn't didn't let me you know his favorite thing is like don't have fasted you know do it all the way go do it again and yeah I remember just being like when I was a kid at his auctions you know he'd have me pushing furniture working the auction and they'd go to like 1:00 in the morning and I just remember as a kid like crying cuz I was so tired like I just want to go to bed I have to go to school and like he'd keep me out of school if he had a bunch of trucks to load or something come on I know I got a test no after that you're going with me to work yeah and like I had a lot of resentment for him forever just because now I'm a parent and like I couldn't even imagine like you know like what you know doing any of that stuff let alone jeopardy your kids well-being by putting your own freedom in jeopardy absolutely you know in it but it was the seventies and eighties so yeah that's kind of still wasn't a good idea but it was a different day and age yeah yeah for sure yeah so but taught me to work to the point of delirium I went to work for my dad my dad's friend Perry sands like roland Sands his dad and I was just working at the shop like building bikes and installing brakes and there's a real famous hot router name Bob outer came into the shop and got some wheels and brakes and we kind of asked me to do some stuff and whatever and we kind of struck up a little friendship he came in he's like hey have you ever heard of Boyd Coddington like hot rods by boy and I'm like yeah I know Boyd cars I don't really I'm a bike guy I don't really like $300,000 cars I don't really know he's like yeah well he'd like to talk to you about coming to work there and like I didn't really know like my dad then security yeah and then this is like the first like nine-to-five job I've ever had I remember they're paying me 15 bucks an hour and I had to ask my mom like was that good like him like that good pay and like I think I remember working at p.m. for a year and my pay was like 24 grand for a year really but I spent like 27 grand on parts as I was building bikes in my garage for friends and my own stuff but so he kind of put the bug in my ear about Boyd was interested in talking to me about coming to work at the hotrod shop so then a couple days later was my birthday I was at work and he's like come out to the parking lot I want to show you something and he gave me like he had I had a Astro van so I could haul bikes around and he had like four brand new like 17-inch like Boyd wheels and viola I remember opening the box it was like a 17 I was like whoa that thing's like huge how's it gonna fit so then it got serious so I had never quit anything before and I remember i wany and I asked another legendary hot rider named oil Gamal he good Christian guy he's like I went to him and he's Perry my boss's best friend okay and I said hey can I talk to you about something like Boyd Coddington just offered me a job I was 23 right offer me a job to go work at Hot Rods by Boyd I don't know what to do he's all if you don't take that job I'll never talk to you again and that's my boss's best yeah and so I I went in and gave notice I remember Perry cuz I grew up with him my dad sure to where house I'm real all shaky cheap like gave my notice and went to work for Boyd and it was like I thought I was the man cuz I had built a few bikes and I just actually bought one of the bikes I built when I was there no way back yesterday though yeah it's been sitting in a warehouse I painted it everything but I thought I was like the man like Oh build bikes people are you know people were the bikes I was building in my garage people would they didn't think I built it they're like what shop built that uncle I just build it and I have a shop in my garage yeah and if people are like no you got a professional shop dude though you didn't build it yourself because I was like Dickies white t-shirt kind of a punk looking kid and at the time that didn't right mesh with like crap high-end craftsmen those two didn't you know and I went to Boyd's and it just like opened my eyes like someone rubbed eucalyptus in my eyes to like wow like you can eat off of any part of this car the frame everything's painted no orange peel anywhere yeah and you can jump in and drive across country and Boyd and I really got along good because I was a man I was a soldier I was willing to work and go to Daytona go to sir just drive the truck build bikes go to SEMA like I was the ahlian hundred percent and then chip started like a little bit after and then then boy went public and then there's a Board of Directors and it kind of got weird no just and then while I'm working at Boyd's like the Fat Tire Harley craze started to hold in the like 93 94 and the only options for Harley's it was super crappy like fiberglass fenders right you know they were like this thick and I started when I worked at p.m. I started taking Taiwanese fenders I'd buy two and I cut them off set and I'd weld them together and I kind of learned metal finishing and we're finishing him and making wide tire fender kits well I figured out a way to spin I'm in big hoops and make my own yeah and while I was working for Boyd and