Scott and Kristie Homstol (blue shirt and camo jacket), owners of Little Town Apparel in Tisdale, made a $225,000 deal with Vincenzo Guzzo of Dragons' Den. (Twitter/@LittleTownApprl)

By Aaron Schulze

Tisdale Dragons' Den

Tisdale business makes a Dragons’ Den deal

Feb 21, 2019 | 3:44 PM

An apparel business in Tisdale is looking to broaden its reach in small towns across Canada after some financial support from the CBC program Dragons’ Den.

Scott and Kristie Homstol, the owners of Little Town Apparel, asked for $225,000 for 15 per cent of their company. Vincenzo Guzzo, one of the Dragons, showed interest and offered $125,000 for marketing services and $100,000 cash for 25 per cent of the company, which the Homstol’s accepted.

Little Town Apparel started in the Homstol’s hometown of Tisdale back in 2016, when the town changed its slogan from “Land of Rape and Honey” to “Opportunity Grows Here.” The change caused debate amongst residents, so the Homstol’s started designing logos for both slogans and other Tisdale exclusive characteristics on T-shirts, three-quarter sleeve shirts, hoodies, kid’s shirts, and tank tops.

Scott Homstol told northeastNOW he never would imagine Little Town Apparel would grow from a Tisdale-exclusive business to getting national exposure.

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“We started getting messages from other towns around us asking us to design their shirts and it kind of snowballed from there,” Homstol said. “Once we started getting those messages, [Kristie and I] kind of looked at each other and thought ‘We may be on to something, let’s give it a shot.’

“I was surprised at first, but I’m not now,” he said.

Little Town Apparel has clothing in around 150 towns and small cities across Canada, from Vancouver Island to Nova Scotia.

With clothing options in nearly every province, Homstol said it was time for Little Town Apparel to take a shot at Dragons Den during an audition in Saskatoon.

“You don’t actually see the Dragons at that one,” he said. “You just meet the producers and you basically give your pitch kind of like how you would if you were on the show. We did the pitch there and that got us to the next stage which was to go and film for the show.”

Within a week after the audition in March 2018, Scott and Kristie Homstol got a call from producers that they would present their pitch in front of the Dragons in May.

Homstol said their pitch to the Dragons was the same one they presented to the producers, which was crucial in hindsight as he admitted the scene was a lot to take in.

“Just going in there was a pretty surreal experience,” he said. “It was neat just because I watched the show all the time before, so to see all of that stuff in person was just an interesting perspective and fairly intimidating.

“I’ve done quite a bit of public speaking and nothing even came close to the nerves and magnitude of what we were doing. It was fun.”

News of the couple’s deal with the Dragon couldn’t be officially revealed until Little Town Apparel’s web exclusive pitch started streaming on Feb. 20, meaning Scott and Kristie had to keep quiet on the $225,000 for about nine months.

Homstol said him and Kristie weren’t looking for capital, but rather expertise in advertising and marketing.

“It’s kind of been a side gig for us up until this point,” he said. “We’re kind of ready to go full steam ahead, throw some money towards marketing and advertising. Most of our growth has just been from some trade shows that we went to, social media posting, and most of our customers have come to us.

“It’s doing well just on its own and growing organically for us right now. If we can put some of the funds towards the marketing and advertising end of things, I think it can really accelerate even more.”

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow