Pivot Provisions & Design Studio uses retail shop to promote its design business

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Walk into Pivot Provisions & Design Studio, 521 Main St. in downtown Grand Junction, and it’s obvious the store sells casual clothes for men and women.

Not so obvious, even though it’s the second half of the business name, is the bulk of what business partners Staci Mikita and Ian Gouldstone do: They design and manufacture custom, private-label, promotional products for businesses.

Gouldstone estimated that will be 75 percent of what they do in the new business, which opened its store July 10.

The duo had extensive experience doing similar work for a company in California, Mayhem Industries Inc., where Gouldstone was the CEO.

“We were primarily in sport-bike racing,” Mikita said, and Mayhem had licensing agreements with the likes of Honda and Yamaha, producing apparel and accessories. They worked numerous racing events, including the MotoGP in Austin, TX.

It was big-time stuff until 2020, when suddenly it wasn’t, because of a worldwide pandemic.

“When COVID hit, that’s when we had to shut down, because all the motorcycle dealers were closed. Our events were all canceled,” Mikita said.

She and her husband, Larry Mikita, had bought a home in Grand Junction in 2019, and they rented it out for a couple years, knowing they would eventually move there. COVID expedited the move, and Staci Mikita told Gouldstone, “I think we just need to shut it down, put everything in storage and look for jobs, and we’ll figure it out down the way.”

What they figured out is now manifested on Main Street, and Gouldstone finally made the move to Grand Junction about three months ago.

Naming the business Pivot was intentional, as Mikita said, “The only name I could think of was Pivot, because that’s what we had to do.”

Pivoting led to the question: How do we reinvent ourselves? And that got Mikita thinking, “We’re not gonna go open up a motorcycle shop in Grand Junction, so I said, ‘Let’s go back to what we do well,’ and that’s private label. And hopefully we can do a retail front that we always wanted.

“I know Pivot’s probably a common-used name these days, but it just was so appropriate for us. We had to literally pivot, and it took four years to come out of what we went through.”

Now that they’ve committed to Grand Junction, Gouldstone and Mikita are ready to do on a smaller scale what they used to do on a larger scale, with the added duties of running a retail operation.

The casual clothes include plenty of T-shirts, and Gouldstone said about 70 percent of the designs are done by Pivot Provisions & Design Studio.

Mikita said the retail store is a good way to meet people and discover customers for the design side of the business.

“It’s working already,” she said. “I just got a new client on Saturday (July 12).”

Gouldstone added, “The shop kind of shows that we know what we’re doing” when it comes to promotional products.

They will demonstrate that further with a couple brands they’re creating. One is Oak & Velvet, which Mikita said will be “some wine and bourbon whiskey kind of inspired products with their label, and then we’ll have some apparel related to that. It’s a cool logo.”

The other is Sukha, which she said is Sanskrit for “happiness from within,” and the proceeds from sales of that brand will be donated to worthy causes. Sukha will be “mostly accessories and anything related to wellness, mental health,” as Mikita wants to emulate something her niece does for mentally ill veterans and people in sober-living homes.

Gouldstone and Mikita said they are encouraged by the reaction they’re getting from shoppers.

“They like the vibe of the shop. They like the items that Staci’s put together,” Gouldstone said.

Spacing and display is part of merchandising, Mikita said, and there’s more than apparel that they want customers to notice. Again, promotional items, such as cups, key chains, shaving products, or something fun like switchblade combs are also out to show other businesses what Pivot can offer them.

Then, if that interests them, they can walk behind the wall into the middle one-third of the store, which is the design studio, currently being designed by Gouldstone.

Pivot Provisions & Design Studio already has a few local clients in the Grand Junction Jackalopes (and occasional alter-ego, the Humpback Chubs) baseball team and Palisade Brewing Co.

Mikita said the Jackalopes’ rep found out what Pivot can do and signed up for more.

“You know, they’re used to just dealing with little T-shirt vendors,” Mikita said, “and I did a whole line for her, and I’m giving her my line sheets and just going the extra mile with my product-tracker forms. I’m treating her like a real client, and she’s like, ‘Wow, you guys are amazing. Where did you come from?’

“And I said, ‘Well, it’s our background, but, you know, we do more than just screen printing T-shirts. So, if I could be of any value to you with merchandising, let me help you out.’ So, that’s been a great relationship so far, and we just got started with them a couple months ago, so she’s transferring a lot of business to us.”

Another good example, Mikita said, is the new client she met during the first Saturday that the store was open.

“He owns a metal company,” she said. “He goes, ‘You know what I buy for my employees once a year? Hats, T-shirts and hoodies. And I go, ‘We do that all day long.’”

So, Mikita and Gouldstone’s previous experience may be with “big brands” and “big corporate guys,” but they know it translates to the “custom smaller orders.”

“If someone is a brand,” Mikita said, “and they want to elevate the brand and want an entire product line, we can basically develop it – design, development and completion, from A to Z – and give them a full finished product.”

Career driven by European motorsports

Pivot Provisions & Design Studio co-owner Ian Gouldstone has the kind of background that begs the question: How did he end up in Grand Junction?

Long story short, he and Pivot co-owner Staci Mikita work well together, as they demonstrated previously in California at Mayhem Industries Inc.

“When I met Staci, she had a lot of ideas, and I can put it to paper, or on the computer, what her ideas were,” Gouldstone said. “So, that’s why I do a lot of the organization of art, and so we go together and work out different designs.”

But before that, Gouldstone established himself across The Pond.

“My background is in Europe motor racing,” he said. “I was trained as an illustrator, graphic artist, and I worked for British Aerospace, but then I went into Formula One. And from Formula One, I came to the U.S., did Indy cars, GTP, and I went to some other countries.”

Gouldstone added that while he and Mikita worked at Mayhem Industries, they worked with giants in the auto and motorcycle industries.

“We’ve done stuff for Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Kawasaki, Honda, KTM, BMW, all the major brands, Ford. We were doing Ford when Ford owned Land Rover and Jaguar at that time,” he said.