I like took him to a friend of mine this is 92 93 and I took him the guys all yeah he worked for this distributor called custom chrome the guys named Skeeter but he's he's a real cool little Vietnam vet already that's like still a lifelong friend but we went and I took a truckload of them with my astro van to Laughlin Nevada because he was gonna be there from the East Coast and remember drove across the desert and took them and like showed them to him what I make salt because of how much how what do you have in he's like I add about seven hundred bucks a piece and then he's like I'll buy everyone you can make and so you're what like twenty five at that point twenty four twenty four twenty five and like I remember like I would work all day at Boyd's ten or twelve hours and then I would come to my house and I come home and then weld and build bikes and work all night and like it got to the point after two years at Boyd's I was like by 95 I was Boyd was paying me like seven hundred bucks a week which wasn't bad but I was shipping like fifteen thousand dollars worth a week to fenders to the distributor and I like I had to like I didn't want to quit cuz it was like the greatest yeah place ever but I finally had this like thing it was like a tiger by the tail and I was like I was scared that it I don't know I don't know what I was scared of but I just didn't think I don't know even though I had purchase orders and stuff like that I just was afraid that it wasn't real or something and yeah but I think when you're 24 years old and you start to see this thing happening there's got to be a part of it it's like is this gonna be real for long-term so the well to the point where everything had fenders as a reference oh my wife at the time or my kids mom we were married she needed a new like truck and I'm like it was like you know 26 grand or something like oh that's only 40 fenders yeah I'm like I know I kind of that but then I just and then Doyle gambled the guy that told me to go work for Boyd he rented me my first building and I remember like I was working in my garage for a minute after boys just like it took me an hour almost to empty everything all the bikes and all the stuff out of my garage to like the hackin Avenue shops like legendary like yeah I was painting in there everything like full of machine shop in a two-car garage Wow and that's where West Coast Choppers I mean it started in my mom's garage but then really like yeah and I remember for a couple weeks like in Doyle rented me my first building he had some property in North Long Beach and I remember okay now I have like an overhead yeah that I have to pay and I remember two weeks I was like like really nervous like what's gonna happen but fast Eddie and a guy named Jim Lily guard they were in my shop like the week first week I was there and I remember him like I heard him seen him elbow fast steady and I heard him say they didn't know I heard he's like he'll be out of business in a month really yeah and I'm just like okay all right yeah and I like a week after that I just got so overwhelmed with business and I bought tool every time I sold a bike or sold fenders or paid a purchase order I bought another tool yeah and some of those tools are in this shop yeah that I bought like and I just kept reinvest vesting and literally like I've been backordered since that day [Music] in just a moment Jessie's business savvy coupled with his artisanship gains the attention of a worldwide TV audience thank you for checking out the spur leadership podcast with Mack Rashard be sure and subscribe and while you're at it leave us a review or a comment you can reach us by email at podcast at spur leadership comm and you can also find us on twitter at spur leadership or on facebook at spur leadership it's the year 2000 and jesse has grown his garage operation into West Coast Choppers a respected icon in the motorcycle community it was during this phase that a chance appearance in a documentary exponentially expanded his business as well as his challenges 90s were crazy times and like add the shop at Paramount which we outgrew I was making a bunch of fent like air cleaners for mikuni corporation and I had setup instead of paying someone 20 bucks apiece to polish them I just bought a polishing lathe for a grand and hired two dudes to polish now I remember it was outside and remember we had a big order like a thousand of those things we had to make and it was raining and those tubes were out there polishing in the rain we started looking for places to go and everybody was like kinda moving to the fancier area well I still wanted to stay in Long Beach so I found this old building and I looked at it and I was like man we were never gonna need all this space and it was trashed it was like right where everything was still burned out from the LA riots and I took a chance and got it and like then we ended up having six buildings and a whole city block give me over how many square feet that first building was 10,000 and you looked at that and thought no way we'll fill it like this guy thing like you know I went from a two-car garage to two years at a 1,500 square foot building to 10,000 beefed up production bikes two stories inside bikes upper I was working on the mezzanine started getting all this crazy clientele and building like like several employees at that point I think we had probably 30 okay 20 years between 20 and 30 so successful yeah and like then tv-game I I think I'm hilarious I love it honest yeah like hilarious charming like across the board right every this is a great guy in general so I sat in the editing Bay the night before it aired and watched the whole show yeah now I say I think I'm hilarious and charming stuff but I'd never seen myself on TV maybe a little bike show interview or something but I dude I was like petrified I'm like man people are gonna hate me my shops gonna go out of business I should have never did this like they I can't believe that they film this with me and like didn't did it like this like they were supposed to show all that stuff I said so at one point of the documentary I just I got my tan tattooed pay up sucker because it seemed like everybody ob money and I'm chasing money trying to pay my bills trying to pay payroll so I took God on my bike and I rode out to point for everything out it over the ocean I'm just like kind of talking to myself either filming I like a man just tired I've been fighting like doing security work and fighting in school and fighting everybody I'm like fighting my whole life and now I'm like fighting to get paid and I just I'm tired I'm tired of trying to whip the world's ass and like well the night the show aired I'm working in the shop and Ike the phone rang so I had phone line in my work area and I answered names like hello so this Jesse I just seen your show and I saw were you like could said you were tired of kicking the world's ass I feel the exact same way man and like I just hung up and that's when I knew I was like man oh what a cool moment though to realize that what you're doing is connecting people yeah I'm never gonna meet in person but I never ever thought of myself is like what I do the what I am the what I say could like inspire someone yeah so yeah it gets me choked up and I think about looking back at how TV entered your life how did that because I think one of the things no matter what you do whatever leadership role you have you have to manage transitions yeah and and their transitions from when you're a one-man band to when you're a you know international conglomerate but all of a sudden you're everywhere how did that change the expectations on your business and how you operate a day-to-day uh well I was the only person on TV in the world that you could go right to where I work right hey Joseph McDonald's today let's go see them know like they could literally come in and so the first documentary aired during Daytona Bike Week and like instantly the next day there was like 2,000 people at my booth sure the shop turned into a zoo like it it really a lot of people changed around me not in a good way what were some of the things that you had to change and you had to learn about how to run a business with all that stuff going on well I did the smartest thing I thought I could so I married a porn star yeah I got a divorce and married a porn star that was awesome yeah good like to add some stability a status quo we have an awesome kid who sunny who's just amazing but and but yeah I made all the mistakes man yeah like you know and that's I think making the mistakes and pitfalls and tripping up and all that stuff is almost more important too busy getting sued that stuff's all more important to business than like oh yeah you know I got and they gave me money and I did investments and you know I put some of the money over here and then I counted you know did this bought this you know invested in this that's not business business is like going down you know a 200 mile highway with a giant speed bump every five feet yeah that's the real business I'm thankful for all of it you know all the drama and stuff that I went through because I couldn't be the man dad husband I am today if I didn't do all that stuff yeah if I didn't get up like from day one like I wouldn't be able to love the way I do because my Nana my grandma showed me and then all the trouble all the stuff that I've done everything adversity is like you know it's like being with someone that's never broken a bone yeah yeah like you you know what do you know what life and like playing hard and having funds like if you've never broken anything yeah and at the peak of the business how many employees did you have a hundred and eighty and change and how many do you have now twelve at this shop twenty something at the ammo company and six and Holland okay so so let me ask you this so when you think about hiring now because one of the things you know as a pastor finding the right people hiring the right people and keeping them but also everybody I talked to in whatever arena whatever field they laid lead in finding the right people and keeping them is the hardest part of the job of people that I know and talk to it got so big and Long Beach that like there was people today that we're working at Shawn like hey you can't be in here you got to