NFIB/Missouri Member Profile: Alan Doan

Date: March 02, 2015

A small business owner seeks to change the online textile industry and his hometown with Missouri Star Quilt Co.

What started out as a humble idea to help out his parents, small business owner Alan Doan has revitalized his hometown by creating a destination for quilters worldwide. Since its inception in 2008, Missouri Star Quilt Co. has become the largest employer in Hamilton, Missouri, with 170 employees. With several stores and a strong online presence, Doan hopes to reinvent the way textiles are sold online.

How did you decide to create a quilting business?

Honestly, it was just a fluke. My dad worked for the newspaper and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. As they got older they were less and less stringent about managing their money and things were really hard for them. The quilting kind of came up naturally. My mom had mentioned she had taken a quilt to get worked on and it was going to take a year before she was going to get it back. Anything that takes a year to do I felt was a good opportunity for us to do it faster.

You have stores in Hamilton, a strong online business, popular quilting videos on YouTube and a magazine. What is next?

I have no idea what’s next. We just have to respond to the opportunities that are there. In town here we’ve opened up six quilt shops now with sort of a retail warehouse strategy. We have three restaurants and a hotel. We are sort of making the Disneyland for quilting. It’s pretty fun, and so we continue to develop the local town feel by being unique that way and try to be innovative online.

What makes Hamilton a good place for your small business?

It’s where we’re from. It’s not the best place to start a business. Taxes are high. It’s an old farming community that doesn’t love change. And so, it’s not a strategic move. It’s just where we’re from. We believe in our town and that we can make it better. Rather than leave and go somewhere that is unfavorable to us, we are determined to stay here and make a change for the good.

Do you have a favorite YouTube video of ‘Momma Doan’?

I made my first quilt here. It was the Dresden Coin Quilt. I watched that one about a thousand times. It is my favorite.

What is your proudest moment as the largest employer in Hamilton?

I think it would be two years ago when I hired my Dad away from his lifetime career of being a machinist at a newspaper where he was driving an hour and a half each way every day.

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