Advice for New Entrepreneurs

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Welcome to the Business Gay podcast where we talk about all things business, marketing and entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Calan Breckon, and on today’s episode, I have founder and CEO of Gaddies, David Morgenstern. Gaddies is the brand doing fatherhood the gay way. Inspired by his own experience as a dad, Gaddies mission is to build community and celebrate gay dads through physical products and digital storytelling. Before launching Gaddies, David held global leadership roles in apparel and supply chain at Nike, as well as leading their Global Pride employee resource group. Prior to Nike, he built a career in financial services before receiving an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. I’m excited to chat about being a new LGBTQ+ entrepreneur in today’s current political climate with David. So, let’s jump in.

Hey, David, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing?

[00:01:37] David Morgenstern: I’m good. I use my fancy Beyonce shampoo today. So we’re feeling good and ready to. Ready to do this, Ready to rock.

[00:01:43] Calan Breckon: And ready to dive right in. Awesome.

[00:01:45] David Morgenstern: Yeah, exactly.

[00:01:45] Calan Breckon: I’m excited. So because, like, you’re a fairly new entrepreneur, you’ve not been in this for a long time. So I’m excited to talk to somebody who’s coming in a little bit more fresh eyes. What inspired you to start a brand and a brand that’s focused on gay dad specifically?

[00:02:03] David Morgenstern: Yeah, certainly a lot of it was sort of my own experience of becoming a parent and feeling ignored in the marketplace and trying to figure out, what is that? What does that mean? And we exist, I think specifically in my professional and sort of personal background. I’d done a lot of work in the queer community outside of being paid for it. And so I knew my next step. I wanted to do something that was combining my two favorite passions, being gay, being a dad. Wasn’t sure what that was going to look like. And then really it was the inspiration of the use case. I was at the park one day. I think a lot of what happens as a gay or queer parent is you’re always trying to figure out like, are they gay, are they queer? You find reasons to go talk to them and then they’re not. They’re just hipsters with, with earrings. And so I sort of had this moment of inspiration of like, what if we had this, this logo, this badge, this signal. Right. That we could sort of wear out to find community and connect in the real world. And that was the moment where I said, hey, I have this background in the apparel space. I have this background in business.

No one is doing this in terms of saying, let’s build a brand, let’s build a company directly speaking to gay dad. So let’s change that. That was the first thought. Then I spent a lot of time playing around with different names and trying to figure out what do you call it? And you know, came up with, with Gaddie’s, with the help of some friends. And then you really were able to say we can build an identity around this community that didn’t exist before and speak to it in a new way.

[00:03:28] Calan Breckon: Yeah. I have to admit, I really do love the name brand because it’s just, it’s kind of perfect and having it as like a little bat signal to people. But hey, we’re over here. This is the safe space face y.

[00:03:41] David Morgenstern: And now we hope the trademark office feels the same way. So if we can put some, some well wishes out there, that’d be great.

[00:03:47] Calan Breckon: Yeah, fingers are crossed because that’s kind of what we’re talking about in this next little bit. Like it’s, it’s no surprise. There’s no shocker to anybody out there that times are a little tumultuous.

So as you’re starting this queer focused business in today’s environment, what concerns do you have and what steps have you maybe taken to safeguard yourself and Gaddie’s.

[00:04:07] David Morgenstern: Yeah, I mean very real and legitimate ones. Right. So I think I started working on this in fall 2024. So there was a little bit uncertainty of hey, what, what’s going to be happening here? But I mean the reality is from the very beginning I was like, should I be using a pen name? Right. Do I want to be putting my name on something? So clear. And my mother in law, she writes pirate themed romance novels and she uses a pen name. Yeah, exactly. So plug for her and that. Um, but there was very clear of like, hey, I’ve got a pretty, you know, unique last name. There’s not a lot of us out there. There’s a lot of. Of scary things that can be happening and. And had to have some real conversations to say, this could either be the scariest time to be doing something like this, or it could be the most exciting time and sort of talk myself into the latter. And then once I made that decision, there were a couple of clear steps that I took. And obviously, I’m not a lawyer. This is not legal advice, but, like, things that I did that I think helped. The first one absolutely is finding community. And I know that you’ve had Kat from Fam Connect on here before, but, like, where and how are you able to connect with other queer business entrepreneurs that could be organizations like Fam Connect? It could be your local LGBT Chamber of commerce. So I joined that in the fall, and that’s been an amazing way to sort of connect in with the business community. I know not everyone’s going to be living in a city that may have an active one, but there are also national organizations depending on your city and region. So figuring out what that community looks like, there’s groups like Queer Design Club. They’re online. Figure it, because then you can go and ask these questions, and you’re not the first person to be asking it. And you’re also getting feedback and information from people that have been approaching it in the same one. So that’s sort of step one. I think step two is the reality that anything that’s online, people can find out. So it’s not really about, like, hey, how do I hide my information for safety? But it’s more how do I create a couple levels to, like, shield it and try to at least make it a little bit more difficult? So certainly running things through a business type, you know, whether it’s an LLC or something, that’s completely separate from your own. Your own personal entity. And actually, I think, like, coming up with your LLC business name is half the fun of becoming an entrepreneur. So figuring out, like, hey, what do I want to be called? And what do I do? So that’s one piece, you know, thinking about things like a P.O. box or a virtual mailbox. So everything that’s connected to Gaddie’s does not come to my personal mailbox. Right. You can’t go online and easily figure out, hey, where does this person live? Because, again, you sort of have to think through. There are a lot of really unfortunate things happening right now, and people have very strong feelings. And so that’s another clear step. Third one is definitely getting an understanding of if I ever would need a lawyer, who would I go to? Right. So starting to do some research around maybe LGBT law groups in your area again, figuring out sort of looking that on and it’s having that ready so that when you may need them, you’re not trying to do the research in sort of a frantic state, but you feel prepared and you feel ready to put those pieces together.

[00:07:01] Calan Breckon: Yeah. Those are three really, really fantastic points and tips. I really like talking about the first ones. Famm, Cat Love Cat. And then also the NGLCC is a fantastic organization. I’ve gone to their conferences two times now. And then another one is also startout is another great entrepreneur access point. And so, yeah, plugging into those definitely helped me on my business journey. So anybody out there listening? Definitely. I know lots of people from this podcast have gone to cglcc, nglcc and like figured those things out. So really great start. And yeah.

[00:07:34] David Morgenstern: Cause I think those are also things that will mean something to the people you want it to mean to. Right. It’s like if you go to my website, at the bottom you have the, you know, you have the logo saying like, hey, this is NGLCC certified. And that’s not going to mean anything to most people, but the people that I want it to feel connected and seen. That’s a lot of what you’re. You’re sort of putting together.

[00:07:51] Calan Breckon: Yeah. And that, that helps kind of bring you into a space where other people have already learned ahead of you. And you don’t need to reinvent that wheel. They can show you be like, don’t do that. Or like, maybe you should go over here and cover this. And you could also maybe find a lawyer who is in the queer community from that space in order to be that person to cover yourself.

I mean, we’ve kind of already started talking about this, but like, what advice would you give to queer entrepreneurs who are just starting out, but they’re worried about the current state and know the constant change in social and political climate? Like you said, there’s a lot of stuff going on, but it does, it means. But you don’t want to stop doing what you’re called to do, you know? So how have you found that push and pull and what advice do you have for somebody kind of in that same new space of like, I want to do this, but I’m not sure because of what I’m seeing on the outside right now?

[00:08:48] David Morgenstern: Yeah, I mean, I think certainly anchoring in sort of the notion that many things can be true at the same time. So mentioned earlier, you know, a brand, a company focused on gay dads could never happen before 2024, right? And that’s sort of the excitement around doing something like this. There’s also the notion of, oh, do I wish, you know, maybe this was two years ago that I’d had the idea and gotten going. So it’s really figuring out and sitting down and saying both things are true. Right. Like, this is super exciting and this is really scary, and I’m putting myself out there in a new way. You know, I think for someone like me who didn’t have social media before, like, very much was an in the background person, there’s not just this notion of doing a queer focused business. There’s this notion of putting myself out there at all. Right? And those are sort of very, like, personal decisions that you need to. You need to make through. I think I’d also recommend being very intentional with how you are telling your community that you need support. And so I have, like, a couple of different group text chains where I was like, hey, there are times that I’m going to text you and be like, this is awful. What am I doing with my life? I regret everything. And all I need you to reply is, Gaddie’s is great. You’re awesome. This is going to be amazing. But, you know, as my dad says, like, you can’t really expect someone to do something if you don’t tell them what you need. Right. And so I put the time up front of telling my community, this is what I need from you. This is when I’m going to kind of ask it, and then letting them show up in a new way.

[00:10:13] Calan Breckon: Mm, yeah, definitely. Community is one of the biggest aspects of all of this. And I think there’s a resurgence in going back to community. I think we’ve all kind of the pandemic separated a lot of people, and I’m feeling this kind of resurgence of organic coming back togetherness. I actually had a conversation yesterday with a previous guest of this podcast, Armando, who created this app called HangTight. And their focus is a lot of bringing that community back together. Bringing that organic community back together. I’m not going to go into any details of, like, the app and development, but suffice to say that it helps you figure out who’s available right now, who wants to go for dinner without that needing to, like, constantly reach out to, like, are you around? Are you around? Are you around? It kind of helps build that for you. And I Was like, oh, I need that. Because I’m constantly finding myself wanting to be more in community but not knowing any more how to engage with that other than, okay, gay dodgeballs on Mondays. And then like, this is on this day. So creating ways for us to do that a lot more and be in community is a huge part.

