Texas boot brand Tecovas is setting itself up for a national expansion with as many as 15 new stores opening over the next 18 months.
Paul Hedrick, Tecovas’ founder and CEO, is becoming executive chairman, and David Lafitte has been hired to be CEO from Deckers Brands, which had sales of more than $3 billion last year from a portfolio that includes Ugg, Hoka, Tiva and Sanuk.
Hedrick, who was raised in Dallas and is a graduate of Cistercian Preparatory School, is still the largest owner of the company he founded seven years ago.
“We’re bigger than I thought we would be at this stage, and we have bigger opportunities,” Hedrick said.
To keep growing in the hugely fragmented Western boot business, the board decided it needed to strengthen its executive ranks and so far this year has hired people from major consumer brands such as On Running, Tillamook Cheese, Orvis, Ralph Lauren and Aldo.
Austin-based Tecovas expects sales to increase 40% this year to exceed $200 million after sales jumped 70% last year. The company has 20 stores, nine of which are in Texas, including stores on Henderson Avenue in Dallas, at Legacy West in Plano and on North Main Street in Fort Worth.
The next batch of stores will include two or three more locations in Texas, including one in Dallas-Fort Worth, Hedrick said, but most will be outside Texas. The company has been advertising on the popular TV series Yellowstone, a story about a family on a ranch in Montana starring Kevin Costner. Those ads reach people who want to be a part of Americana fashion trends that Tecovas sells, Hedrick said.
“We’ve established ourselves as the up-and-coming leader in that gap in the market between mass market, Western work wear boots and luxury high-priced boots,” he said. Tecovas boots retail for about $300.
The company has raised $120 million from venture capital investors led by Boston-based Elephant, including its most recent round of $56 million in January.
There was time to think about the company’s future in 2020, “when America was home in slippers, and then, 2021 was like riding a rocket ship,” Hedrick said.
Hedrick said he’s been ready to move into a new role at the company and allow in someone like Lafitte, who “knows how to manage growth and new brands.”
Lafitte has been at Deckers Brands since 2015, most recently as chief operating officer, and during a time when its annual sales increased from $1.9 billion to more than $3 billion.