get out of here and like I just started here I'm like you know I didn't even know people and bikes were coming going to customers that I had never met right and so when you hire now now I have a thing I have a system now that I do a trial ok so you got to come here on your dime make it here and now everybody those 12 guys that shop or none none of them are from Texas and they come here for a week even pilla in the office she came here for a week on her dime I'll feed you we'll put you up in a hotel but you worked for five straight days and show us what you can do and it's not just for us it's for them because they could like up heave their whole life move here to Texas thinking it's awesome then go to sixth Street and like whoa I feel old or like or like I I can't drink or like whatever it could they could think the town sucks yeah and it's I didn't know do that it would be a horrible mistake on their part it's still I think I was always so paranoid to keeping any void in cash flow coming that I would just grab whoever oh that guy you know so she stole from his other place or whatever and you get yourself into employee problems but now it's like a two-way street like it's an obligation okay I'm gonna hire you it's a responsibility for me like I have to make sure that guy is happy healthy has a healthy work environment and is like challenged so I cherry-pick people that I can push and I'm like don't even come here unless you want to be pushed because I'm gonna push you to become the like skilled person that you never thought you could be if you think about the people that work with you people that your response because I love the word that you use responsibility mm-hmm is there something in the back of your mind or maybe the front of your mind that you look at you go this is something I need to do better I think so I think every day I think of management and stuff like that if someone's not performing I look to myself like hey maybe I need maybe I need to make them a list of what they're supposed to be doing so they do it better and I can't not be friends with the people that work for me I can't think of employees as chess pieces and like a perfect example of that is Roger Penske and Rogers like a great dude and really best friends with one of the guys I mentored with for almost 20 years and like that dude's got huge companies and he'll have a Christmas party every year he knows everybody's first name and like hey Bill hey how's your sister is she good I know she was sick and like he's just those days it's like inspiring to like you don't have to treat people like there's some money like got like a hammer like bam bam seems bustard get another one you know like I can't ever do that I think it's like maybe that's why I've been able to accomplish great things is by I think how you treat people like my number one priority is like making sure those dudes get a paycheck they have food in the kitchen because we're so far away from the store and everything else and like I hate it right now cuz the shop is like huge and we started moved our paint in-house and so everybody's working on top of each other so like keeps me up at night knowing that those guys are in kind of a substandard work environment and I like wanna make it good for them so we're extending the building and like that book good to great has a quote that I always think about the writer that book says you know that success is like a bus ride like the object of the thing is to get all the right people on the bus and all the wrong people off as fast as possible and yeah that I remind myself of that win I have to let someone go but and you know I have guys that have been through like rough times you know personal problems divorce you know stuff like the hour they show up to work and they're teary-eyed they're like hard you know and like I don't work should be salvation you know you should be able to come in and do your job and escape from everything because you're so focused on doing something great that you should work shouldn't be like old moon all the stuff going on no I have to go to work no work should be like yeah that's where I go cuz that's what I do you know I've a lot of rough times and a lot of heartache and adversity and divorce and you know things like that and that I work through all of it you know that got me there so that's it that was Jesse James entrepreneur and founder of West Coast Choppers today Jesse along with his herd of French bulldogs and his wife Alexis run West Coast Choppers from their Dripping Springs home and run multiple businesses including Jesse James firearms Unlimited Jesse James culinary Jesse James ammunition as well as clothing and accessories sold around the world I'm Mac Rashard and this has been the spur leadership podcast you [Music]

Channel: SPUR Leadership

Views: 1,298,035

Rating: 4.8491974 out of 5

Keywords: inspiration, mistakes, Jesse James, leadership, Mac Richard, podcast, perseverance, grit, keep going, hard work, west coast choppers, Jesse James firearms, Jesse James Ammo, WCC, Monster Garage

Id: XL9NWrQpjPU

Length: 27min 46sec (1666 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2019