[00:11:19] David Morgenstern: I think also the reality is, you know, certainly it was true for me as I got underway on this journey. Like, I thought there were going to be people that were really going to show up for me. And some of those people have sort of totally ghosted. Some have showed up in amazing ways. And then I’ve met new people along on this journey that I didn’t know five months ago that have become these beautiful mentors and sort of show up for me every day that I didn’t even know existed. So I think one thing that someone shared with me was until you put things out there and until you make it a little bit more public, you don’t know what good is going to come from it. And so taking that first step, right, like even saying, I’m going to do my LinkedIn notice today where I’m going to say this is Gaddie’s, this is what I’m working on was super scary. And that’s like a very of this time thing to be conscious of, but is a big piece of like, this is what I’m doing professionally now. And even just what that’s opened up. I also think starting a business in the queer community is really special because we’re rooting for one another at least has been my personal experience. And so it’s folks that have been there before are very free, you know, to share, like, hey, here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t work in a way that I don’t know happens in lots of other communities, especially if you’re talking about fundraising or competing for money. And you know, there’s only so many dollars. So whether it’s gaingels or all these other groups that are sort of help to set up to, you know, to help us succeed.

[00:12:39] Calan Breckon: Yeah, definitely. I know Mentors is a huge piece, so I’m glad you mentioned that. That’s definitely something that as an entrepreneur, as a queer entrepreneur, I know start out offers that I think there might be some CGLCC does, like a yearly mentorship program, nglcc. I’m not sure what they have, but definitely mentorship is a huge piece of that and utilizing that to your advantage in order to support the community. And I also think what you say is True. We as queer folks, we do business the way we do community. We know we need to support each other. We know we need to help each other.

[00:13:14] Calan Breckon: We know we need to help eachother get into those rooms and get into those spaces because that’s been the struggle the whole time. And I’ve never felt that in kind of when I’m in those heteronormative spaces and rooms. It’s very transactional and, and in our spaces we do it more communal. It’s more hugs and like, how are you doing? And like, what do you do? Knowing their business might come from it, but with the focus that like, if I help you and if I help community, it’ll kind of come back around. And I, I, I very much value that as part of our business community.

[00:13:44] David Morgenstern: Yeah. I also think, right, if like we’re thinking about the intersectionality of all these different identities and even generational differences, you have people that have been sort of openly living their best queer lives their whole life or generations or even our generations as well, that, that was sort of a different journey and process. And so the comfort, the level of comfort of discussing being queer, being gay as a lens of your business can be quite different. And I see a lot of people really open up around that of like every outreach note that I sent, I start with like, hey, I’m a gay entrepreneur, xyz. Whatever I’m doing and it lets people sort of sit with it and decide like, hey, here’s how I want to engage with it. Maybe I only want to talk professionally and say these are, these are the skills that I’ve gained. Maybe I’m comfortable saying, here are the skills that I’ve gained and here’s what my experience being queer, doing it as well. So it can be both things at the same time. But that’s sort of up to the person that you’re reaching out to of how they want to take it.

[00:14:42] Calan Breckon: Yeah, definitely. I want to dive a little bit more into like kind of this resources and like how to support, you know, yourself. Do you know of any business resources other than like NGLCC that you mentioned that you’ve used in terms of maybe grants or like legal protections that maybe founders can take advantage of or programs that you might know of.

[00:15:04] David Morgenstern: So I haven’t raised any capital and that hasn’t been part of the, not that I’ve tried to raise capital, meaning I’m not raising capital right now. Right. So I think certainly the, the start out and the other groups that you mentioned can be a really great resource Because I also think what I found is connect connecting. I’ve definitely reached out to some people who have been like, hey, I sort of operate like at this level and you’re talking about this micro level, but they know who to connect you with. Right. So again, it’s like, hey, if you’re just looking for some angel investors and a small element, they may say, I actually know Bob or Jane or someone that does this specifically in ways that would not be obvious at all. And obviously we know sort of the sort of fundraising word works as a network in general, but the queer world is so small that those first or second degree connections is where you get the magic.

[00:15:50] Calan Breckon: Yeah. I was also like, curious about like, like here in Toronto there’s an organization called Pro Bono Ontario that offers like free lawyer support and that kind of stuff. And since I’m Canadian, most of my references are from Canada. And I was just curious if there was like other ones down the US that you knew of or had used or you know, were part of your setting up your business.

[00:16:11] David Morgenstern: No, I think a lot of them sort of exist within the city. So if you think about like the different cities will have their venture fund or they’ll have their place, like, here’s the little, the place to come speak together. That’s where it can live. And certainly you have those larger ones like start out angels who in my experience have been very open in saying great, like you may not be a right fit for this, but again, let me help you connect here. Sort of anchoring back in that like we’re trying to have, we’re trying to have everyone win.

[00:16:38] Calan Breckon: Yeah, definitely. So I want to jump back over to the Gaddies conversation now that you’re building this in today’s climate. And it’s a bit like just the world is very strange right now. What are your hopes for the Gaddies brand and its future given the current environment?

[00:16:58] David Morgenstern: Yeah, I mean, so also the inspiration for Gaddies was understanding and saying part of this is around people want to celebrate our families, they just don’t know how to. And so I think when people don’t know how to do something, that means they don’t. And so I got like very excited certainly around this notion of gifting as a form of validation. And how do you sort of create the space where everyone that is looking to celebrate a new Gaddie or someone that is already in their lives can feel like I can come here, find what I want, celebrate them in the way that space. So my hope is that Globally. Right. You have this. This brand, and I think there are already these gay and queer brands that exist where no matter where you are in the world, if you see that logo, you see that hat, you see that shirt, you feel that community and you feel that connection. And that’s certainly the hope, right, Is you sort of have this place that’s like, Gaddies the word. Gaddies the logo. Wearing it maybe in your digital profiles as well, and it lets you feel connected in a new way and sort of feel uplifted and feel celebrated in a manner that doesn’t happen currently.

[00:18:01] Calan Breckon: Yeah, yeah. It would definitely be cool if you’re like, people are out at a party or whatever, because at, you know, a party, you never know who’s living what life. But if someone’s wearing a shirt or a hat or something, and then you can go and be like, oh, I am also a dad. Like, we have this connection. It creates that opening for that conversation where. I know sometimes it can be really awkward to be in certain spaces and to create conversation can kind of be difficult when you don’t know people or you’re learning to create that community around you. It’s definitely like a signal. Bat signal. Hey, over here.

[00:18:33] David Morgenstern: Yeah, exactly. For sure. Because I think for me there’s, you know, the core consumer, like my core consumer, my core marketing focus is the new gay dads, the existing gay dads. Right. There’s also elements of. You have all these groups that exist already on resources of how to become a parent. But the gap that exists in the marketplace today is now that I am a parent, what do I do? And sort of taking this lens of 90% of parenting is the same, but that 10% that is very unique to our experience as a parent. That’s what we’re going to talk about. That’s what we’re going to focus on. But we’re going to tell that story through community members. It’s things like, how do I talk to my school about inclusion? And we’re going to have gay dad school administrators telling that story. How do I think about safely traveling right. With my family in all these different places? Gay travel agent experts saying, here are things that you need to consider. So that’s sort of group one of the consumer. The marketplace gets bigger. Right. In this notion of everyone has a gay cousin. And so if you think about, you have all these people, again, who want to celebrate and they want to bring people together, you’re sort of reaching them, even though you’re not speaking to them directly. And what you said about being at the party is what made me think about this. Then you have this third group who I’m calling my Gaddie baddies. Right. And those are sort of typically like the women who had queer friends growing up, and now they’re a mom, now they’re a parent. And they either have Gaddie friends or they want to show different ways to their own family of loving. And they also want to show the support. Right. So they might be wearing the Gaddie shirt as well. And it is, as you mentioned, it’s that opening to go and have that conversation either to then, like, start complaining about your kids and how brutal they are, or maybe your kids are having a great day and you’re like, oh, I love my kids so much. But it is that way for you to be able to go and have that conversation and enjoy.

[00:20:18] Calan Breckon: Nice.

[00:20:19] Calan Breckon: I love that. Well, I’m really excited to watch your journey and hoping that Gaddie grows. Gaddies grows as a huge brand and is that recognizable thing at the parties. Where can folks find out more about you about Gaddies? Get some merch, get some apparel.

[00:20:33] David Morgenstern: Yeah. So the website is heygaddies.com, HeyGaddies.com and then on the socials and Instagram, it’s also @Heygaddies, and I’d love to hear from y’all.

[00:20:46] Calan Breckon: Perfect. I’ll make sure all those links are in the show notes and that everybody has access. Thank you so much for being a guest today, David. This has been absolutely magical.

[00:20:55] David Morgenstern: Yeah, I really appreciate it. Enjoy.

[00:20:57] Calan Breckon: Thanks for tuning in today. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you really enjoyed today’s episode, I would love a star rating from you. The Business Gay podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Calan Breckon. That’s it for today. Peace, love, rainbows.